Announcement: Midweek charts start tomorrow!

 Announcement: Midweek charts coming soon!

   Due to the sheer volume of music being released to YouTube, it's been difficult to fit in all of the songs that are eligible each week. Many great videos have had to wait for weeks or even months to get onto the weekly chart & playlist, and a lot of them haven't even managed to qualify at all. On top of that, artists sometimes release multiple videos in a single week & there just isn't room for them all.

   I've always been hesitant to expand the chart to a Top 100, because that makes the playlist way too lengthy. With just 50 videos, it takes about 3-4 hours to play it all the way through. If it were 100 songs, it would be twice as long (around 6-8 hours!) & I don't want to start posting music that nobody will have the time to explore. Therefore I've decided to keep the chart & playlist at 50 videos, but I will be publishing a chart twice a week from now on. Starting this week, a "Midweek Chart" will be posted on Wednesdays. The regular chart will follow on Sundays as usual, but there will only be one playlist each week -- I'll publish a new playlist every Wednesday & then update it on Sunday.

   The Midweek Chart will be based on three days' worth of YouTube views (from Sunday through Tuesday), while the regular chart will now be based on four days' worth of YouTube views (from Wednesday through Saturday). Otherwise the methodology will remain the same. As before, the percentage of increase in views from one week to the next (which allows independent artists to have a chance here to compete against the "big name" artists) will still count for twice as many points as the number of views. Songs will still be ranked by the points they receive from views & votes combined.

   There will no longer be a deadline for voting. If you'd like to vote for your favorite videos, I'll count your votes toward the next available chart. As a reminder, there are multiple ways to vote:

• You can leave a comment on this blog. (Anonymous comments are permitted, so you don't need to sign up for an account.) Just list your favorites in your comment.
• You can also vote by email (tadsgaymusicchannel@gmail.com).
• You can send me a direct message on Twitter or Facebook with your votes.
• You can simply watch the videos in the YouTube playlist to vote for them. Every view counts!

   There will be no Midweek Chart at the end of December, since I always publish a Year-End Special at that time. (Usually there is very little new music released between Christmas & New Year's Day anyhow, so that won't be a problem.) The first chart in January will be based on a full week of YouTube views, and then I'll resume with the new system again.

   Hopefully this new method will allow more new songs to make it onto the chart, without disrupting the chart runs of the most popular songs. Hope you all enjoy the videos, and hope you're all having a great summer so far!