MBW Views is a series of op-eds from eminent music industry people… with something to say. The following MBW op/ed comes from Kenny Gates, the co-founder and Executive Chairman of [PIAS].
As legacy compilations increasingly overpower contemporary releases, Gates argues that the UK Albums Chart no longer reflects cultural momentum and warns that British music risks losing one of its most important platforms for new artists.
Charts. Charts. Charts.
I have always had a complicated relationship with charts.
As a young music entrepreneur in the 1980s, they felt like a game designed for the biggest players, a system built so the major labels could grow even bigger while independents fought over scraps. Back then, at [PIAS] and Vital, we almost wore our indifference to charts as a badge of honour. We convinced ourselves we didn’t need them.
And in many ways, we were right.
Independent labels built careers differently. We developed artists slowly, patiently and sustainably and without access to giant marketing budgets or expensive TV campaigns, we still helped artists reach silver and gold status. They simply got there over years rather than weeks and were slow burners, often chart anonymous but culturally meaningful and commercially solid.
But something changed – by the late 1980s and early 1990s, independents were no longer operating purely on the margins. I remember seeing congratulatory messages flying between people like Daniel Miller, Martin Mills and Tony Wilson as indie labels began seriously challenging majors for top chart positions. The charts suddenly mattered because they represented something larger, proof that independent music culture could compete with the establishment.
Then August 1995 arrived.
Vital, [PIAS]’s distribution arm at the time, had just signed a distribution agreement with Creation Records. The weekly music press, still incredibly powerful back then, had transformed Blur vs Oasis into what became known as the ‘Battle of Britpop’. It was framed as posh boys versus working-class lads, London versus Manchester, major versus indie.
For the first time in my life, I truly got caught up in chart excitement.
Then catastrophe struck.
A week before shipping, Creation delivered the Oasis singles with the wrong barcode. Our entire company, based in York, spent three days inside the warehouse alongside thirty people hastily recruited off the streets of Leeds and York manually stickering new barcodes onto more than 250,000 Oasis multi-format singles.
It was total chaos. We fought, we lost, but it was thrilling – Oasis sold 216,000 singles in week one but Blur sold more.
That race mattered because it represented a genuine cultural moment happening in real time. It reflected energy, competition, identity and artistic momentum. Whether you loved or hated Britpop, the charts were capturing something alive.
Fast forward thirty years and I found myself unexpectedly reconnecting with that same feeling.
Over the last few months, my team worked alongside Heavenly and Kneecap’s management to push their new album Fenian towards the top of the UK Albums Chart. It involved planning, investment, creativity and an enormous amount of hard work from everybody involved, especially the band themselves.
Whatever your opinion on Kneecap, one thing is undeniable: they are a phenomenon. They represent a genuine movement and a rare example of music once again being in the middle of a wider cultural conversation.
As the chart battle developed, it looked set to become a fascinating contest between Kneecap and Mel C, an icon of British pop, going head-to-head with an explosive Irish punk-rap group dragging a completely new energy into the mainstream.
What made the whole thing feel even more like the charts of old was the spirit around it. Despite the competitive tension, there was something genuinely classy about the exchange of congratulatory texts between ourselves and Mel C’s manager David Bianchi from Various Artists as the race for number one unfolded. It reminded me of an earlier era when chart battles still felt like shared cultural events rather than cynical marketing exercises with artists and their teams competing fiercely but with mutual respect and recognition for what it takes to create genuine momentum.
And then, suddenly, Michael Jackson entered the race.
Not Michael Jackson the artist releasing a new album, not a newly discovered work, not a cultural event happening now, but a greatest hits compilation first released more than twenty years ago.
This was not an accident or a fluke, rather it was the direct result of chart methodology.
According to the Official Charts Company’s own rules, catalogue compilations are allowed to compete directly against brand new studio albums because streaming consumption is converted into album-equivalent sales regardless of when the music was originally released. In effect, an endlessly streamed greatest hits package can operate with the same chart status as a completely new artistic work released in any given week.
And The Essential Michael Jackson is not even simply a Michael Jackson album, it is effectively three careers rolled into one release. The compilation combines material from The Jackson 5, The Jacksons and Michael Jackson’s solo catalogue, meaning that artists trying to reach Number One these days are not simply competing against one legendary catalogue, but against every major iteration of that catalogue simultaneously.
“Nobody is questioning Michael Jackson’s importance or legacy. The problem is that the chart rules themselves no longer reflect what album charts were originally meant to measure.”
And, as if battling against the ghost of Michael Jackson was not difficult enough, contemporary artists are effectively being asked to compete against the combined streaming power of three separate eras of one of the biggest artists in music history, all consolidated into a single chart product.
So, the question is this: at what point does that stop being an albums chart and start becoming a permanent catalogue leaderboard? Because if a release drawing from multiple decades, multiple incarnations and multiple globally embedded hit singles can compete directly against entirely new records, then the playing field is no longer remotely level.
Under the current UK chart rules, catalogue albums and greatest hits compilations compete directly against brand new releases because streaming is treated as the equivalent of sales indefinitely. Compilation albums have an enormous structural advantage because they contain the songs listeners already know and repeatedly stream passively through playlists, algorithms, gyms, parties and radio familiarity.
- Billie Jean.
- Beat It.
- Smooth Criminal.
These tracks never disappear from streaming culture. Every play contributes to chart power week after week, year after year.
Meanwhile, new artists are expected to compete against decades of embedded cultural familiarity and algorithmic dominance.
Nobody is questioning Michael Jackson’s importance or legacy. The problem is that the chart rules themselves no longer reflect what album charts were originally meant to measure. The UK Albums Chart was once marketed as a weekly snapshot of the nation’s musical pulse, a place where new artists could break through, where cultural moments mattered and where labels fought to push fresh music into the mainstream. Today it increasingly feels like something else entirely- a recycling system for legacy catalogue, reissues and endlessly looping “best ofs”.
The chart therefore no longer measures momentum; it measures catalogue endurance and that creates a serious credibility problem for the entire industry.
If the charts are continually dominated by Fleetwood Mac, Queen, ABBA, Oasis and Michael Jackson, what exactly are they representing? Current culture? Artistic innovation? Or simply the commercial power of nostalgia combined with streaming mechanics?
For emerging artists, the consequences are significant. A Top 10 album once represented a breakthrough moment capable of transforming a career. Today, even culturally relevant contemporary artists can find themselves crowded out by catalogue albums that have already enjoyed multiple commercial lifecycles.
“A Top 10 album once represented a breakthrough moment capable of transforming a career. Today, even culturally relevant contemporary artists can find themselves crowded out by catalogue albums that have already enjoyed multiple commercial lifecycles.”
The irony is that the singles chart often feels more contemporary than the albums chart itself. Albums are supposed to represent artistic statements, creative eras and new worlds, yet the current system increasingly rewards passive listening behaviour above all else. When a compilation album from 2005 can overpower a brand-new release in 2026, the chart stops functioning as a living cultural document and starts resembling an archive.
To be clear, this is not about blaming Sony or any label exploiting the existing rules. If the system allows it, companies are absolutely right to maximise the commercial potential of their catalogues. We would probably have done exactly the same.
Nor is this about sore losers. Everybody in music understood who truly moved culture that week. The issue is bigger than one chart battle or one band and whether the UK Albums Chart still serves its original purpose, because right now British music risks losing one of its most important cultural shop windows.
So here is my plea to the Official Charts Company and the wider industry:
Create a separate chart for catalogue albums and greatest hits collections. Let Fleetwood Mac, Queen, ABBA and Michael Jackson battle each other there every week ad infinitum but allow contemporary artists, the people spending years still creating new music, building new audiences and shaping future culture, to compete on a genuinely level playing field in the main albums chart.
Because a chart dominated by “best ofs” is not celebrating the future of music.
It is simply replaying the past.Music Business Worldwide
