Own project
World Indie Chart
Most charts measure who is already popular. This one asks a different question: who is actually building?
The situation
- Most music charts measure some form of existing popularity — streams, sales, votes, radio play, audience size. That has a legitimate purpose, but it naturally favours artists who already have attention. I wanted a way of discovering artists that answered a different question: who is actually building?
What I saw
- Independent artists can be making genuine progress without the biggest numbers. If the aim is discovery and development, copying conventional popularity measures doesn't solve the problem. The chart needed a different philosophy, not a better design.
The solution
- World Indie Chart ranks on development and activity rather than existing popularity, organised by country and genre so artists can be found internationally, with discovery that goes beyond the main ranking. It connects with Musibiz: Musibiz is the Irish home base and development environment, World Indie Chart the international discovery layer, and Irish artists don't have to keep two separate identities in two disconnected systems.
What it improved
- Artists. A way to be recognised for genuine development, not only existing popularity.
- Listeners. Independent artists they wouldn't meet through mainstream charts.
- Countries and genres. Focused discovery rather than one undifferentiated global list.
- Musibiz artists. A path from an Irish home base into international discovery.
How it was optimised
The international discovery structure and the search structure were designed together. Platform → countries → genres → charts → artists gives listeners and search engines meaningful routes in at every level.
- Every artist has a permanent page, so they stay discoverable whatever their chart position.
- Country discovery and country charts, so listeners can explore one country's independent scene.
- Genre discovery and genre charts, with each artist in one main genre — and genre pages only put forward to search once enough artists exist to make them worthwhile.
- Search engines pointed at pages with real substance, rather than large numbers of weak ones.
- Connected with Musibiz without duplicating artist information or giving the same artist two competing identities.
Instead of asking how to build another chart website, I first questioned what a chart should measure, and why it should exist.