Billboard Hot 100 : 11/01/2014

[badrobot]

The margin between 2 and 3 has been pretty wide for awhile. Almost no chance that Bang Bang or Black Widow will climb past #3.

[kanimal]

To My Readers: I’ll have another Chart Watch column drawn from the Hot 100 later today.

Is he blowing this off again?

[Joe1240]

#18 Debut for "Out Of The Woods" low for a Taylor countdown track. Usually they end up top 10 on the charts in the past. I guess it won't be that well for "Welcome To New York" then.

[Enigma.]

Am I the only one who feels SICK everytime when media tries to make chart news a gender issue. This is 2014 for god's sake! Where's the equality!!! There are less women in the business yes but most of them are way more successful than men so it's not NEWS that they do well on charts.

Saying "Exceptional that top 5 are women" is like saying "good for those ladies who manage to survive but hey it's not normal". SO TWISTED!

(sorry)

[kanimal]

Oct 22, 2014 23:43:32 GMT -5 Joe1240 said:

#18 Debut for "Out Of The Woods" low for a Taylor countdown track. Usually they end up top 10 on the charts in the past. I guess it won't be that well for "Welcome To New York" then.

As noted, the low debut is a result of pre-order instant gratification downloads no longer be included in the calculation.  Only the $1.29 single buys were included.

Under the old system, its weekly sales total would have been over 300,000, and it would have likely debuted better than most, if not all, of her previous promo singles due tot he weaker competition in today's market.

Am I the only one who feels SICK everytime when media tries to make chart news a gender issue. This is 2014 for god's sake! Where's the equality!!! There are less women in the business yes but most of them are way more successful than men so it's not NEWS that they do well on charts.



Saying "Exceptional that top 5 are women" is like saying "good for those ladies who manage to survive but hey it's not normal". SO TWISTED!



(sorry)

I actually took it the other way -- as a question regarding why there don't seem to be any male artists doing special right now.  But I see your point.

However, getting worked up over a Billboard "record" isn't worth it.  They focus on the cheesiest, most trivial things ever to jazz up the chart copy.  I don't see why I'm supposed to care about Meghan Trainor tying a record for her *Epic Records.*  Especially since the number of weeks in that tie is equivalent to what another artist (albeit not an Epic one) racked up a few months ago.

Even worse, Billboard actually makes a point to say that Trainor is tied for the longest reign for a female artist in 2014 -- as if you'd expect more than two or three females to spend 7 weeks or more atop the Hot 100 in a calendar year.

[Enigma.]

Oct 23, 2014 3:08:01 GMT -5 kanimal said:

Even worse, Billboard actually makes a point to say that Trainor is tied for the longest reign for a female artist in 2014 -- as if you'd expect more than two or three females to spend 7 weeks or more atop the Hot 100 in a calendar year.

THIS

[jebsib]

So, did they really redesign the online Hot 100 this morning? Looks the same to me.

[when the pawn...]

Oct 23, 2014 3:27:43 GMT -5 Enigma. said:

Oct 23, 2014 3:08:01 GMT -5 kanimal said:

Even worse, Billboard actually makes a point to say that Trainor is tied for the longest reign for a female artist in 2014 -- as if you'd expect more than two or three females to spend 7 weeks or more atop the Hot 100 in a calendar year.

THIS

I actually didn't think this was weird. They always point out (often meaningless) records/achievements/chart facts based on gender, genre, location, etc. The fact that the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 has been exclusively female for 7 weeks IS worth noting, no? Not because it provides some revelation that women can actually succeed in music but because it's rare and a fun, nerdy, chart feat.

The only reason I think it's dumb to point out the Megan-Iggy-Lorde fact is that the description doesn't make it sound all that impressive. AATB is the longest running female #1 since...a couple months ago? And you'd have to go back all the way to...last Fall to find a female track that dominated longer. Not all that big. But I didn't read it as sexist. They'd do the same thing if a rock band, rapper, male solo artist, etc. was at #1 or blocking the top 5. Just my take.

[kanimal]

Oct 23, 2014 11:25:12 GMT -5 when the pawn... said:

Oct 23, 2014 3:27:43 GMT -5 Enigma. said:

THIS

I actually didn't think this was weird. They always point out (often meaningless) records/achievements/chart facts based on gender, genre, location, etc. The fact that the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 has been exclusively female for 7 weeks IS worth noting, no? Not because it provides some revelation that women can actually succeed in music but because it's rare and a fun, nerdy, chart feat.

The only reason I think it's dumb to point out the Megan-Iggy-Lorde fact is that the description doesn't make it sound all that impressive. AATB is the longest running female #1 since...a couple months ago? And you'd have to go back all the way to...last Fall to find a female track that dominated longer. Not all that big. But I didn't read it as sexist. They'd do the same thing if a rock band, rapper, male solo artist, etc. was at #1 or blocking the top 5. Just my take.

But that was my exact point...that's what I was saying is so lame about the Billboard write-up.

[when the pawn...]

And even further, it's just not that impressive (relative to these records), female or not. Spending 7 weeks atop the Hot 100 isn't so rare in the last few years (All About That Bass, Fancy, Happy, Royals, Blurred Lines, Thrift Shop, One More Night, Call Me Maybe, Somebody That I Used to Know).

[timmierz]

Oct 23, 2014 10:56:59 GMT -5 jebsib said:

So, did they really redesign the online Hot 100 this morning? Looks the same to me.

They just now put up an article about the redesign. And it's... better than expected! You can see a lot more at once, and it looks pretty nice. (You can't see peak and last week info until scrolling over. Not sure how it looks on mobile.) I'm looking forward to this change being applied to the other charts!

[rimetm]

Cool thing is now there's every song for the previous charts. For example I could start binging on 2013 charts here. The only problem is that week widget that let you jump years and months is gone for now, so hope you can figure which days actually have URLs! Then again, you can guess with the Birthday function, then you can move from there to whichever chart you meant since you'll be within 1 week.

[josh]

The full chart on 1 page, loading in basically the same amount of time (not sure if it may be a little faster or slower) is great. It was wayyyyyyyyyy too slow before trying to get the full chart to load...

[kanimal]

Oct 23, 2014 14:17:33 GMT -5 timmierz said:

Oct 23, 2014 10:56:59 GMT -5 jebsib said:

So, did they really redesign the online Hot 100 this morning? Looks the same to me.

They just now put up an article about the redesign. And it's... better than expected! You can see a lot more at once, and it looks pretty nice. (You can't see peak and last week info until scrolling over. Not sure how it looks on mobile.) I'm looking forward to this change being applied to the other charts!

Surprised they made this change - Billboard has been all about tabloid clickbait and page views lately, so it's nice that they added user-friendly functionality at the expense of page views.

[divasummer]

Oct 22, 2014 17:31:08 GMT -5 kanimal said:

Oct 22, 2014 15:10:31 GMT -5 Verisimilitude said:

I'm not sure I like the fact that the #1 selling song is only #18 on the Hot 100. Radio's power more than anything should diminish a bit.

But I feel like I often hear/see the opposite argument:  people hate that sales mean enough that an instant gratification track with no legitimate footprint in the market (no radio, little streaming) can debut well on the Hot 100.

I don't recall anyone loving that the Glee songs used to chart well.  Or that the American Idol winner was once basically guaranteed a #1 based on sales.

I never personally cared that the Glee songs appeared on the chart due to sales and barely any airplay if any.
What was annoying to me is that they were allowed to compete with records held by Elvis, Aretha, Dionne etc of artists having the most charting hits on the Hot 100.