52/25 and 20/50 Rule Discussion and Impact on Hot 100

[Mike is BAD]

Stop talking about this on the Hot 100 thread. This is the thread.

[Gary]

Please don't encourage this. Discussing this daily for 5 months not enough for you guys? We learn anything new yet? Now we need a new thread?

[Deleted]

May 10, 2016 5:58:53 GMT -5 Mike is BAD said:

Stop talking about this on the Hot 100 thread. This is the thread.

YES!  This is what I like to see.

I've admittedly been fairly outspoken about discouraging repeated discussion of recurring subtopics in the weekly H100 threads.  However, I would never discourage anyone from talking about whatever it is they want to talk about... as long it's done in a proper place and not distracting from another thread's subject matter.  While I personally may not understand the need to keep discussing certain topics, that's just me, and everyone has different topical interests.  This separate thread topic allows me to choose if I'd like to join the discussion or not. There are hundreds of threads on this forum with topics that don't interest me... so I don't join in. No harm, no foul.

Nobody should let anyone else discourage or try and control the topics we can discuss in a public forum. As long as we stay on topic - and know when to create a new topic like this - and it's all good. Certainly if there's an issue, it should be reported and handled appropriately by the mods.

Cheers!

[Deleted]

It's a necessary rule.

[Zach]

It's a rule with frustrates me a bit now but I have a feeling its necessity will become more clear to everyone in the future.

[Deleted]

May 10, 2016 12:32:41 GMT -5 Zach said:

It's a rule with frustrates me a bit now but I have a feeling its necessity will become more clear to everyone in the future.

I think the bottom line is it is meant to be a weekly snapshot where anything can happen, rather than a clean page in a book of chart runs.  It's intended to be "of the moment" rather than an "ongoing story."  If that makes sense.  Longevity records are fun and impressive and worthy of acknowledgement when they happen - but they aren't something that the H100 is intended to support.

[Gary]

As we have seen the IMPACT to the Hot 100 itself is negligible. They have shown the desire to keep the top portion of the chart, pure. So the top 25, is the ACTUAL top 25.

Only 4-5 songs each year even hit 52 weeks to begin with. Out of the hundreds and hundreds of songs to chart each year that is a very small percentage.

[MTSChart21]

The rule itself is complete bullshit and screws over song longevity. Songs below 25 (like #26 for example) can be pretty popular still (like UF has been), but lower than 50 isn't that popular so I understand the 20/50

[Gary]

Hot 100 is a weekly chart. Not a longevity chart. Most popular in a week is what you get. UF is still represented on the recurrent chart.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

There are reasonable pros and cons to having a recurrent rule and not having one. It comes down to personal preference and there is no right or wrong. But to affirm to what Gary said, yes, the hot 100, or any chart really, is meant to represent a snapshot of a specific period in time. Consecutive charts are back to back snapshots that simply compare weeks to each other. Once people let that sink in, continued discussion of everything else should, in theory, flow better.

[Hot AC Archiver]

I have stated this before, but I would love for them to publish a separate chart with no recurrent rule and call it something like Top Comprehensive Songs Chart (like the Top Comprehensive Albums chart was before it became the current Billboard 200). I wouldn't think it would take too much effort, especially if it was just an online chart.

[Gary]

As we have discussed this every day for the last six months, we can answer the thread question with actual data. What impact has the recurrent rule had on the Hot 100?

4 songs were removed from the chart due to the recurrent rule

Thinking Out Loud
Trap Queen
Shut Up and Dance
Uptown Funk


That's it - four in six months. If we look at the current chart possibly Stitches could be a 5th. I would say the impact on the Hot 100 is virtually nothing.


I also get that is not what everyone is worried about. The real concern is not the accuracy of the weekly popularity chart.


I get that its cool to see songs sitting on the Hot 100 for 97 weeks or whatever and track Billboard's projection of decade and all-time threads that we have here and OMG Uptown Funk! is being treated unfairly now in all those prediction threads. However, I will bet that the next time Billboard updates their all-time Hot 100, they will make adjustments for songs affected by this rule.  

This rule is here to stay and it is not going away anytime soon.

[badrobot]

I don't see even remotely the appeal of having songs on the chart for a year plus. Boring as hell.

I would not mind 2 charts though. Make it "Hot 100 Singles" again and exclude all the album cuts, keep the recurrent rules AND make old songs ineligible. Then create a separate comprehensive songs chart as mentioned where there are no rules other than a points requirement.

To exclude album cuts, they could perhaps have an airplay requirement or some other indicator that differentiates singles.

[Sherane Lamar]

May 10, 2016 22:05:43 GMT -5 badrobot said:

I don't see even remotely the appeal of having songs on the chart for a year plus. Boring as hell.

The appeal is that it would be an accurate assessment of the top 100 most popular songs in the US.

The recurrent rule is the biggest problem with the Hot 100 at the moment. It's the biggest obstacle between having a chart that shows the top 100 most popular songs in the US, and a chart that almost does that.

I see no upside to the rule other than people who get "bored" of a song being around for a long time. We can have a lot of fun with the charts but I don't think the chart was ever meant to be an entertaining TV show. I think it was meant to be a measurement tool for the most popular songs in the US (sorry if I sound like a broken record.)

If we did away with both rules (which I think we eventually should), we might have some over the top longevity, and maybe a smaller than before number of songs that enter the chart each year and each week. But ultimately, we'd also have a more accurate list, which I think should be the goal, first and foremost. 


Another aspect of this rule that I rarely see discussed is that when somebody like Drake, Prince or Beyonce did what they did in these last two weeks, spawning a large set of songs in the upper half of the chart, it sweeps out a bunch of popular songs in the 40-50 range rather than sweeping out a bunch of less popular songs in the 80-100 range. Now how is that fair? Killing off songs in the 40-50 range in order to spare songs in the 80-90 range? That's essentially what the rule does in this case.

[Sherane Lamar]

May 10, 2016 22:05:43 GMT -5 badrobot said:

I would not mind 2 charts though. Make it "Hot 100 Singles" again and exclude all the album cuts, keep the recurrent rules AND make old songs ineligible. Then create a separate comprehensive songs chart as mentioned where there are no rules other than a points requirement.

That would be cool. But the Singles chart should be called "Billboard Singles Chart" and the Hot 100 without recurrent rules should be the Hot 100. 

The reason being is that the Hot 100 has a 60 year legacy of existence. The difference between a "single" and an album cut is largely arbitrary in this era and will continue to become more arbitrary as streaming slowly takes over radio and sales. The difference between the Singles chart and a comprehensive Hot 100 would mostly appear to be it's random exclusion of certain songs. 

In these days, popular, semi-long running songs can be non singles. Such as Feeling Myself by Nicki Minaj. I'm sure if I dug further and kept Wikipediaing popular songs I could find more examples of popular, long running non singles on the charts.

[badrobot]

The recurrent rule is the greatest asset the Hot 100 has today. It helps make room for new and emerging songs and artists to get attention, publicity, and traction.

[Sherane Lamar]

Wouldn't it be pretty easy for somebody here to make a sample Hot 100 without recurrent rule? Like estimate where songs like Trap Queen and Shut Up And Dance would be right now?

I mean, it's nice that artists like.. say... A$AP Ferg, can make it to the Hot 100, and otherwise never would.

But has A$AP Ferg ever really truly had a song within the top 100 most popular songs of the week? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Personally, I value accuracy over entertainment when it comes to the Hot 100.

[Hot AC Archiver]

I really hated the Hot 100's first recurrent rule, when songs were removed from below #20 after 20 weeks. Luckily that didn't last long. I also don't like recurrent rules that remove songs based on point (spin) losses rather than position/weeks on chart.

However, what won me over for some recurrent rules, was what happened on Billboard's AC chart. Savage Garden's "Truly Madly Deeply" spent 123 weeks on that chart, and their "I Knew I Loved You" spent 124 weeks on. Now that's nuts.

[Mike is BAD]

Thread is now 52/25 and 20/50.

[Juanca]

I think the problem was more the weighing of streaming/sales... Likely several of the songs with over a year in the chart would've left the chart thanks to the recalibration for each hot 100 component if that had been established first before the new 52/25 rule.

[jarhys]

The only thing I'm mad about is Uptown Funk could get higher place on both Decade-End and All-Time chart with extra weeks.
It is so close to beat out Party Rock Anthem.

[Mike is BAD]

May 12, 2016 5:15:03 GMT -5 jarhys said:

The only thing I'm mad about is Uptown Funk could get higher place on both Decade-End and All-Time chart with extra weeks.
It is so close to beat out Party Rock Anthem.

Unless it miraculously re-enters in the Top 25 because of random reasons, like My Boo. And I think something will beat out PRA by 2020. We have 3 1/2 years, take your time.

[Zach]

May 12, 2016 5:15:03 GMT -5 jarhys said:

The only thing I'm mad about is Uptown Funk could get higher place on both Decade-End and All-Time chart with extra weeks.
It is so close to beat out Party Rock Anthem.

I'll wait to see if Billboard will find a way to compensate for cutting Uptown Funk's run short on decade-end and all-time charts.

[Mike is BAD]

If the 52/25 rule never existed, Uptown Funk! would still be in the Top 40 and would've booked a spot on the 2016 Year End chart. Maybe even get past something like "How Do I Live", and crazily even "Mack The Knife"! "The Twist" and "Smooth" would be unlikely. Though it would be awesome! And "Hello" would be in the Top 55 of not for the stupid 20/50 rule. I hope 20/50 doesn't effect "Panda". It's a good song!

[ctquartzsongbird]

don't forget single are usually released every 3/4 months and some singles chart on multiple singles charts like Country Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary and their related airplay/singles sales charts

[Gary]

May 13, 2016 20:29:28 GMT -5 Mike is BAD said:

If the 52/25 rule never existed, Uptown Funk! would still be in the Top 40 and would've booked a spot on the 2016 Year End chart. Maybe even get past something like "How Do I Live", and crazily even "Mack The Knife"! "The Twist" and "Smooth" would be unlikely.

Ahh! We hit the actual reason why people still talk about this rule 6 months later.

Uptown Funk dipped to #4 on the recurrent chart and below songs that are also out of the top 50, so Uptown Funk would be gone regardless.

Why wouldn't Billboard make an adjustment for songs impacted by this rule on their time chart?    They have made adjustments for other songs across eras, there is no reason to think that they would not do it again.

I think people here are upset not because of this rule or because of its impact on the weekly Hot 100 but because those who are tracking this with their own point system and personal charts don't know what adjustment Billboard will make for this until they publish another update to t his chart.

Let's keep in mind Uptown Funk did have one week as a re-entry after this rule change which will make the adjustment a bigger one yet.

Uptown Funk will be fine.  We will have to wait for another update from them to figure out how this will be handled on the "all  time" chart

Or perhaps someone could e-mail to find out, then we could put this issue to rest?

[Sherane Lamar]

Kevin Gates is too G to play by these lame rules.

[Mike is BAD]

Gary, the UF re-entry was because of the Grammys and it was above #25 so yeah it was totally allowed.

[Gary]

May 17, 2016 6:39:13 GMT -5 Mike is BAD said:

Gary , the UF re-entry was because of the Grammys and it was above #25 so yeah it was totally allowed.

Which will add to its all-time totals on the next refresh of the all-time chart and make the adjustment that Billboard will make, a slightly bigger one.