Do you think chart is a good representation of real life popularity of artist ??

Well, when It comes to my country I suppose that what is charting is popular, but I've never heard the majority of the songs in my life.

I think It's cause my country is too big and we are over 200 million people. It's impossible for the charts to cover what is popular in every state or region, especially when each region's taste in music is so different.

My state doesn't listen much to the genres that are vastly popular for most part of the country, like "Sertanejo" and I don't have social media like tiktok and instagram. So If I don't search on my own (and I don't) I never listen to these popular songs

Depends I guess. Taylor Swift is at the top of my country's chart. But songs released here can be popular without having any idea who is the artist..

Mostly No, it is only a tool.

A song with good charts may be the result of a big fandom, or that of the gp it's always hard to say. The problem is that these are figures that are easy to manipulate with ads or playlisting depending on the platform. This is one of the reasons why the groups of the big agencies are very often at the top of these rankings since they have the fandom and the help the company.

The most relevant figure remains that of the number of Uls because it is the most difficult to manipulate. But this is only one data. This one is good when it's relative to streaming but is a person who has bought an album necessarily going to stream a song?

Album sales could be a good indicator but these are numbers that also have a certain limit due to mass buying, Especially in kpop. And again the sale of album depends on many things including distribution channels.

There are also other data like radioplay and cultural presence. For example there is a rock band called survivor that few people know by name but some of theirs song are know in the whole world even if you don't know the group and the song got 40 years old.

The cultural presence can also be by the fact that the group has also become a cultural symbol for example I think many have already seen idols with a t-shirt on which there was marked the name of an old rock group :

There is also a data more difficult to measure because it is part of a long time, it is the cultural influence. How an artist influenced his art and what was left behind.

A really popular artist is an artist who meets these criteria in this order of importance for me :

- Longevity over time (decades not 2 months)

- Cultural influence

- Cultural presence

- Uls

- Albums sales

- Fandom size & streaming power

If i take the example of BTS :

- Longevity over time (decades not 2 months) : too young

- Cultural influence : too young

- Cultural presence : In Korea yes, worlwide harder to say it depends on the country

- Uls: Yes

- Albums sales : Yes

- Fandom size & streaming power : Yes

so yes BTS is a really popular band for example.

nope
some of the chart are because of big fandom
especially
BP and BTS both had strong global fandom and western popularity
their song release is their anthem automatically

It tells what songs are popular, not necessarily the artists. Here, there's a lot of names nobody heard before topping the charts. If I would guess, a lot of industry push and payola. And lots of collabs trying to hit big by combining listeners. There are too many names for everyone to be popular.

I hate our music scene, so I only know 5% of the names in the top 50 and one song, As It Was. I refuse to listen to any of the other 49 songs.

You know that song "Dance Monkey", by Tones and I?

Australian artist, Australian song. The song was HUGE here and enjoyed high charting and lots of airtime.

Weird thing was... I've never found ANYONE that likes Tones and I herself. She seems quite unpopular as an artist.

I see that a lot, a high charting song/album for an artist that is unpopular, but more often in Western Music. Meghan Trainor is another.

On the other hand, Bad Bunny is supposedly SUPER popular everywhere and the biggest artist in the world. Yet in my country... most people have no idea who he is and his music seems niche.

citron-icy made refence to AC/DC, super famous Australian band. In 2015-2016 when they last toured they were the second grossing and attended tours for those years, and were easily filling 50,000-70,000 seat stadiums across three continents. I tried getting tickets for my Dad. Total bloodbath. They are doing another stadium tour next.

So lets look at Acca Dacca and see how Citrons criteria work for them

- Longevity over time (decades not 2 months) : Absolutely. They been kicking about since the 70's. Members have either died or are close too.

- Cultural influence : I mean, young people wear their shirts to this day without necessarily knowing them. Many rock and metal acts clearly state AC/DC as an influence, especially in Australia. Some of their songs are deeply tied to many Aussie cultural things (eg sporting events blasting them)

- Cultural presence : In Australia yeah. Any person over 30 would be able to name a bunch of their songs and depending on the demographic, so would some young people. Still well known in America and Europe too if tour sales are important.

- Uls: A bit hard to say, because UI's dont seem to an important metric when a group becomes as big and entrenched as them. But they wouldnt have "mass streamers"

- Albums sales : Absolutely. Their last album sold 1.4mill and was number 1 in 21 countries. Unlike kpop, theres very little mass buying there. It is the general public buying that many. Bunch of noms for awards too.

- Fandom size & streaming power : This is hard to say because they are a group that, like a lot of older superstar groups, transcend Fandom and streaming. There are definitely AC/DC superfans, one of my uncles mates is.

Where am I going with this? I don't know... I got distracted by work.

it's one metric amongst many others

one has to look at charting in terms of the surrounding circumstances

not sure

I have never looked at charts for my country and no one in real life has talked about them

I know a song is popular when it's looped nonstop in every store and mall.

Oh, how the tables have turned uh op...

Charts are indicators of a popular song, but if i see an artist having multiple "hits" on charts i do think the artist is popular too. One hit wonders exist, but having multiple hits shows that the artist is known and concerts are another indicator of real life popularity too.