This was well illustrated in 1989 when the British Phonographic Industry ( BPI ) lowered the qualifying levels for silver , gold and platinum discs .sx In 1978 , thirty-one gold discs were awarded ; by 1988 this was down to nine ( ibid .sx p. 68) .sx In 1979 , 89 million singles were sold in the UK ; by 1988 this down to 60 million ( BPI 1987 , 1989) .sx The continuing strength of the chart format that reports and valorises these declining sales would therefore seem odd and must indicate something about the attractiveness of this way of displaying music .sx Secondly , the chart is not central to all consumers and producers of pop music .sx Many either do not care about it or actively resist it , but enough see it as the essence of pop for the hit parade still to be centre stage within this cultural field .sx Thirdly , it is evident that I have assumed that most consumers were young , white and obsessive about pop .sx The pop audience is a good deal more diverse than that , but all the same the archetype of the teenager is undoubtedly still the dominant image for pop production and consumption .sx I begin by outlining the history of the hit parade in the USA and UK .sx Following this is a political economy of the charts which views them in relation to capitalist industrial practices .sx Concluding that this perspective is insufficient to explain the attractiveness of the charts to the consumer I move on to a 'reading' of the charts .sx By reading I mean that I treat the charts as text and attempt to tease out the assumptions that go into constructing it .sx The final section attempts to draw out some conclusions from the reading and touches on the nature of consumer involvement in the play of the charts and its relevance for the post-modernity debate .sx Musical knowledge .sx The charts are produced by market research organisations sponsored by various branches of the media .sx They take the form of sale figures collated from week to week and are then published as a table illustrating which products have sold more than others during that period .sx There appears to have been a need to count the products of the music industry from early this century :sx the Melody Maker 'Honours List' was begun in 1928 and The Gramophone had a three-part chart ( sales of sheet music , records and radio airplay ) from 1934-6 .sx Despite relying on highly subjective measurements , little changed until 1947 , when the same paper introduced its '10 Best Sellers in Britain' , based on wholesale orders for sheet music .sx A fairly accurate British singles chart was produced by the New Musical Express in 1952 ( a top twelve with fifteen records in it ) , soon followed by other music papers , each using their own secret list of retailers' sales returns from which to produce a feature to sell newspaper .sx The NME chart grew to a twenty in 1954 and a thirty in 1956 .sx Albums followed in the Melody Maker in 1958 but is was not until 1963 that an independently audited chart was set up , at first relying on postal returns from 250 record shops and being published in Record Retailer .sx This Top 50 chart was sold to the BBC from 1969 onwards .sx At the present time there are two large independent charts produced within the UK , the Chart Information Network ( CIN ) and the Network/MRIB ( Media Research and Information Bureau) .sx The former is the one with the widest circulation since it is featured on BBC TV's 'Top of the Pops' and Radio One .sx In 1983 the contract to compile this chart was moved from the British Market Research Bureau to Gallup .sx From 1983 until 1990 the chart was 50 per cent financed by the British Phonographic Industry , 38 per cent by Music Week , which publishes the chart , and 12 per cent by the BBC .sx In 1990 this arrangement changed - largely because of wrangles over finance and control .sx The structure at the time of writing is that Music Week /CIN own the chart , use Gallup to produce it , and then sell it to the BPI and the BBC .sx It seems unlikely that this provisional arrangement will last .sx The chart costs approximately pounds0 .sx 75 million per year to produce and lists the top 200 singles and albums which could be broken down into charts for separate products - 12-inch singles , compact discs , music videos and so on .sx Data collection for the chart is now substantially computerised through bar codes read at point of sale , returns being taken from 500 retailers across the UK by automatically dialled night-time telephone lines .sx Once these returns have been collated , a check panel of 140 further shops , from a list of 400 , are telephone interviewed on the titles climbing the charts in order that checks may be made on the accuracy of that data .sx The charts must be seen to be immune to any form of accidental or deliberate falsification .sx This is in part because of the constant spectre of chart rigging that has hung over the hit parade since the USA 'payola' scandals of the late fifties .sx BPI/Gallup have the power to remove records that they believe have been 'hyped' into the charts and even to fine the perpetrators but , as Wallis and Malm ( 1984 , pp .sx 242-52 ) note , there is an inescapable conflict of interests in the practice of self-policing the charts .sx 'Payola , layola , flyola and freebies' are thus unlikely to disappear completely but , in order to ensure the impression of objectivity , there is continual recourse to rhetoric about market sampling strategies , data checking and the use of the latest information technologies ( Gallup 1988 ; BPI 1989) .sx The second main British chart , the Network/MRIB chart , is compiled primarily for independent local radio and is constructed in a similar manner to the Gallup chart .sx It is also sold to Independent Television's teletext service and sections of the music press .sx The MRIB also compile many of the specialist charts featured in the music press , catering for particular genres of music that are unlikely to gain enough sales to put them into either of the other major charts .sx At the time of writing it is likely that there may be changes in the construction of the MRIB chart since Music Week now has an exclusivity clause with the major retailers for providing sales information .sx The other chart that matters in the UK is the American 'Billboard Hot 100' .sx This has its origins in the 'Network Song Census' in Billboard ( the major US trade paper ) in 1934 , leading directly to a series of radio 'Hit Parade' programmes form 1935 onwards .sx Frith ( 1987 ) suggests that the early importance of these charts reflected the fact that the main method of dissemination of recorded music , juke - boxes , were almost entirely American in production .sx The first fairly accurate tabulation of popular music sales was featured in the same magazine in 1940 , leading finally to the 'Billboard Hot 100' from 1958 to the present day .sx Since then this has been the major chart sponsored by the American music industry .sx Though it indicates sales in the largest recorded music market in the world , it also takes into account radio airplay .sx This is largely because of the greater importance that commercial radio has in promoting records in the US market .sx Despite this , it is regularly featured in the UK music press and is studied from within the British music industry .sx Whose interests ?sx It would seem fairly evident that the particular form of knowledge represented by music charts directly serves the financial interests of one particular group - those involved in the various branches of the music industry .sx For this group the sales charts empirically demonstrate the successes and failures of record companies , producers , designers , managers and recording artists , on the assumption that the more units sold the better the individuals have done their respective jobs .sx Sales of recorded music are very big business - pounds1,108 million ( retail value ) in the UK alone in 1988 , with the world market in 1987 being approximately $17 billion ( BPI 1989) .sx However , investment risks are high :sx on average , only 8 per cent of releases become hits ( Frith 1978 , p. 118 ) , and in a volatile market constant assessment of sales performance is crucial in order to avoid high losses .sx In no other sector of the economy are 700 new product lines issued every week .sx A huge amount of money is therefore spent in order that the industry can constantly feel its own pulse and test the market .sx The singles charts also have a significant promotional function ; though singles are now continual loss makers , they do introduce artists to an audience which will hopefully then be enticed into buying a more expensive and profitable music product .sx However , an understanding of the charts must involve more than this , since they amplify success as well as quantifying and advertising it .sx In the simplest terms the higher a record is placed in the charts , the more media exposure it will obtain and thus the more sales , and so on .sx This is especially true of the 'Billboard Hot 100' which is collated not only on the basis of record sales but also takes into account radio play .sx The circularity of this process becomes evident when it is noted that as a rule radio playlists are constructed overwhelmingly from chart records .sx As various commentators have noted ( Rothenbuhler 1987 ; Hirsch 1990 ) , the 'gatekeeping' function of the various individuals and organisations concerned with the music media thus becomes particularly important in selecting and influencing hits .sx In fact it could be said that the record companies spend more money buying records into the charts than they do ensuring that the charts are 'hype proof' , though not all of these expenditures necessarily contravene industry regulations .sx In addition to this , it needs to be noted that the hit parade is not quite as accurate as is often suggested .sx The selection procedure tends to favour records that sell relatively quickly throughout the country and not those that sell more gradually or in specific regions .sx The result of this is that the charts represent what Street calls a " highly selective populism " ( 1986 , p. 116 ) which discriminates against minority musics in an apparently democratic fashion .sx They are , Harker claims , incapable of providing any genuine measure of popularity by their very nature :sx The charts can tell us only about the commercial transaction - and they can't do that very accurately .sx About how many times a song is played at home , on radio or television ( in Britain at any rate ) , used in cinema , performed and adapted on football terraces , in the bath , in concert halls , clubs and pubs , the charts can tell us nothing .sx ( Harker 1980 , p. 97 ) .sx The political economy of the music industry is only half of the picture ; the charts are also used by the consumers of the music media .sx Radio and television shows , and both the music and general press feature details of chart activity .sx There is even a thriving industry in the production of books displaying in painstaking detail the highest UK and US chart positions , dates of entry and number of weeks in the chart , for records form the fifties onwards .sx It would seem evident that the consumer's interest in the charts is not as utilitarian as that of a music industry insider , but this does not necessarily mean that the fan's attention will be any the more casual .sx On the contrary , it often seems true that the consumer is more deeply 'involved' in the play of figures and faces than the professional ever is , the latter's enthusiasm ending with the ( relative ) autonomy of leisure , when the former's begins .sx What is it about the charts that has made them such a durable structure when both the record industry and the consumer have changed so much ?sx In order to answer this question it is necessary to begin to read the charts as a way of structuring meaning , and not simply a means of satisfying the economic demands of capital .sx Reading the charts .sx I want to say something more about the charts than the foregoing political economy of the pop industry will allow .sx