Billboard Charts to Adjust Streaming Weighting in 2018

That’s interesting.

 

So just listening to the music on Apple Music instead of downloading it will count as a sale?

 

How would it work with multiple plays from one account though? Would it register as 1 user listening to an album over and over as 1 copy of the album/single sold or would every individual play register as another unit sold? It's pretty easy to manipulate Spotify plays for example (I ran an experiment on one of my old bands accounts on Spotify by putting 1 song on repeat- muting it and letting it go through the night while I slept and sure enough CDBaby registered every individual play as a regular play and unit sold) so it's definitely not a medium that has itself figured out all the way.

Either way this is something that should've been figured out awhile ago and factored into first week sales. Then we'd have a little bit more of an honest Billboard than we get now (it's more or less an open secret that certain Program Directors and Media outlets get little payouts if they push Major Label specific artists and songs) and including streaming in Nielsen reports factored as sales would be a little bit more clear as to what people are really listening to because I personally still don't buy that Katy Perry and Taylor Swift are more beloved than someone like Frank Ocean or Run The Jewels.

 

Uh ... really?

 

You are personally wrong.

 

It already does and has since 2014 across all legal music streaming platforms. It's only a fraction of a sale though to stream an album once. What's changing is that Billboard is going to consider streams from paid subscribers as a bigger fraction of an album sale than streams from free subscribers in 2018 since the record labels are making more off of paid subscribers than ad-based free streams.

 

What if I just listen to a few songs an not all of the album?

 

Counts towards the full album

I personally think it's pretty stupid that an album can chart off just one huge single. Remember when All Time Low didn't get a number one album from Future Hearts just because See You Again was a huge song?

 

Yeah, it’s dumb that a few songs count as a full album

 

Without looking, it’s like 1,000 individual plays of a song from an album to count as an album sale. Maybe even 10,000. Something large as it stands

 

I work in NYC in Nightlife and I talk music with everyone that'll talk about it to pass the time. I stand by what I said.

 

Until I physically meet people who say otherwise then I will maintain my stance. I rarely meet fans of either artist.

 

“I rarely meet fans of either artist” just doesn’t really seem like an argument that holds any water.

 

I mean, Taylor Swift topped Frank Ocean's first-week sales numbers by more than a million copies, so I don't know what to tell you.

 

You're so wrong about this that it's legitimately hysterical how defiant you're being.

 

This change is probably a direct result of that Post Malone "loophole" right?

Post Malone's "Rockstar" Is No. 1 on the Billboard Charts, Thanks to a YouTube Loophole

 

Your logical fallacy is anecdotal

 

I love that this website exists.

 

Listen I base my living off my daily experiences. I haven't met fans of either artist. That's an objective fact. For me to say there's no way there's that many fans exist is subjective. That I did not say. So let's cut the semantics. It's the equivalent of you saying you've never met a racist cop and me telling you that you're wrong- it's not unlikely in that analogy. It's likely that you might have gone through life without ever meeting one. Trying to pass judgement on someone elses (who happens to be a total stranger) life experiences is ridiculous.

Are you going to keep flaming me for the one comment you disagree with or are you going to have the common decency to acknowledge the initial question that I had about the new BIllboard sales projections? Because that's what I was looking for an answer for. I've been coming to this website since the mid 2000s when it was still AP and yourself and Craig always took this "better and more knowledgeable on all fronts than thou" stance to anyone who isn't a regular poster on here

But since I still respect both of your respective stances and and knowledge on the industry hence why I still come to this website even with how extremely condescending every interaction I've had with you guys has been- I will re-ask the question because I am genuinely curious as to what your stance is on this or if you're in the know on this-

Will every individual play come up on Billboard as a unit sold or will it only register by user? For example- if 1 user plays a song 100 times will it register as one unit or 100 units to billboard? TuneCore or CDBaby can't monitor how many different users listen to the songs but Spotify for example shows how many monthly listeners there are so is there an algorithm specifically for Nielsen registered artists? Or is it a crapshoot right now and this Billboard news will be the impetuous to make Digital Streaming Retailers to get their proverbial shit together?

Thank you kindly.

 

If you haven't ever met a Katy Perry fan or a Taylor Swift fan, either you're lying or everyone else is.

 

No one is questioning your experiences. We are saying your experiences are irrelevant when there are countless data points and pieces of evidence to prove that Taylor Swift and Katy Perry are more populat than Frank Ocean and Run the Jewels. Your refusal to acknowledge that your personal experience might not reflect the grander scheme of things is the problem.

As for your question, I don't know. I'm sure there is a formula to calculate sales from plays. I'm fairly certain that one playthrough of an album will never count as one purchase, on any streaming service.

 

You didn’t outright say Taylor Swift or Katy Perry don’t have that many fans, but you’re refusing to believe that they do, stating until you meet physical proof you deny that fact. People are just pointing out the logical fallacy in your opinion. Yes, it’s your opinion and you can stand by that, but your reasoning behind it has no relevance.

 

When's that Run the Jewels stadium tour happening?

 

idk based on everyone i talked on this site brand new should be selling more copies than any band ever