I guess people really like Post Malone

13 Top 40 hits this week. 11 debuts.

Many acts barely managed 13 Top 40 hits over an entire career...

The definition of a "Top 40 Hit Single" has deviated so far from the original meaning that it's impossible to compare modern chart accomplishments to those of the past.

JL328 wrote: 13 Top 40 hits this week. 11 debuts.

This is the new norm when average hip-hop artists release an album
and almost all the songs chart due to streaming. J. Cole almost did it
last week and there have been many others during the past 3-4
months. With the exception of Drake, none of these artists would really
be considered superstars. I wish Billboard would run some columns
describing the artists who had the greatest number of chart “hits” that
fell off the chart in a week. Check out what happens to these Top 40
songs next week.

I realize that maybe I don't fully understand what counts as a stream.
When you see reports that Post Malone's album was streamed 236
million times in the US alone in its first week, the math starts to fall
apart really quickly. Given that national population is a fixed number,
and we can be pretty sure that small children and the elderly weren't
desperately counting down for the album drop, I find these numbers a
little unreachable and would love some kind of explanation.

What does the chart even measure nowadays? I always thought it was
meant to rank songs by the most number of people in the US impacted
by a song in a particular week. So, if 100 million different people
legitimately sought out and listened to a song by Post Malone (whether
they liked it or hated it) then I think that's legitimate and I wouldn't have
a problem with it. But that's clearly not what's happening. There aren't
236 million different Americans doing anything in common, let alone
jamming to Cardi B or J Cole, artists that a lot of people don't even
know. So is this just a small group of people streaming each new
album on repeat hundreds of times? Just setting their account on
repeat and walking away? If so, you don't have 100 million people
impacted by a song, you have maybe 100,000 people impacted by it
1,000 times each (if they're even actually listening).

I don't understand why billboard wants this. Although I guess they'd
argue the hot 100 still measures the popularity of songs in a given
week (albeit with a flawed formula) it no longer serves at all to measure
a particular song's popularity progression and the ability to use the
chart as a source of historical comparison is lost forever. That just
doesn't seem like a good thing to me.

If Billboard wants a true measure-- and I understand that it obviously
doesn't-- it should limit the impact that each individual streaming
account has on the charts. For instance, if the same account streams
an album 1000 times in a week, should the last 995 times even be
counted? I'll give you 5, because maybe somebody is playing it for
others, but after that you can assume the streams are not impacting a
new listener. Whereas sales are an easy way to track different buyers
and radio play goes by an audience impressions formula based on the
station's range and the surrounding population, streams aren't limited to
ensure you're counting distinct listeners instead of the same people
over and over and over again.

Maybe I'm wrong and there really are 236 million people in the US
alone that are really into post malone. I understand that I'm no longer
squarely within the age demographic most targeted by music labels
(but I'm not that far removed from it), but I don't know a single person
who is talking about the post malone album.

By the way, if you think this cardi b and post malone stuff is bad, keep
in mind that Drake's new album comes out next month. If he were
smart, he'd include a bunch of old style interludes to get the album up
to 40 tracks so he can get the whole chart... then maybe Billboard
would fix it (actually they'd probably just celebrate it).

Even Billboard recognizes that streaming is an issue
as they are once again changing the formulas!
https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8006673/bi
llboard-charts-adjust-streaming-weighting-2018

Others have issues with the Hot 100:

How streaming undermines the Hot 100:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/garysuarez/2016/12/20/str
eaming-billboard-hot-100/#7416fa66aa7b

https://popgoesthecharts.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/bill
board-please-stop-changing-your-chart-methodology-
every-week-love-adam/

https://noisey.vice.com/en_au/article/gyd537/the-
charts-made-no-goddamn-sense-in-2017

Here's how Post Malone games the system a few years
ago:
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/billboa
rd-hot-100-chart-youtube-streaming

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Edited by Chartman