Top of the Pops 2017

Every Thursday this year I've been doing a Top of the Pops post of what would be on the show if it still existed. The reason for this is that I don't think Top of the Pops should come back because of a lack of records in the Top 40 these days, which can make finding enough records which meet the Top of the Pops criteria a difficult enough task in itself.

Further to that, because you have far more nationalities in the charts these days and more collaborations too, it would be a logistical nightmare, the likelihood is that you'll have to play the videos for many records anyway which are available on YouTube.

Now the last Top of the Pops has happened, here is a summary of the number of times you had the given number of eligible records. It is assumed you need 9 to fill a show.

No. of eligible records	No. of weeks
5	3
6	6
7	14
8	8
9	3
10	5
11	7
12	2
13	1
14	0
15	1
16	1
17	1

So we had 31 weeks where there weren't enough records, 3 weeks with just about enough and 18 weeks where some records had to be eliminated.

Of those weeks that have lots of eligible records, the 17 one was when Ed Sheeran flooded the charts, 16 was Drake doing the same, 15 was the return of many old Christmas hits,13 was the new rules coming into effect and one of the 12 was Kendrick Lemar flooding the charts with the other being a week with an unusually high 8 new entries.

Whether you agree with them or not, the new rules have increased the number of weeks we can fill a show. Aside from the weeks a single artist flooded the charts, there were only two weeks we could fill a show prior to the new rules taking effect. Despite this though, there were still several weeks where the shows could not be filled which is a reason in itself why it shouldn't come back.

They did introduce a Top of the Pops equivalent show "Sound Like Friday Night" this year which I found terrible. Saying that, I'm someone who grew up with Top of the Pops, a 16 year old now won't have ever known a life of Top of the Pops existing so if they like it maybe that's what they should do.

My plan was to do my Top of the Pops features for this year only, but I've kind of become addicted to it now and do find it interesting to see what would have featured. It's also my opportunity to keep up with what's left of the charts, something I hadn't done for quite a few years now. So I've decided to keep the feature going but I'll cut out the waffle, it will simply be the charts, the records and I'll specify what's been left out if anything has.