It’s Wednesday morning, so before I even checked my e-mail, I surfed over to this website that lists the weekly sales chart for digital singles. The list is a good indicator of which songs will be riding high on Billboard’s Hot 100, which will be published online tomorrow.
In some form or another, this has been my weekly routine since 1991. I love music charts. I love statistics about music charts. I love knowing that Madonna has the most top ten singles of any pop artist in history, unless you use a slightly tweaked method that puts Elvis two songs in the lead. (It’s not worth getting into the details there. Trust me.)
Similarly, I really dig Oscar trivia. Most acting nominations? Meryl Streep, of course. Youngest acting winner? Tatum O’Neal, Paper Moon. I’ve got loads of this stuff in my head, where I suppose the information about changing my oil or baking my own bread might go.Â
But why? Why do I like this stuff? Why do so many people like it? I’m asking because this morning, my friend Nelson, who runs this theater company, sent me a link to this fascinating blog post from Bill Simmons at ESPN Magazine.
SImmons argues that we should rank actors just like we rank sports stars, with statistics and point values and all that stuff. That way, he says, we can “validate” our perception of an actor’s greatness with quantifiable proof, the way that knowing Ty Cobb’s career-high batting average can validate our understanding of his awesomeness.Â
Simmons upends his thesis in his conclusion, though, essentially arguing that actor stats would be just as silly as sports stats are. “The truth is,” he says, “you’re either great or you’re not,” and nobody needs a list of numbers to prove it.
A very good point, sir! I don’t need to know that “Respect” was a number one hit to know that it’s a great song, and the fact that “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” only peaked at #69 on the Hot 100 doesn’t mean it isn’t a classic. And even in the more objective world of sports, where you either hit a home run or you don’t, I don’t need to know Babe Ruth’s lifetime averages to understand that he was a great ball player.
In fact, all statistics and ranking systems are marked by some kind subjectivity. No matter the claim, there’s always an asterisk beside it. Case in point: No Dobut’s “Don’t Speak” never appeared on the Hot 100 at all, because it was technically ineligible to chart. So doesn’t that complicate the achievements of songs that were number one during “Don’t Speak’s” heyday?Â
Yet for all my deep-down knowledge that it doesn’t really prove anything, I am still addicted to this kind of information.
So I ask again: Why? Why do so many of us care about easily manipulated, often distorted statistics? Is it what Simmons said, that they “validate” what we believe to be true? But if that’s true, why do we need validation? Or is there something else going on here, something about the basic human need to create order?Â
 I’d love to hear your thoughts. And even if you just thought, “Psssht. I don’t need some stupid chart to tell me I love a song or a tennis player. I’m a free-thinker!”, I’d encourage you to consider other places in your life that are affected by somewhat arbitrary rankings. Everybody’s got some kind of “chart” that affects them, and I’d love to hash out why.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Collin H // Mar 25, 2009 at 8:49 pm
I’m having a very hard time relating any of the detail orientated things I obsess about into statistics. I know an inordinate amount information about Transformers, comics, and video games, but very little (if any) of it is based on numbers or positions on a chart.
I suppose I do kind of live for release dates, but I’m not quite certain that’s the same thing. Several times a week I check to see when movies, games, and toys are expected out in stores. Shallow consumerism? Maybe, but it makes week to week living more exciting if there’s always something to look forward to. It’s kind of like making every day Christmas Eve.
As to the bigger question of why people feel that it’s important to catalog things like RBIs or Top 40 hits, I’d say that people want to have their love and respect for things defined in terms that can be factually proven.
Say that you feel that Ty Cobb was the friendliest person in baseball that ever lived. If his lifetime stats for puppy cuddling and soup kitcheneering weren’t being recorded and analyzed, then you’d have a hard time justifying your claim against your friend’s claim that the title belongs to Marge Schott.
2 Cap'n Ganch // Mar 26, 2009 at 12:31 am
I think the ratings/popularity problem starts to come to a head with television ratings…
Sure, a singer may be crap and still sell records, but her star probably won’t burn bright for that long…
An athlete may make it to the pros, but if he ain’t gonna deliver the goods, he ain’t gonna deliver the crowds, either.
But with television, the ratings are solely about popularity, not quality. And the evening-out effect of other areas doesn’t get to happen in television. A quality singer may get to keep trying when she doesn’t immediately catch on. A quality television show doesn’t. (With rare exceptions.)
I don’t know what any of this means, but it’s something to think about.
3 Amanda // Mar 26, 2009 at 12:38 am
I wonder if it’s because as soon as children can wrap their chubby fingers around a number two pencil, we start giving them standardized scantron tests?
Just a knee-jerk reaction to your essential question here. I think almost every professional field has some kind of number-value attached–productivity, number of patients who opt for a certain procedure/drug/provider, total sales, student performance, blog hits, ad clicks, box office totals, and on and on. Maybe ranking performers of any kind gives us the sense that we can view them objectively, making them more like ‘us,’ thus making their lives and accomplishments less amazing, and rather than viewing what they do each day as something kind of magical, it seems more like…a job.
But maybe that’s a bit reductionist. Great question! I’m going to enjoy reading other people’s thoughts on this too.
4 benvolio // Mar 26, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Okay, I’ll bite: Why was “Don’t Speak” ineligible to chart?
5 Mark Blankenship // Mar 26, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Hey Benvolio,
At the time, a song wasn’t eligible for the Hot 100 if it wasn’t available for purchase as a physical single (either as a cassette or CD.) That meant many songs that were huge radio hits never charted, because you had to purchase an entire album to own them.
This rule kept “Don’t Speak,” Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn,” Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris,” and many, many others off the chart.
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