Official Dance Singles Chart on 13/5/2022

Warning: TLDR - I write like this as I am autistic, as mentioned later in this post. Read if you really can understand all the detailed analysis of every aspect thoroughly dealt with.

To me, as a long-time (and ageing) dance music fan, of numerous genres of electronic dance music, it is ridiculous to suggest that the music of at least the vast majority of these artists is dance music. I have no idea whose opinion is being used in order to allege this to be so, by claiming it to be the Official "Dance" Singles Chart Top 40 as none, or almost none, of it qualifies as being "dance" to me (and I ought to know, rather than the presumed pop music fans that complied this list that don't seem to me to know what "dance music" is, probably because they don't really like it or what they do like just isn't dance). It appears to be the same as BBC Radio 1's now so-called Dance Anthems, that used to be Dance Anthems many years ago when it used to play dance music, but the last time I tried to listen to see what was now, allegedly, "dance music", I found every song to be what I'd call pop music, all of the songs extremely irritating and unbearable, and extremely disheartening to try to listen to the programme at all, fortunately it was on fast forward through I-Player so I didn't have to sit through each song but instead disheartening as all of the songs thoroughly wore me down, and I couldn't identify any song at all the entire lot on what is now Pop so-called Anthems in my view (and, even there, wouldn't be any anthems for me as I found it impossible to sing along to any of the songs) and isn't old pop music that I still listen to.

What is here on this chart of so-called dance music rather than actually being a dance top 40, of music I suspect isn't produced anymore, appears to be all the artists whose music I didn't like fifteen years ago and music by artists whose music I positively disliked as just about the only acts in what was then dance music that I switched off and has got even worse since. The only exception seems to be potentially the act and song at number 40 (probably for one week only) in this chart, this one song might be dance although even there I'm not aware of the artist or the song and really when it's just one song I have lost interest in the whole chart - it seems like the Official pop chart became from the end of the 1990s until the OCC finally removed my music from the chart as the ways of tabulating success, by including downloads, had changed which meant by music, bought by a few thousand DJs in physical form to play in clubs, was now excluded by the numerous people downloading radio songs at home. I always used to listen to the Top 40 throughout the 1990s, when it was actually possible for me to do so due to not being unlistenable for me with the worst possible vocals and sounds that then gave a massive earworm problem for me, that actually physically impeded my ability to walk down the street properly.

The only solution, I found, was to avoid ever hearing any of the songs in the first place at all and attempt to remove them entirely out of my life. I listened to all specialist shows, thinking some of them were pop music, and heard the top 40 pop chart, seeing some of the music I listened to hit the chart and that was why I thought it was pop music although it now turns out much of it really wasn't as it much of it was in the top 40 for a couple of weeks maximum, every week, many of my favourite songs over time, and didn't reach top 20. I listened to the whole chart throughout the 1990s, except for the last year in which I usually got only the lowest new entry or else a few low new entries (on rare occasions a song that was higher in the charts but only when it didn't appear on any radio playlists as all the songs on the playlists none of them I seemed to like and I'd switched off the radio almost entirely by this stage - the only thing I would listen to was the pop chart, where all my songs were - until the OCC removed them by including downloads later on).

As regards my dislike of the music we now have that is claimed to be "dance music", it is a long process that never recovered since 1996 onwards of the sidelining of music I liked on the radio, only for songs I didn't like or the same artists but with another song instead to be played constantly having removed from air never to play again the songs I liked. In fact it was there from the start in 1993 when the songs on sales-only chart as was then and the part sales/radio airplay chart, which of course I religiously compared every week and took details of the number of positions difference between them of each song, the top 10 was sales only on both but positions 11-40 were sales and airplay and, consistently, when a song I liked fell out of the top 10 or never reached top 10, if it was lower on airplay than sales, I really liked it, if it was *massively* lower, it was my favourite song of all, if it was the same position in both, it was alright but I didn't really like it that much but if it was still maintaining its position on airplay whilst the true sales only figure was much lower, I disliked it, in precise proportion it seemed to the difference between the two charts and, in hindsight much later on, no surprise that they have, based on this scientific way that appears to be my own tastes (me simply liking/disliking some song and then seeing its positions in both charts and finding, on every occasion, my tastes worked that way), the radio obviously found the only thing I disliked in music and then played it repeatedly so is the only thing I dislike and then all the pop music was something I disliked.

I have never looked back after being forced to buy records in 1999 (before the internet available for them) - and then saw my records actually charting on the pop chart but not appearing on the playlists of the radio to which I then did not listen. I guess I just don't like radio-friendly songs - i.e. rubbish and totally unlistenable (although obviously in theory it isn't unlistenable since well over 90% of people still listen to the radio). Then I found I did like all the songs I didn't like, since it turned out I liked some dance remix that was never played on daytime radio very often - or else liked the original and every remix except whichever one the radio played constantly, e.g. Brimful of Asha I like the original and the Norman Cook remix is the one I don't like (although that music hadn't got so bad as to be entirely unlistenable by then unlike it did later on).

People generally are not interested and don't accept it is the way it is, because they listen to the radio and therefore don't listen to my complaint that it is absolutely scientific and based on calculation of chart places as to what my tastes are back then (until I no longer have kept track since the whole new pop music scene became impossible for me to listen to due to how bad the songs sound to me - 'everyone else's' brain must have been altered by how much they have been listening to them and not possible to get into any new specialist music on the radio either as I know if I start liking something too much it is going to be pulled off air and never played again - with me identifying in advance of them doing so songs that were to go to number 1 by them being the *only* song I have switched off a programme first time I heard it - e.g. switched Coldplay off the Evening Session and they were the only ones to go on and be big, switched Destiny's Child off the RnB show, switched Spiller off the dance shows as the only one I didn't like, and heard one show on a commercial station once and liked only the only song on it that then failed the Top 40 (Logo feat. Dawn Joseph - of course, a cover version of...guess who?)).

I just don't like pop music, and pop music masqueraded as every genre it is not. It'll be the same with the so-called rock chart now - nothing at all remotely rocky, and I've found since the late 1990s, when people's taste went down the pan, that the most soulless records of all would be the ones that people called "soul" music. Rather than, you know... soul music instead (none of which as far as I am aware has ever been in the Top 40 pop charts). They might play the garage version sometime instead of that pop record that they claim to be garage. I was told several years in, after moaning constantly at work about every song they mentioned, to give pop music "a chance". It gets way too much chance - perhaps try giving other music a chance rather than pop music on the radio constantly given chance after chance after chance, whilst I had given it all a chance for many years prior to then, tuning round and round the dial increasingly (only then to make matters worse - if I could have stayed where I was, due to liking the music, I may have only heard that song again several hours later - instead by switching around it went from every station on the dial through every one of the others in turn, even more, until I finally switched everything off in total annoyance by late 1990s having given what was then becoming pop music several years of chance).

Although I do like pop music because I liked the whole of the pop charts back in the day, although when the mainstream, non-internet radio goes back to the last 23 years or so, they always pick the rubbish again that they played I presume - I have no idea since it is now impossible to listen to any of them due to the content on all of them being punctuated with or consisting of this music that thoroughly irritates me or bores me to being physically exhausted, and if their content is aimed at being accessible then one word would sum it up... inaccessible. (I suspect I would like some of that experience back, though I'd prefer the whole chart to be good as it used to be, of me forcing the daytime audience to hear one decent song for once, on the Top 40 pop chart show for one week only at the low end nearly every week. I liked those hard dance songs that used to bash the out of the daytime radio audience and its seeming hopeless taste or total lack of, that must have appeared all of a sudden from seeming nowhere for them. Scott Mills played one once and then said "help!", which is funny, probably about the only decent song possible to listen to on the chart back then.)

I have, I know, now written all this and gone on into detail as I always do because I'm on the autism spectrum and therefore also remember a lot of highest chart positions of songs as this is something that seems to attract people such as myself. That may be the problem - the songs aren't intended to be listened to, or not listened to closely as it seems my brain does, as they are supposed to be background sounds and may be ignored - not so for me though where the songs always stand out and then, in order to try to like a song, instead of detaching myself away from it, I focus on it even more and that's the problem because they are not intended to be listened to that way, as it is superficial pop music that doesn't withstand that degree of analysis, and I wouldn't analysis it if I could just enjoy the song which I can't because it is irritating or total ditchwater boring for me, and in attempting to enjoy the song and not be so stuck in the mud, I then focus on it and listen to it more to try to like it when in fact that's the very thing not to do, as when I focus on songs to try to like what I don't really like, I find myself simply then disliking them even more so that they are just impossible.

I tried it with a Britney Spears song back in the day - me not liking Britney Spears music (except it turned out I did - just every dance remix of every one and none of the standard material on her pop albums) - my colleagues had earlier that day told me to give pop music a chance and so I did - or tried to - I switched the radio on and the Britney Spears track came on (standard pop version of course), I didn't really like it (as predicted) and in order to try to like it, I concentrated more on the song and found myself quarrelling with it even more, identifying all the bits I didn't like and precisely why so and after a few seconds (literally) I had to switch the song off as it was too unbearable and so it proved to be actually unlistenable for me.

I have now just gone to see a comment someone has made on another website about repetition of songs by the radio, basically need to do that to attract highest number of listeners by playing what is "hot" at the moment, what people expect to hear. When the radio finally forced me to buy and play my own music I found that the problem wasn't repetition, which turning the radio over to another station and then another and another merely made worse (as I kept hearing the same songs I didn't like then every five minutes), instead it was about the songs they played as I found I could repeat my own songs numerous times throughout the day and never tire of hearing them. It is very lucky for someone that actually likes the stuff they play and thus is happy with constantly hearing songs they like whilst I am unserved because they are catering for the highest audience and its tastes that, it seems, are complete anathema to mine. It wasn't as if I merely didn't like the songs a bit: instead it is an active and really seriously strong total detesting of the songs provoked by just how sheer unbearable they are.

It is not even about whether people can write their own music or not. Instead it is more straightforward thing of whether the pop music tracks are possible to listen to, which for me, due to their sound being so terrible, they are not. (And it's not as if there aren't absolutely numerous genres and music that is excellent - it is just the thing that gets hughest audience is just about the *only* thing in music that I dislike, but actually not everything because many of the older songs prior to 'the time before the radio went rubbish' are completely fine and I like and enjoy them and there was never any question about whether I do or do not, except that I often don't like as much the biggest hit that an artist did.) As regards the sidelining of my taste since the 1990s,is explained in an introduction to British Hit Singles 1993 as rave music is their tune-out songs. But, for me, it was my favourite records and their music now is the reaction to mine and is something I really dislike.