Billboard Charts

[Faulkner]

Barring a surprise release from Adele or Rihanna, it looks like Mariah will score her 19th No. 1 with a 25-year-old song, possibly next week:

 

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Faulkner

[Faulkner]

 

[Toups]

Ugh....streaming.  LOL

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BetterForgotten]

Over the UK, top albums of the decade were:

 

POS	TITLE	ARTIST	PEAK	YEAR
1	21	ADELE	1	2011
2	25	ADELE	1	2015
3	X	ED SHEERAN	1	2014
4	DIVIDE	ED SHEERAN	1	2017
5	CHRISTMAS	MICHAEL BUBLE	1	2011
6	IN THE LONELY HOUR	SAM SMITH	1	2014
7	+	ED SHEERAN	1	2011
8	OUR VERSION OF EVENTS	EMELI SANDE	1	2012
9	PROGRESS	TAKE THAT	1	2010
10	THE GREATEST SHOWMAN	MOTION PICTURE CAST RECORDING	1	2018
11	LOUD	RIHANNA	1	2010
12	CRAZY LOVE	MICHAEL BUBLE	1	2009
13	19	ADELE	1	2008
14	DOO-WOPS & HOOLIGANS	BRUNO MARS	1	2010
15	THE FAME	LADY GAGA	1	2009

 

The top singles of the decade were:

 

POS	TITLE	ARTIST	PEAK	YEAR
1	SHAPE OF YOU	ED SHEERAN	1	2017
2	UPTOWN FUNK	MARK RONSON FT BRUNO MARS	1	2014
3	THINKING OUT LOUD	ED SHEERAN	1	2014
4	DESPACITO (REMIX)	LUIS FONSI/DADDY YANKEE/BIEBER	1	2017
5	PERFECT	ED SHEERAN	1	2017
6	ONE DANCE	DRAKE FT WIZKID & KYLA	1	2016
7	HAPPY	PHARRELL WILLIAMS	1	2013
8	ALL OF ME	JOHN LEGEND	2	2014
9	SORRY	JUSTIN BIEBER	1	2015
10	RATHER BE	CLEAN BANDIT FT JESS GLYNNE	1	2014
11	CASTLE ON THE HILL	ED SHEERAN	2	2017
12	MR BRIGHTSIDE	KILLERS	10	2004
13	WAKE ME UP	AVICII	1	2013
14	LOVE YOURSELF	JUSTIN BIEBER	1	2015
15	SHOTGUN	GEORGE EZRA	1	2018

Edited January 1, 2020 by BetterForgotten

[Faulkner]

Lol all 25 Christmas songs will of course drop out for next week’s chart. Can’t believe “Someone You Loved” is still hanging on like this. People are ripe for a new Adele album.

 

 

[Toups]

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/chart-beat/8546247/billboard-200-changes-youtube-video-data-streaming-album-charts

 

Video data will also impact Billboard’s genre-specific album consumption charts, starting Jan. 3.

 

Video and audio data from YouTube, along with visual plays from several music streaming services, will soon be factored into the Billboard 200 albums chart, it was announced on Friday. In addition to YouTube, officially licensed video content plays from Apple, Spotify, Tidal and Vevo will be included in the album chart's calculations. 

 

The inclusion of video data into the Billboard 200 arrives five years after audio streams were added, marking the chart's shift from a measure of pure sales to a consumption model. The addition of video will also impact Billboard's genre album consumption charts, such as Country, R&B/Hip-Hop, Latin and others. 

 

While YouTube streams have factored into the Billboard Hot 100 and other song-specific charts since February 2013, this marks a first for the album charts. In contrast with song charts, which can be impacted by user-generated videos, only official licensed video content uploaded by or on behalf of rights holders will be counted for the Billboard 200 and other albums charts.

 

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I never understood/don't like the "streaming equivalent albums" or the "track equivalent albums", and now they're including youtube views.  

 

 

SEA means streaming equivalent albums. SEA is calculated by adding up all of the audio song streams from an album. Premium streaming totals are divided by 1,250 and free streaming totals are divided by 3,750. Thus, 1,250 premium streams or 3,750 free streams from the same album is equivalent to 1 album unit.

 

 

TEA means track equivalent albums. TEA is calculated by adding up all of the song sales from an album and dividing by 10. Thus, 10 song downloads from the same album is equivalent to 1 album unit.

 

 

Can someone explain this?  Say an album has 15 songs, but I only download 10 songs, does that count as the 1 album unit?   Or does it mean 10 different people downloading just the same one song will count as 1 album unit?  

 

[Faulkner]

It’s both. If you just bought tracks 1 to 10 on Taylor Swift’s latest album and no more, that’s one album unit, or if 10 people bought “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince,” that’s also one album unit. Basically, they are simply dividing the total cumulative tracks bought from a particular release in a week by 10, no matter if someone buys all of the album tracks or just one.

 

[Toups]

 

What if I bought 5 songs one week and then 5 songs another week?  That wouldn't count as 1 album unit because it wasn't bought in the same week? 

[Faulkner]

0.5 would count to one week, 0.5 would count to the next. 

[Toups]

Thanks for clarifying things, @Faulkner

 

I still think it's dumb how Billboard counts things now.  LOL

[Faulkner]

I think they’re in a difficult position with albums receding as the primary way of organizing music consumption in a post-mp3, now-playlist-driven streaming universe. They’re trying to apply the brave new world to an largely antiquated idea that certain artists and record companies are trying to hold on to. I like that streaming now provides enough real-time data to show how people are *actually* listening to music, as opposing to the era when an album would sell millions and people would only listen to that one hot track and skip the rest. That’s great for the singles charts but creates the same problem for the album chart: album “sales” are artificially inflated by either releases with 20-30 tracks (like Drake’s Scorpion) or by one massive hit with a gazillion streams. At least now you can see the data.

 

I remember when Billboard had the stupid rule that songs had to be released as physical singles to chart on the Hot 100. So something as world-dominating as No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak” never charted on the Hot 100, even thought you couldn’t turn on a radio in 1996 without hearing it. (It topped the less-prestigious airplay chart for 16 weeks.) Dumb. Billboard has had a lot of dumb rules. 

 

The likely new No. 1:

 

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[BetterForgotten]

When Billboard moved towards a radio airplay dominant formula in the early 00’s that caused a lot of controversy - record companies were actively paying radio stations to play songs from certain artists or “payola.” What was “popular” was no longer in the hands of the general public.

 

At least with the physical single formula people were actually buying those singles - even if some shady record companies were actively discounting singles to give them an unfair advantage.

 

There was that small period of time around 1999/2000 where they had a 50/50 formula between radio airplay and physical single sales - probably the most ‘fair’ the Hot 100 ever was. 

 

In most other countries, like the UK, the singles charts are based primarily  on sales of a song, but streaming is actively becoming part of the mix.

 

 

 

[Faulkner]

Looks like “The Box” is becoming the new “Old Town Road.”

 

 

[Toups]

There are some articles on Billboard how Tik Tok is helping all these viral hits, but too bad the site is not free to read anymore. 

 

TikTok Fueled No. 1 Hits In 2019 -- But Is It Here To Stay?

 

TikTok Is Rewriting How Hits Get Made

 

 

What I'm wondering is, do those short clips on Tik Tok count as streams?  They're like 15 second clips.   I remember years ago, Rae Sremmurd's "Black Beatles" went to #1 on the Hot 100 thanks to the Mannequin challenge. 

[Faulkner]

The Weeknd has ended the 11-week run of “The Box” atop the Billboard Hot 100 with “Blinding Lights.”

 

 

Meanwhile...Post Malone is a streaming and radio MONSTER.