Justin Bieber has NINE top 40 hits?
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Topic: Justin Bieber has NINE top 40 hits?
Posted By: aaronk
Subject: Justin Bieber has NINE top 40 hits?
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 10:49am
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I noticed something interesting when looking at the database today. Justin Bieber has been known for less than a year, yet he has nine top 40 hits. Say what?
Does this happen very often, now that we are in the digital "singles" age? I'm sure the record company was not working all 9 of those songs as singles, but because people can now pick and choose which songs they want to download rather than buying the whole album, there are probably many songs that make the top 40 chart without actually being what most of us would consider a "single." |
Replies:
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 12:08pm
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Welcome to the world of digital downloads:)
Yep, it happens more and more these days. If you think Bieber has a lot, take a look at the Glee Cast...and that's just their Top 40 hits (they already have over 60 Hot 100 hits). With a new season underway, it won't be long before they have the most Hot 100 hits of any artist in history! |
Posted By: Jody Thornton
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 12:16pm
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Yeah, but will there be a comprehensive way to adjust the relative scale of success so that we can compare how say, The Glee Cast compares to the success of Elvis or the Beatles? Because we can't be comparing apples and apples, are we?
Let's suppose Elvis has 60 singles over his career based on 45-rpm sales. How will we compare the 100 download singles from Glee? You can't really expect me to believe that the show cast trumps Elvis? ------------- Cheers, Jody Thornton (Richmond Hill, Ontario) |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 12:37pm
| Yeah, that's pretty much why I was bringing it up. There's really no way to do an apples to apples comparison, because up until the '90s (or whenever it was) album cuts weren't counted on the Hot 100. Therefore, even though Elvis sold millions of albums, none of those album cuts were counted as "singles." Now, every track that an artist releases is considered a single in the digital world. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 12:41pm
| From Wikipedia: As of September 2010, the cast is second behind The Beatles for most chart appearances by a group act in the Billboard Hot 100's history, and seventh overall among all artists, with sixty-four appearances. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 1:13pm
With five more set to chart next week (week ending 10/9). |
aaronk wrote:Posted By: Paul C
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 1:33pm
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A couple of years ago, record labels started to experiment with the idea of releasing digitally, prior to the release of an album, a number of tracks from the upcoming album, with the release of each track spaced a week or two apart. Some of these tracks are then promoted to radio months later but others never are.
I believe the first major release with which this was done was the Jonas Brothers' A Little Bit Longer. In addition to the legitimate radio hit "Burnin' Up", the tracks "Pushin Me Away", "Tonight", and "A Little Bit Longer" were all digitally released prior to the album. The latter three made the Top 40 for one week each based solely on download sales. The same practice has been employed with releases by Taylor Swift, Kanye West, Eminem, and both of the non-full-length albums by Justin Bieber. It seems to be happening less often lately. It was not done with the Jonas Brothers or Eminem's latest albums and there are apparently no plans to try it again with the upcoming new Taylor Swift album. It was done with Katy Perry's new album, when the tracks "E.I", "Circle The Drain", and "Not Like The Movies" were all digitally released prior to the album. All made the Hot 100 but not the Top 40. As for all the Glee tracks that have been littering the Hot 100, almost all of them have spent only one week on the chart. I read recently in Billboard that the 64 tracks that have made the Hot 100 have collectively sold less than a million units. |
Posted By: Jody Thornton
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 1:39pm
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So does that mean we are accepting then and now as apples and apples?
When did Billboard convert to airplay only instead of singles sales (1995, 1998)? Does the chart comprise of airplay still, or is that becoming less relevant? I would just imagine that during some crossover periods (say 1989), when Billboard would still have strictly been sales, that it would be a questionable guage of a song's chart success. For some reason, I'm remembering a song such as Grayson Hugh's "Talk It Over" from the fall of that year. I can't imagine that it would have sold that many vinyl singles (and likely cassette single sales fared worse). So if it wasn't for airplay, how did this song ever make the top 40? At that time, I remember most people buying cassette albums, so that would not have counted. So are we saying that even then, the pop singles chart would not have given any relevant snapshot as to what current music trends were? As I remember, I was one of the single-digit percentages buying any vinyl at that time. ------------- Cheers, Jody Thornton (Richmond Hill, Ontario) |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 2:39pm
Not sure I follow you. The Hot 100 has always been a combination of sales and airplay, although the formula has varied over the years. Ever since digital sales starting taking off, they have become more of a factor. However, airplay is still a force (on-line streaming is also now factored in). For example, this week Rihanna's new single outsold Bruno Mars, but Bruno Mars has a bigger airplay margin, so he's #1. As for "Talk It Over" by Grayson Hugh, it peaked at #19 on the Hot 100 (#15 Sales and #24 Airplay), so his sales were the bigger factor. I think cassette singles sold better than most people remember. |
Posted By: budaniel
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 2:41pm
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also look at the soundtracks to High School Musical. Their songs dominated the charts for a while...even though they never got any airplay.
I think there have been HUGE problems in the accuracy of billboard charts since the 90s. Just look at the top 10 of each week--it is dominated by hip hop and rap artists...none of the radio stations in NY were playing these songs. We were bombarded by Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, etc. However, hip hop labels were smartly still releasing domestic CD singles at that time while many other pop and rock artists were not. Everything was an 'album' track instead of a 'single.' |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 3:29pm
Do you mean that the Hot 100 chart doesn't accurately reflect what is popular? Granted, for a time, when record companies stopped releasing singles, there were definitely many songs that weren't eligible for the Hot 100. They have fixed that problem, though. Both airplay and sales count toward the chart positions, as do songs that are not available as a "single." Sure, there might be a number of songs that make the Hot 100 and never get any airplay at all. But that doesn't mean they aren't popular. It just means that radio has elected not to play them. CHR is as close as it gets, but even those stations have a specific demo they are targeting and a certain sound they are going for. Songs from the Glee TV show aren't going to make CHR playlists, nor will High School Musical songs. That still doesn't mean Glee and HSM isn't popular. My point of bringing this up was not to debate the accuracy of Hot 100. I was just surprised at how many songs are hitting the top 40 that 1) are not really being worked as a "single" by the record company, and 2) are receiving no airplay. |
Posted By: budaniel
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 7:28pm
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I believe the Hot 100 did not properly reflect what was really the overall most popular music of the era before they adjusted the way they were tallying the charts--be it sales OR radio play. For instance, if I look at the top 10 charts for every week of, say, the 80s, almost every song on those charts received tons of radio play--not to mention, during that era, I worked in a record store, and there was a blatant correlation between what songs were played on the radio and what songs sold the most in the 45 rpm section.
In the 90s, there is a noticeable stretch of years in which the songs that got all the heavy rotation on radio are not even present in the Top 10 charts. That's quite significant considering the hot 100 charts are meant to be historical records of what music truly is 'hot' at any given time. It's even reflected in the responses when people post questions here about which are the 'hit' versions of certain songs from the 90s. Very often, no one really has any idea which is the hit version because they never heard the song on the radio. Clearly, Billboard finally recognized that the way they were doing things was NOT reflective of the reality, because they DID alter the way they tallied their charts--way too late to make up for all the years that were slightly skewed. It's almost like history was being altered as it was being written. Of course, that's all my opinion based on my experience and observations. I don't know what everyone else thinks. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 22 September 2010 at 10:49pm
| Without question, there was a major flaw in the Hot 100 during a big stretch of the '90s. That's why I stopped paying attention to Billboard, for the most part, and just used R&R as a reference. I'm just curious to know if you think that the chart still today does not reflect what is popular, given that we're seeing 60+ Hot 100 entries from Glee and 9 top 40 entries from Justin Bieber, all within the last year or so. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 5:20am
Curiously, what "counts" as play in online streaming? Is it restricted to "legitimate" streams (however you may define that), or does it include every college kid with a Shoutcast account? I always wondered what they were thinking when the labels introduced cassette singles. Granted, vinyl was all but dead but why were CD singles so few and far between? I'm sure the labels' rationale was that the quality (both audio & mechanical) was so bad on cassette singles and they were so inconvenient that customers would have to eventually get the album anyway thereby generating 2 sales. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 5:37am
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When Billboard first started to factor in streaming back in 2007, they started with AOL and Yahoo Music. I believe they've added a few more since that time. It's my understanding that the current Hot 100 forumla is 55% airplay, 40% sales and 5% streaming. The sales are, of course, mostly digital downloads...but there are still CD singles being sold in the stores. In fact, there have been quite a few CD singles released in the past few months (mostly as one-store exclusives).
As for cassette singles, they did sell millions of them, so it wasn't exactly a bad idea at the time. |
Posted By: budaniel
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 6:56am
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i think the digital download situation has essentially made it possible for every track on an album to become a hot 100 hit rather than letting the album just chart on the album charts. If a string of songs from ONE album hits the top 100 for ONE week, that's because, in essence, eveyone bought the ALBUM in pieces. That means pretty much ever track on every successful artist's album has the opportunity to hit the singles charts for one week regardless of overall mainstream exposure and popularity, which makes NO sense.
And consider this, most of these albums have two, maybe three songs at most that actually get airplay on radio and video channels and become true 'hit' singles. Meanwhile, in the 80s, artist like Madonna, Springsteen and MJ had up to 6 or 7 songs from one album hit the top 10 on their own merit as chart climbers--not instant download 'overnight' successes. |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 8:51am
I've always thought that these "Glee cast" singles don't contain the same singers on every recording. I know many have different lead singers, but are the same actors & actresses all on every Glee cast single? If not, which is what I'm guessing, then I find it odd that they would be called the "group act" in 2nd place, when it's a variety of singers on each single. Seems odd to put them in 2nd place (above Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, Supremes)if it's a different set of singers on most "singles". |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 9:03am
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As for Billboard, I don't think they've had a handle on the Hot 100 since the mid '90s, and they still don't. I complained to Geoff Mayfield, editor of the Billboard Charts, for years, telling him that non-commercial singles like "Don't Speak", "Lovefool", "Tearin' Up My Heart", should be included on the Hot 100. He agreed but it took him years to get the Hot 100 to include non-commercial singles. So there are many years of Billboard charts that are quite inaccurate.
Then began the period where Billboard expanded the Hot 100 to include the rap stations, the hip hop stations, the country stations, and the AC stations, and not just the mainstream, pop, & CHR stations that used to comprise the Hot 100 (and R&R's Mainstream chart.) This caused 2 problems. Though the AC format seemed to have fairly little impact on the Hot 100, the country stations inclusion meant the Hot 100 every week had many country songs generally charting between #25 and #100, yet none were hits on pop stations (or even played once). I'm not denying that country is popular on the country stations, but it is not popular on the pop stations (with the exception of crossover artists like Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum, who usually have pop mixes generated for pop radio.) Secondly, each week, the top 10 of the Hot 100 usually consists of approximately eight rap or hip hop or urban songs, yet sometimes these songs aren't nearly that popular on mainstream radio the week that they jump into the top 10 (then eventually, they are because they are top 10 hits in Billboard, so pop stations must jump on board and start playing them.) And the reason that rap or hip hop songs have such an advantage on this chart is because they are played on rap stations, hip hop stations, pop/mainstream stations, urban stations, CHR/Rhythm stations, whereas a pure pop song is only played on mainstream stations and maybe AC stations, and the hip hop stations won't play a pure pop song. Billboard does have the "Pop 100" chart - this is more consistent with what the "Hot 100" chart always was and should be titled the "Hot 100" (and considered the "Hot 100"). The "Hot 100", which is this multi-genre chart Billboard has created, may be good as a curiosity point but should really be labeled the "Pan-USA" chart, just as they have the "Pan-Europe" chart which summarizes all the European charts in one chart. Just as the country chart doesn't have 25 hip hop songs on it (even though hip hop is being played on Nashville stations), and you never saw rap stations playing Celine Dion during her '90s heyday, I think Billboard should have a chart that is more based on mainstream radio stations (and they do, but it's not the Hot 100 and should be). |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 9:04am
Regardless, it goes back to the point that it's no longer apples to apples. If the Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, and Supremes had all been selling records in the era of digital downloads, I'm sure they would have landed 10x more "singles" on the Hot 100 chart, because all of their hot selling album cuts would have counted. |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 9:16am
| Yeah, and I still don't feel Billboard has a handle on the way they determine the Hot 100 now. Before, they wouldn't allow radio-promoted singles that didn't have a commercial release. Now, the pendulum has swung too much the other way, as Billboard has an "anything goes" policy, it seems. Any downloaded song would count. For apples to be compared to only apples, I think Billboard should have kept some rules going, for instance, only making songs eligible that the label is actually promoting to radio. (This would eliminate all these one-week charters that were never intended as singles.) I realize it would take work on Billboard's part to sort out which songs are being promoted to radio, but there ought to be a way to do this. Maybe even have labels send Billboard a list of what the single from the album is and the release date it starts getting promoted to radio. (Of course, I'm sure the labels would find ways to abuse this system, too.) |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 9:51am
Actually, Billboard discontinued the "Pop 100" in June of 2009. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 10:38am
I wonder how much weight is given to each format when counting airplay. Or is it based on impressions (which is based on ratings)? That would seem to be a more fair and accurate way to do it. Out of curiosity, I just looked at the Hot 100's top 10. It doesn't seem to be drastically different from the Mediabase CHR chart, which is listed in parenthesis: 1. Bruno Mars "Just The Way You Are" (#4) 2. Eminem "Love The Way You Lie" (#5) 3. Rihanna "Only Girl" (#17) 4. Katy Perry "Teenage Dream" (#1) 5. Usher "DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love" (#6) 6. Taio Cruz "Dynamite" (#3) 7. Enrique Iglesias "I Like It" (#2) 8. Nelly "Just A Dream" (#9) 9. Flo Rida "Club Can't Handle Me" (#8) 10. Far East Movement "Like A G6" (#21)
I'm not so sure this is the case. The above chart has 7 pop/R&B songs, 3 rap songs, and 1 electronica song. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, the only song in the top 10 right now that is receiving (or has received) any significant airplay on urban stations is "Love The Way You Lie." The urban stations aren't even touching Nelly or Flo Rida (or Rihanna, for that matter). And that format is playing a different Usher single ("Hottie Tottie"). Also, at all the pop stations I worked for (starting in the mid '90s), I don't think very much weight was given to the Billboard Hot 100 when determining song popularity. Programmers placed much more emphasis on R&R. |
Posted By: budaniel
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 11:44am
| i do agree that, at least here in NY, the pop stations don't begin to play like half the songs in the top ten UNTIL the songs reach the top ten. It's ridiculous. The billboard chart will be published, I'll look it over, think "I've never even heard half these songs," and then the next day I'll be driving to work and my local top 40 station will be playing them!!! And that's often with an introduction of 'here's new music from (insert artist name here).' |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 12:56pm
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Admittedly, I don't follow the Hot 100 very closely, but all of the top 10 from this week have been in medium to heavy rotation on both local CHR stations here in Dallas. I don't listen to the radio all the time, but I probably catch about 2 to 3 hours of CHR radio per week.
Looking at the top 10 from this week, are there any that you aren't familiar with? Probably the least known of them would be "Like A G6," but Kiss-FM here is playing the crap out of it. Personally, I hate that song, but it gets stuck in my head. |
Posted By: torcan
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 1:32pm
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Maybe Billboard should have had a rule where a song must be on a promo CD-single in order to chart (which I guess would be the same as being promoted to radio).
I think in the early days of allowing album cuts to chart, most songs probably were on promo singles. Now, most of those songs probably aren't. Years from now there'll be no way of knowing what was actually a single and what wasn't when looking at today's charts. Also, in looking at this past decade's charts, things occurred which never would have occurred any other time - such as Taylor Swift debuting at No. 12 with a song one week, only to have it completely fall off the Hot 100 the next. Huh? I don't think it accurately represents the popularity of these songs. I kind of agree with others - I don't like the Hot 100 today or the way it's compiled. Not to mention most of the music - I've never been a fan of rap and most of the time when I do hear one of those songs from the top 10, I think - why on earth do people actually like this stuff? But I guess that's another conversation. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 23 September 2010 at 2:22pm
Great point! Although you could also argue that in the world of digital downloads everything is a "single," and that's how Billboard is looking at it. In the past, the consumer didn't have the option of picking and choosing which songs they purchased from an album. You either had to buy the whole thing, or you could by a single if it was released that way. If that option had been available, Hot 100 charts of the past probably would have looked a whole lot different. So, to some degree, it's not really Billboard's fault that the chart looks the way it does. The times have changed on how people consume music, and the chart is merely a reflection of that.
Again, I suppose that depends on how you look at it. A song that has a high peak position one week and then disappears the next is never going to make the year-end chart. I suppose, in that regard, it's important to look at a song's entire chart run, rather than just it's peak position. |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 24 September 2010 at 8:19am
Unfortunately, when people want to assess how an old song did, they tend to look at its peak position in the Joel Whitburn books and not how it did on the Year-End charts that year. In fact, I'm not sure there are any publications that list all the Billboard Year-End charts. I know when Rhino was compiling its '70s and '80s compilation CDs, we strictly looked at peak position and not weeks on. So whether a #21 hit spent 3 weeks in the top 40 or 16 weeks, it didn't matter to us. So I agree with what Aaron is saying, but I just think that (unfortunately) a #12 hit is going to be remembered that way, regardless of weeks on. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 26 September 2010 at 5:58pm
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I don't really follow the charts much anymore, but this morning we were on our way somewhere and were listening to the Hot AC version of AT40. Ryan Seacrest mentioned that "Hey Soul Sister" by Train was entering it's 52nd week on the chart! I know the AC charts move slowly, but is this some sort of record (so to speak) of longevity?
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Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 27 September 2010 at 12:05am
| Oh no, there are quite a few songs that have spent more than 52 weeks on the AC chart. I can't remember which offhand. Didn't the "Drift Away" remake spend longer? |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 27 September 2010 at 3:10am
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Yeah, 52 weeks isn't even halfway to a record!
Savage Garden has the Top 2 for longevity on the Adult Contemporary charts with "I Knew I Loved You" (124 weeks) and "Truly Madly Deeply (123 weeks). There are several others that spent well over a year on that chart. "Drift Away" by Uncle Kracker does have the record for most weeks at #1 (28 weeks). |
Posted By: The Hits Man
Date Posted: 27 September 2010 at 8:51am
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The good thing is that those Glee Club songs are pretty
good. ------------- |
Posted By: mstgator
Date Posted: 27 September 2010 at 3:19pm
| As far as radio countdown shows go, I believe the record on AT40 Hot AC is 90+ weeks for "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles. Keep in mind that there has been no recurrent rule on either of the AT40 shows since Ryan Seacrest took over. |