Billboard Hot 100: 08/29/15 (#MESS)

[THINKIN BOUT YOU]

#1 of digital song this week is 119,000, the last time top seller's sale was lower than that was 2/24/2007 when Fallout Boy holds #1 with about 101,000 units sold. 8 and a half years and it's like an unprecedented depression for sales

[Enigma.]

Billboard get the info from Soundscan. They got the wrong info. I bet they realised there was something wrong pretty soon, BUT made a mistake by announcing that Lana was #7. Otherwise, Billboard hasn't really done any mistakes here. What they could do after is to contact Soundscan and try to solve the wrong information which wasn't their fault in the first place. Hence the delay of charts.

They were also probably double checking the album chart which explains why they didn't publish that either.

[forg]

That is a major mistake. Billboard should be more keen with this stuff instead of posting articles like intriguing tweets / favorited tweets from artists

[Enigma.]

Has there been any big confusion outside the chart bubble we live in?

I know OCC had an article about Lana being #7

[wjr15]

Someone at Billboard is getting fired this week...

[felipe]

Aug 18, 2015 17:00:41 GMT -5 renfield75 said:

And if they didn't catch an error that big, or if Neilsen didn't, then what smaller mistakes have gotten through?

My thoughts exactly.

[ry4n]

Aug 19, 2015 6:25:15 GMT -5 Enigma. said:

Has there been any big confusion outside the chart bubble we live in?

I know OCC had an article about Lana being #7

The OCC recently ran an entire chart with Spotify data missing. But instead of re-publishing the charts, they decided to act like there was no error...

[HolidayGuy]

It was a bad mistake, but let's keep some perspective- it's a popularity chart. It's not like a doctor making a mistake during an operation and, as result, a patient dies. It hardly warrants an employee dismissal.

[Clauss]

Aug 19, 2015 9:27:43 GMT -5 HolidayGuy said:

It was a bad mistake, but let's keep some perspective- it's a popularity chart. It's not like a doctor making a mistake during an operation and, as result, a patient dies. It hardly warrants an employee dismissal.

This. They make mistakes, this one was a bad one but nothing really terrible happen. Move on! I'm sure BB will check twice the charts now after this incident

[allow that]

I think it's time to find a new "official charts" company. Billboard continues to prove its inabilities.

[Clauss]

Aug 19, 2015 9:42:15 GMT -5 allow that said:

I think it's time to find a new "official charts" company. Billboard continues to prove its inabilities.

Let's open as Pulse a Fund Me, and make ours 

[areyoureadytojump]

I don't think it's a secret that Billboard employees are overworked and underpaid.

Silvio wrote an article how it's a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week job.

With the switch to a Friday album release date, they all have to work weekends now.

[Caviar]

Aug 19, 2015 9:40:01 GMT -5 Clauss said:

Aug 19, 2015 9:27:43 GMT -5 HolidayGuy said:

It was a bad mistake, but let's keep some perspective- it's a popularity chart. It's not like a doctor making a mistake during an operation and, as result, a patient dies. It hardly warrants an employee dismissal.

This. They make mistakes, this one was a bad one but nothing really terrible happen. Move on! I'm sure BB will check twice the charts now after this incident

This error is nothing to "gloss over". They overstated sales by 200k copies!?! Do you think people at Billboard are going to sweep this under the rug and move on? They've finally been caught with their pants around their ankles that will inevitably question their chart methodology in the future. As previously stated what errors were made in the past that the public isn't aware about. That's the real issue here.

[Enigma.]

THEY didn't do it, SS did, Billboard just published an article without questioning that number. No one's getting fired.

[badrobot]

I'm pretty sure Nielsen Soundscan and Billboard are all owned by the same company, btw.

Anyway, it's not the end of the world, but it does call into question data collection. They'd be smart if they posted a more thorough explanation of what went wrong and how they are going to avoid that happening again. Better to address it head on than sweep it under the rug.

They're hard working people who wouldn't do this job if they didn't love the charts. Who knows, someone could've been on vacation and an intern could've fucked up.

[Ravi]

Approximate Points this week:

Rank	Song	Sales	Airplay	Streams	Points
1	Cheerleader	119	149	16.3	42,900
2	Can't Feel My Face	119	158	13.8	41,100
3	Watch Me	88	50	21.2	35,900
4	Lean On	89	108	11.0	30,400
5	The Hills	75	30	13.3	24,000
6	Fight Song	80	95	7.0	24,000
7	Trap Queen	40	32	15.0	23,200
8	My Way	55	52	11.5	22,600
9	Bad Blood	50	123	5.5	22,600
10	Good For You	70	70	8.0	21,700
11	See You Again	35	82	9.5	21,700
12	Where Are U Now	45	75	9.0	21,200
13	679	60	21	12.0	20,400
14	Shut Up + Dance	40	104	6.0	20,400
15	Photograph	50	87	5.0	18,400
16	Cool For The Summer	55	67	6.0	18,000
17	Uptown Funk!	35	56	8.5	18,000
18	Worth It	40	68	6.5	17,400

[renfield75]

Aug 18, 2015 20:57:20 GMT -5 jebsib said:

It was worse in the pre internet days when dead songs flew up the chart without explanation or #1 songs dropped to #15 three weeks running (see 1974)...

I'm always fascinated by the mid-70s to early-80s era. The stories of payola and chart manipulation by chart manager Bill Wardlow are legendary. Twice in 1978 a song was reported as being #1 (Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" and Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway's "The Closer I Get To You") and both times the chart was retracted and a song on RSO (Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing" and Yvonne Elliman's "If I Can't hHave You", respectively) was revealed as being #1 instead. There are many stories of RSO paying Wardlow off and taking him on luxury vacations to make sure their records hit #1 (especially the Elliman song, which established several crucial records for RSO at the time). Wardlow was eventually fired by Billboard in April 1983.

[#LisaRinna]

Can anyone post the full R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart? Thanks in advance!

[Enigma.]

Regarding the mess, I don't understand why Billboard has to hurry with the articles on Sunday anyway. There have been several errors in album chart news in recent week and now this.. What are they winning, who has decided they must release the news on Sunday when they have been able to correct the errors by Tuesday?

[badrobot]

^Maybe they'll wait longer going forward.

[felipe]

Aug 19, 2015 2:59:07 GMT -5 Enigma. said:

Billboard get the info from Soundscan. They got the wrong info. I bet they realised there was something wrong pretty soon, BUT made a mistake by announcing that Lana was #7. Otherwise, Billboard hasn't really done any mistakes here. What they could do after is to contact Soundscan and try to solve the wrong information which wasn't their fault in the first place. Hence the delay of charts.

They were also probably double checking the album chart which explains why they didn't publish that either.

How can Billboard double check if Soundscan is the one who provides the figures? Is they got the wrong figures to begin with, they can triple check and still come up with wrong results.

Has there been any explanation on the mistake? Have they addressed Soundscan's mess up?

[prenatt1166]

some interesting (or not) chart trivia this week...

I just posted this information in another forum a couple weeks ago, but with the Hot 100 readjusted this week, the Zac Brown Band were able to move up to #40 with "Loving You Easy", giving them the most top 40 hits by a group without reaching the top ten.

(# of top 40 hits, artist, highest charting hit, peak and year)

24 Kenny Chesney "Our Last Night" (#16, 2009)
17 Brad Paisley "Remind Me" (#17, 2011)
16 Keith Urban "Kiss A Girl" (#16, 2009)
16 Toby Keith "Red Solo Cup" (#15, 2012)
14 Blake Shelton "Boys 'Round Here" (#12, 2013)
13 Luke Bryan "That's My Kind Of Music" (#15, 2013) and "Play It Again (#15, 2014)
12 Alan Jackson "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" (#17, 2003)
11 George Strait "She'll Leave You With A Smile" (#23, 2002)
11 Ronnie Dove "Right Or Wrong" (#14, 1964) and "One Kiss For Old Time's Sake" (#14, 1965)
11 Zac Brown Band "Toes" (#18, 2011)

[timmierz]

Is that list just for country musicians or is that overall? It's amazing if the ten artists with the most top 40s without top 10s are all country artists.

[felipe]

Aug 19, 2015 9:27:43 GMT -5 HolidayGuy said:

It was a bad mistake, but let's keep some perspective- it's a popularity chart. It's not like a doctor making a mistake during an operation and, as result, a patient dies. It hardly warrants an employee dismissal.

If you make a mistake that calls your company's credibility into question, that can likely lead to dismissal, right? Music charts can be quite insignificant, but for a company whose main purpose is to provide them, it's quite a big deal.

[prenatt1166]

Aug 19, 2015 14:47:31 GMT -5 timmierz said:

Is that list just for country musicians or is that overall? It's amazing if the ten artists with the most top 40s without top 10s are all country artists.

It's includes all acts on the Hot 100 since 1958.

[allow that]

Aug 19, 2015 14:27:09 GMT -5 badrobot said:

^Maybe they'll wait longer going forward.

They already wait long enough. We now have the same tracking week as the UK, where the charts are unveiled on Friday. Billboard has plenty of time to get it right.

[Verisimilitude]

Aug 19, 2015 14:55:48 GMT -5 allow that said:

Aug 19, 2015 14:27:09 GMT -5 badrobot said:

^Maybe they'll wait longer going forward.

They already wait long enough. We now have the same tracking week as the UK, where the charts are unveiled on Friday. Billboard has plenty of time to get it right.

Dropping the airplay component would be the best solution to have our charts come out on Friday.

[allow that]

Aug 19, 2015 15:17:19 GMT -5 Verisimilitude said:

Aug 19, 2015 14:55:48 GMT -5 allow that said:

They already wait long enough. We now have the same tracking week as the UK, where the charts are unveiled on Friday. Billboard has plenty of time to get it right.

Dropping the airplay component would be the best solution to have our charts come out on Friday.

Or matching its timetable to the other two components, but why do anything that makes sense?

[kanimal]

Aug 19, 2015 14:44:57 GMT -5 felipe said:

Aug 19, 2015 2:59:07 GMT -5 Enigma. said:

Billboard get the info from Soundscan. They got the wrong info. I bet they realised there was something wrong pretty soon, BUT made a mistake by announcing that Lana was #7. Otherwise, Billboard hasn't really done any mistakes here. What they could do after is to contact Soundscan and try to solve the wrong information which wasn't their fault in the first place. Hence the delay of charts.

They were also probably double checking the album chart which explains why they didn't publish that either.

How can Billboard double check if Soundscan is the one who provides the figures? Is they got the wrong figures to begin with, they can triple check and still come up with wrong results.

Has there been any explanation on the mistake? Have they addressed Soundscan's mess up?

Since Billboard's sales data is exclusively driven by Nielsen, you're right, they can't issue "corrected" data until they get it from Nielsen.

The gripe is related to the fact that Billboard actually reported that dubious 248K figure (and used it in chart calculations).  It's problematic due to some combination of the following:

1)  Why didn't they notice the likely mistake earlier (and alert Nielsen to assess the data)?  How did that number not immediately raise a red flag?

2)  Even if they trusted the validity of Nielsen's data, their independent tracking (I sure hope they're doing SOME sort of day-by-day tracking of key music metrics) + all the reader comments on the article confirmed that the number was unintuitive/unexpected.  To not inquire -- and look into whether the song did unusually well at Amazon or Google or something -- is lazy, irresponsible reporting. Trust reported the number as if there was nothing remotely surprising about it.

Consider, for instance, how preposterous it'll be if Billboard reports this week's huge "x" sales figure and doesn't acknowledge the $0.99 sale on Google Play.

3)  If they DID suspect the number of being errant and immediately report that to Nielsen (frankly, I'd hope the Billboard team had enough of a clue to to do so), why would they post it anyway (especially without fine print)?  They had no trouble delaying their entire set of charts by 24 hours -- surely they didn't need to rush-publish the Top 10 analysis/recap article?

[thebops]

Aug 19, 2015 14:47:31 GMT -5 timmierz said:

Is that list just for country musicians or is that overall? It's amazing if the ten artists with the most top 40s without top 10s are all country artists.

It's not really surprising. Prior to 1998 or so the Hot 100 didn't include radio airplay from all genres. Country songs prior to then didn't chart often on the Hot 100. With the current methodology, a #1 Country hit has enough overall points to usually make it inside the Top 40 on the Hot 100 but very rarely makes it in to the Top 10 (and never at all unless it gets crossover airplay or just happens to sell extremely well). So the country artists on that list are a product of the chart methodology.

The only entry that isn't a product of the methodology is Ronnie Dove.