HITS 5/20 SPS: Beyonce #1 Sales. Drake #2 SPS.

[areyoureadytojump]

Not great for Trainor

Saturday, May 14, 2016

MEGHAN'S CHART BOW: WHERE WILL SHE LAND?

Meghan Trainor’s new Epic release, Thank You, is targeted for between 70k-80k sales and 100k-120k Sales Plus Streams (SPS). Where that lands in next week’s Top 5, though, remains to be seen.

While Trainor is #1 at Spotify right now (and #3 at iTunes), Drake and Beyonce are likely looking at a one-two finish come Friday.

The wild card this week is Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book, which is streaming exclusively on Apple Music and is not available for sale (though banners for it are dominating the iTunes store at present). Could its streaming numbers—powered by a stream of positive reviews and a boatload of high-profile guest artists—be enough for a Top 5 SPS finish?

[kanimal]

Inexplicable decision to ditch the sound that people (more importantly, music-buying people) clearly liked + not enough time from the last album (it'd be one thing if she got hot at the end of the era and they needed to rush something new, but that isn't the case) + decision to promote abysmal instant grats AND pre-stream an album that stunk = big sales decline.

[Raccoon]

Wow that's almost less than Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez for comparison

[DJ General]

Were people really expecting big numbers from her? I think the label tried to make her be a much bigger star than she is. I think the numbers are right in line with what I thought, granted it is still early. And the sales really aren't that bad by any means either.

[Wave.]

Not bad considering she opened with 195k..before SPS was included right?

[Glove Slap]

May 15, 2016 0:28:23 GMT -5 Wave. said:

Not bad considering she opened with 195k..before SPS was included right?

Yes, Title sold 195k in pure sales and 238k with SPS in its first week.

I'm not sure, but I think it may have been the second biggest first week for a debut album from a female artist this decade after Nicki Minaj.

[jj99$ - - LeLe]

May 15, 2016 0:51:14 GMT -5 Glove Slap said:

May 15, 2016 0:28:23 GMT -5 Wave. said:

Not bad considering she opened with 195k..before SPS was included right?

Yes, Title sold 195k in pure sales and 238k with SPS in its first week.

I'm not sure, but I think it may have been the second biggest first week for a debut album from a female artist this decade after Nicki Minaj.

Thats a lot of qualifiers.

[Love Plastic Love]

I mean, its not terrible, but you can't convince me they wouldn't have wanted or expected more considering her debut more than doubled those sales and that was before she won a Grammy and had a much higher profile.
I do think they made some miscalculations and I wish they had tweaked their approach to this era. Like, I still see a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of what people liked about her last era. However, not a disaster and she should have another good hit or two off of this album.

[kanimal]

I guess I just don't see why "expectations" impact whether it's a good or bad number. It's a good or bad number based on ... whether it's a good or bad number.

If you were expecting this album to do 75,000 copies in its first week, all that means is you were expecting a soft number that was down 60% from her previous opening week.

-- Look at it from the other side. By the time release day arrived, many were expecting Drake's album to sell a million copies in its first week. He ended up falling way short of that expectation by selling 851K. Should we look at 851K as a bad number because it missed that expectation?  No.  We say, "851K!  Nice job, Drake."

[imbondz]

May 15, 2016 3:18:17 GMT -5 jj99$ - - LeLe said:

May 15, 2016 0:51:14 GMT -5 Glove Slap said:

Yes, Title sold 195k in pure sales and 238k with SPS in its first week.

I'm not sure, but I think it may have been the second biggest first week for a debut album from a female artist this decade after Nicki Minaj.

Thats a lot of qualifiers.

lol

[Deleted]

May 15, 2016 19:57:38 GMT -5 kanimal said:

If you were expecting this album to do 75,000 copies in its first week, all that means is you were expecting a soft number that was down 60% from her previous opening week.

-- Look at it from the other side. By the time release day arrived, many were expecting Drake's album to sell a million copies in its first week. He ended up falling way short of that expectation by selling 851K. Should we look at 851K as a bad number because it missed that expectation?  No.  We say, "851K!  Nice job, Drake."

Yeah, I agree with this. It's not even the number in and of itself that is bad, but the drop. It's both steep (50-60% down from Title's opening) and fast (less than 18 months after Title was released, and on the heels of Title's last single). It didn't occur to me until someone posted her Title numbers that we can't even justify it by saying she's affected by the addition of streaming because she is a streaming-era artist. Simply put, something has gone wrong. Bleeding that much interest in such a small time frame should be concerning to anyone, but especially so for a breakthrough act who is looking to secure her place in the industry. And especially so for a label that doesn't have a lot of winners on its roster and really needs to secure themselves a reliable seller. This puts her and Epic in a tough position of deciding whether they should stick with their current strategy, try to switch things up with different single choices and visuals, or just make this a fast era so they can move on and recalibrate for a third album as soon as possible.

In contrast, Views is Drake's highest opening ever - with a delayed physical release, at that - so not many are going to be too worried about him falling short of projections when his brand is not only the strongest it's ever been, but apparently still growing and showing no signs of slowing down.

[Glove Slap]

May 15, 2016 3:18:17 GMT -5 jj99$ - - LeLe said:

May 15, 2016 0:51:14 GMT -5 Glove Slap said:

Yes, Title sold 195k in pure sales and 238k with SPS in its first week.

I'm not sure, but I think it may have been the second biggest first week for a debut album from a female artist this decade after Nicki Minaj.

Thats a lot of qualifiers.

Is it though? Out of all the female acts that came out this decade, she had the biggest entrance behind someone who got to build up their profile first with features. And in January too. By any measure, that was a mighty feat, especially when you add that the sales numbers alone were in the exact range of what Teenage Dream and most of Rihanna's Q4 albums had sold with a slightly stronger market and bigger name recognition. To go from that to such a big decline is clearly a sign that something has fallen out of sync somewhere.

I think the last time an artist declined so fast and hard from a strong entrance to their sophomore was probably Leona Lewis (about 19 months going by the US release of her first album), although Meghan's in a better position since she's had more hits and social media gives them more venues for connection and retention.

One of the smartest things about Title's release was that they waited until January, where she could have more of the spotlight to herself and not get overshadowed by Q4 titans like Taylor Swift and 1D, but the continued success of that project was a positive sign that even if there were bigger names releasing around the same time, she definitely had potential to do well in her own right as well. Clearly, something somewhere was, or wasn't, done to get her to reach it.

Edit: 2 Chainz also declined strongly from the first to the second opening in a period of 13 months.

[DJ General]

May 15, 2016 19:57:38 GMT -5 kanimal said:

I guess I just don't see why "expectations" impact whether it's a good or bad number. It's a good or bad number based on ... whether it's a good or bad number.

If you were expecting this album to do 75,000 copies in its first week, all that means is you were expecting a soft number that was down 60% from her previous opening week.

-- Look at it from the other side. By the time release day arrived, many were expecting Drake's album to sell a million copies in its first week. He ended up falling way short of that expectation by selling 851K. Should we look at 851K as a bad number because it missed that expectation?  No.  We say, "851K!  Nice job, Drake."

Drake sold over a million in the first week. Streaming is included in 2016, it's not something we shy against mentioning. No one should ever say Drake sold 851 in a week, because he didn't. He sold a million.

[kanimal]

May 16, 2016 7:22:53 GMT -5 DJ General said:

May 15, 2016 19:57:38 GMT -5 kanimal said:

I guess I just don't see why "expectations" impact whether it's a good or bad number. It's a good or bad number based on ... whether it's a good or bad number.

If you were expecting this album to do 75,000 copies in its first week, all that means is you were expecting a soft number that was down 60% from her previous opening week.

-- Look at it from the other side. By the time release day arrived, many were expecting Drake's album to sell a million copies in its first week. He ended up falling way short of that expectation by selling 851K. Should we look at 851K as a bad number because it missed that expectation?  No.  We say, "851K!  Nice job, Drake."

Drake sold over a million in the first week. Streaming is included in 2016, it's not something we shy against mentioning. No one should ever say Drake sold 851 in a week, because he didn't. He sold a million.

A)  He very literally did not sell one million albums in his first week.  He generated over a million in consumption units, but he only sold 851K.  Billboard, which introduced this new methodology, is always very careful to distinguish between album sales and album equivalent units.  It has a Billboard 200 "albums chart" and a Billboard Top Album Sales sales chart.

The point of the new methodology is not that track streams ARE sales (because, again, they're very literally not).  It's that they're an equivalent means of consumption.  It's that album sales are not the only form of consumption that matters.

That said, Views has quickly sold more than a million copies (1.03 million) in just two weeks' time, and it is the first album released in 2016 to surpass 1 million copies sold. www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7370541/drake-views-no-1-billboard-200-radiohead

B )  But regardless of this battle of semantics, the million projection I referenced was in regard to pure album sales.  I saw higher projections for overall consumption, including a 1.2 million figure from Hits *after* the album had already come out.

I'm sure people were expecting Meghan Trainor to sell something like 75K copies this week.  That has nothing to do with whether or not the actual number is good or bad; it just means that the actual number isn't a surprise.

Suppose Meghan were to end up selling 95K (since the one-day projections haven't been as accurate in the new tracking week).  She'd beat expectations.  It's still be a soft number, because it's down from the 195K she did just over a year ago -- in the same type of market climate, sans a Grammy and an established profile.

[DJ General]

I know Drake sold over a million in a week, and that's all that matters

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Smh

[areyoureadytojump]

hitsdailydouble.com/news&id=301119

Monday, May 16, 2016

ANOTHER BATTLE FOR #1

There’s plenty more chart drama this week—it now looks like Drake and Beyoncé will battle for #1 in sales, with each headed to around 85k on our sales chart. Meghan Trainor’s sophomore release, Thank You, should land at #3 with between 73-78k. Meanwhile, Drake will remain on top of our SPS chart with a total likely approaching 200k. Indie rapper Chance The Rapper’s star-studded mixtape, Coloring Book, will debut with an album equivalent of 40-50k, enough for a Top 10 bow, on the wings of a splashy Apple exclusive. This is the first time an album has charted with only streaming numbers.

Meghan Trainor (Epic) 73-78k album, 95-100k SPS
Chance The Rapper (Chance the Rapper) 40-50k (SPS only)
Pierce The Veil (Fearless) 40-45k, 45-50k
Jennifer Nettles (Big Machine) 25-28k, 28-32k
Kygo (Ultra/RCA) 14-17k, 24-27k

[yuh yuh]

Numbers for Meghan are surprisingly very low..

[when the pawn...]

40-50k on Apple Music streaming for Chance the Rapper. What do we think he would have done if Coloring Book was available for sale (even if just on iTunes) and was on Spotify and Tidal?

[DJ General]

Is it NEVER going elsewhere? Or is this just a pre-release?

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Meghan's problem was the material. It sucks. Title was full of potential singles; you can listen to Thank You in it's entirety and not find one decent single on it.

And poor Jennifer Nettles just can't seem to catch on as a solo artist

[areyoureadytojump]

hitsdailydouble.com/news&id=301146

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

TOP 15: DRAKE AND BEY BATTLE IT OUT

Beyoncé and Drake remain locked in tight race for #1 on our sales chart this week. While it's still too close to call, we're giving the album-chart edge to Beyoncé for now. Drake easily remains #1 for a third week on our SPS chart.

As for this week's debuts, Epic's Meghan Trainor will likely land at #3 on both charts while Pierce The Veil (Fearless) will debut Top 5. In a chart first, Chance The Rapper's third self-released set, the star-studded mixtape Coloring Book, will make a Top 10 bow with an album equivalent of around 35k based solely on streams. The Apple Music exclusive is projected to rack up around 50m song streams by Thursday night, when the current chart period closes. Here's how it looks at midweek.

SALES

Beyoncé (Columbia) 85-95k
Drake (YMCMB/Republic) 80-90k
*Meghan Trainor (Epic) 77-82k
*Pierce the Veil (Fearless) 48-53k
Prince (Warner Bros.) 38-42k
Keith Urban (Capitol Nashville) 36-40k
Radiohead (XL) 31-35k
*Jennifer Nettles (Big Machine) 27-31k
Prince – Purple Rain (Warner Bros.) 23-26k
Cole Swindell (Warner Bros. Nashville) 22-25k
Chris Stapleton (Mercury Nashville) 22-25k
Now 58 (NOW) 20-23k
Adele (XL/Columbia) 18-21k
Kygo (Ultra) 15-18k
Hamilton (Uptown) 14-17k

SPS

Drake (YMCMB/Republic) 175-185k
Beyoncé (Columbia) 120-130k
*Meghan Trainor (Epic) 98-103k
Prince (Warner Bros.) 50-54k
*Pierce the Veil (Fearless) 50-54k
Keith Urban (Capitol Nashville) 44-48k
Rihanna (Westbury Road/Roc Nation) 43-47k
Radiohead (XL) 37-41k
*Chance the Rapper (Chance the Rapper) 32-37k
*Jennifer Nettles (Big Machine) 32-36k
Cole Swindell (Warner Bros. Nashville) 29-32k
Chris Stapleton (Mercury Nashville) 27-30k
Kygo (Ultra) 25-28k
Hamilton (Uptown) 25-28k
Adele (XL/Columbia) 24-27k

*DEBUTS

[jj99$ - - LeLe]

Yess Bey.

I hope she finally decides to at least embrace Apple Music in a few weeks.

Streams from Tidal have dropped considerably as expected.

[when the pawn...]

At least put "Formation" and "Sorry" on Spotify...

But yes, great sales for her. There isn't really too much dropoff from Beyonce, considering the change in climate since 2013 and putting Lemonade out in April instead of December. Right? Hopefully "Sorry," "Hold Up," "Freedom," and "All Night" keep it going. Perhaps putting some individual videos out on YouTube?

[cjay]

Looks like LA Reid and Epic were wrong again! Megan should have kept her sound and just updated it. While No did well, the first single should have been something familiar to her base. Then No as the second single.

[jenglisbe]

May 17, 2016 17:32:00 GMT -5 jj99$ - - LeLe said:

Yess Bey.

I hope she finally decides to at least embrace Apple Music in a few weeks.

Streams from Tidal have dropped considerably as expected.

The lack of availability for streaming could be helping her hard sales, though.

[Daryl the Beryl]

Hamilton still holding strong!

[DJ General]

Keith doing great. Rihanna amazing as always. Epic

[Enigma.]

Still brilliant #'s for Prince

[DJ General]

Anyone expecting 200+ for Ariana?