Justin Bieber has NINE top 40 hits?

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."

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?

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.

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.

Edited by Paul C

Jody Thornton wrote: 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?

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.