The Next Big Sound – the website that might just be the future of music charts
One of the big issues facing the music industry at the moment is how does it work out who are the most popular musicians around? Working on the premise that the download chart will go the way of CD and record sales charts (as fewer people pay for music), it is clear that we need a new chart that maybe counts online streaming, band’s fan pages views and more.
Well, The Next Big Sound might just be the template for the charts of tomorrow. It is a very clever site that lets you find out how popular bands are online. It does this by collating plays, views, fans, comments, and other data for almost half a million artists across major online properties, including iTunes, Last.fm, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.
It might sound boring, but believe me it is hugely entertaining and completely addictive – just input your favorite bands and away you go. It is not only fascinating to see if Lady Gaga is bigger online than our very own Florence and The Machine, but you can also compare four bands at a time – which is great for old geezers comparing obscure indie 80s bands etc. It is also interesting to note that the bands that generate the most comments and posts aren’t always the ones that get played the most.
The only annoying thing about it is that it doesn’t seem to let you save results. Def check it out though.
