the 2003 pop chart picture
several months ago, i went back to the 2002 pop season and cooked up some charts about the charts. one showed the trajectory of #1 hits as they worked up and out of the top 40 range. two others showed juice – both for individual songs and for artists.
with the close of 2003, we have the full set of charts available, and since these pictures were so popular, i just had to give you the updates.
to echo the points about 2002…
12 songs hit #1 in 2003 (up from 9 in 2002), from 10 different artists (up from 8 in 2002). we again had a #1 debut (clay aiken), following the path of kelly clarkson, and quickly falling out of the chart. for 2003, two artists hit #1 twice (50 cent and beyonce, although beyonce had a little help with one of those).
the general pictures look pretty similar from 2002 to 2003…
we have 224 charting songs in 2003 (down from 233 last year), representing 160 artists (down from 165). as last year, #1 hits can be pretty far down the curve – clay aiken ranked #71 for artists juice and #88 for song juice with his #1 hit.
the charm of the tv-manufactured popstar may have already worn off, compare kelly clarkson (the 2002 candidate), racking up a total of 417 points, to clay aiken (the 2003 candidate) with only 180.
even more dramatic was the disconnect between the #1 chart position and song juice. this year two tracks accumulated more song-juice (kid rock scoring 1051 and r. kelly scoring 944) than 50 cent’s chart-topper (scoring 822). #1s did manage to suck up about 15% of the total available song juice and 20% of the available artist juice.
update: added label information to most of the trajectory chart. just in case you were keeping track…