Irish Albums Chart

The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on its behalf by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically each day from retailers' Point of sale systems and certain digital retailers. All major record stores and over forty independents submit data for the charts, accounting for over 80% of the market, according to Chart-Track. A new chart is compiled and released to the public by the Irish Recorded Music Association on Friday at noon. Each chart is dated with the "week-ending" date of the previous Thursday (i.e., the day before issue).

It is released as a Top 100; however, Chart-Track's records only record the Top 75 in the archives.

See also

Album

Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, then from 1948 as vinyl LP records played at 33 ¹⁄₃ rpm. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century albums sales have mostly focused on compact disc (CD) and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used in the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl.

An album may be recorded in a recording studio (fixed or mobile), in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to several years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately, and then brought or "mixed" together. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed "live", even when done in a studio. Studios are built to absorb sound, eliminating reverberation, so as to assist in mixing different takes; other locations, such as concert venues and some "live rooms", allow for reverberation, which creates a "live" sound. The majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at separate times while listening to the other parts using headphones; with each part recorded as a separate track.

Gaon Album Chart

Gaon Album Chart, part of Gaon Music Chart, is a national chart that ranks the best-selling albums, including mini and single albums, in South Korea, provided by the Korea Music Content Industry Association. It has been tracking sales since the beginning of 2010 and launched in February the same year as part of the Gaon Music Chart. The charts are made up of charts tracking domestic album sales, international album sales and a combined overall album sales in weekly, monthly and year-end format.

In February 2011, it published information on both online and offline albums sales of 2010, including a detailed breakdown of online chart data and was the first time that offline album sales was released since 2008 when the Music Industry Association of Korea stopped compiling data.

History

Gaon Music Chart, launched in February 2011, was part of the efforts of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Music Content Industry Association to create a national chart for Korea similar to the Billboard charts and Oricon charts. The chart tracks sales according to online and offline data provided by web-based music providers: Bugs, Olleh Music, Melon, Genie, Cyworld, Monkey3, Daum Music, Naver Music, Mnet and Soribada; and record distributors: LOEN Entertainment, CJ E&M Music and Live, KT Music, Sony Music Korea, Neowiz Internet, Universal Music Korea, and Warner Music Korea.