pinstripehourglass asked: I was wondering, as someone who spends a lot of time analyzing the charts - which do you think are more reflective of the popular musical culture of an era, the album charts or the singles charts? Or is it more complicated than that? Just curious as to your thoughts.

I don’t follow the Billboard 200 (albums chart) as much as I do the Hot 100 (singles chart), but I’d consider the latter to be more representative if you’re looking at a narrow timespan. The albums chart rewards longevity and a steady fanbase. Bob Dylan, for example, doesn’t get a #1 album until 1974 (Planet Waves), long after his period of greatest cultural relevance; he scored another #1 album as recently as 2009 (Together Through Life). The albums chart also tends to weigh disproportionally toward rock over other genres, and, in the past decade or so, toward artists favored by older consumers. (Susan Boyle’s first two albums went to #1; her highest-charting single - of only two charting singles - topped out at #62.)  There are also fewer popular albums released than singles, so the album charts are slower to change. On the other hand, lots of seminal artists do well on the albums chart without troubling the Hot 100 (classic-era Black Sabbath, for instance), while the singles chart is more likely to get clogged up with novelties and nobodies. (Then there’s the ’90s, where the singles chart is almost as stagnant as the albums one.)

Short answer: the singles chart reflects what more people were listening to at a specific point in time, but the albums chart gives a better long view of who persevered and likely had greater influence (at least for rock). But, as always, it’s kind of complicated!