The Big Three

I'll start by saying this isn't a post about the 60s band from Liverpool, it's about the big three chart acts of the moment. Who are these 3? Ed Sheeran, Drake and Justin Bieber.

Whilst it could be argued there are more popular acts around at the moment, from a UK Singles Chart perspective these three are it. In the year to date the number one spot has been occupied by either Ed Sheeran or Drake. It's also 100 weeks since Drake got to number one with "One Dance" and since then 60 of those 100 weeks have had either Ed Sheeran, Drake or Justin Bieber at number one.

Another thing notable about these three acts is the number of Top 40 hits they've had despite the fact their chart careers began this decade. At the time of writing, Drake has had 34, Ed Sheeran has had 36 and Justin Bieber has had 40. Most acts who have had more hits have been around for over 30 years.

This is one of the reasons the charts come in for much criticism these days, we have three acts who have only been around for 5 minutes and they're breaking all sorts of chart records, despite the fact their music isn't really that well known.

If you look at it on paper though it may not seem that ridiculous. For example, Lonnie Donegan clocked up 30 hits in his 6 year chart career from 56-62 and Elvis Presley had more than 40 hits in the same period of time.

Although they had a few hits after they'd split up, the time period between the Beatles first hit "Love Me Do" and final new hit "Let It Be" was 7 years and 5 months. At the time of writing, Justin Bieber's UK Top 40 career has been 8 years and 3 months, Drake has been 7 years and 9 months and Ed Sheeran had been 6 years and 9 months. Given the impact the Beatles had in their time, these acts have been around for long enough to have the same impact.

The Beatles had 24 Top 40 hits during their time, it's 10 less than Drake but still quite a sizeable number for that time period.

If you look at the albums though it's a completely different story. The Beatles had 12 studio albums, 5 of which didn't contain any singles on them. Drake and Justin Bieber have had just four studio albums and Ed Sheeran has had just three.

One thing you could say about the prolific singles artists such as Elton John, David Bowie or Rod Stewart, when they started out they were just as prolific with album releases often having just one single per album. This no longer seems to be the case.

Ed Sheeran had 6 of the 12 tracks on his debut album reach the Top 100, all the tracks on his second album reached the Top 100 and all 16 tracks on his latest album reached the Top 20. Justin Bieber reached the Top 100 with all but one track on his latest album.

This results in these acts dominating the top and bottoms ends of the Top 40. Of Drakes 34 Top 40 hits, only 11 reached the Top 10 and 19 of them didn't even reach the Top 20. Similarly just 15 of Justin Bieber's Top 40 hits reached the Top 10. He had a period in 2013 where he'd release a new single every week for 10 weeks. The first one was the highest charting at number 14 and the last 6 charted in the 30s and they all left the charts after a week.

Ed Sheeran has fared better with 21 of his 36 singles reaching the Top 10, though 6 of them failed to reach the Top 10 because he was occupying 9 of those positions the same week.

Unless you're a fan of these acts, in all probability you won't know all the singles they have released, maybe not even half of them. The point of the singles chart though is that it's a collection of popular records of the moment that most people know.

Looking at the Beatles original 24 hits, they only failed to reach the Top 2 three times with "Ain't She Sweet" that reached 29 despite not being an official release, their first hit "Love Me Do" reaching 17 but spending a long time in the charts and their penultimate hit "Something/Come Together" reaching number 4 which is still decent.

All of the Beatles hits are well known, I would say a sizeable chunk of people know all 24 of them. I could also probably name 24 Beatles songs which weren't singles but are just as well known.

So should these three acts really be considered as the big three? Well sharing 60 of the last 100 weeks at number one between them it's hard to say otherwise. However whilst they've had a lot of hits, a lot of it is obscure music only the fans know and beyond the hits they don't have much material left.

The new chart rules allowing just three tracks from an album in the charts in the same week means we won't get Ed Sheeran flooding the Top 20 with his new album again. But it's clear that these acts market there music in such a way that they maximise their chart success and I don't see that ending any time soon.

So that's what the situation is now. I haven't really got a point to make, just fancied giving some insight into how things are nowadays compared to the past.