Billboard Hot 100: 3/17/2018

[Gary]

yep, the #1 placement, if it holds will likely not even amount to 50K in sales

[annoymous1]

Does No Excuses not have any airplay right now ?

[jenglisbe]

Mar 8, 2018 9:42:25 GMT -5 @mello said:

Mar 7, 2018 13:56:50 GMT -5 85la said:

Something like that, or I think they update it at least every hour.

It's shocking to see that though Meghan is #1 on iTunes and starting to receive solid airplay, she's not in the Spotify top 200. I guess she's exactly the type of artist that doesn't do well there at all!

Not to take away from the glory of being #1 on iTunes, but it's really not a big feat anymore, especially if you're not WAY ahead of #2.  Even then, the end result is becoming more and more disappointing on average.

For those who think streaming is weighted too heavily, it's hard for me to justify increasing the weight of sales when it's clearly a shell of its former self.  This tells me it's not how the bulk of music is being consumed these days.  And I don't think airplay should have any more impact than it already does, so that leaves me with streaming. It'll eventually become even more prominent than it already is as digital track downloads continue to decline.  And with prominence comes dominance which leads to some normalcy for awhile.  This transition phase we're in has us feeling all types of ways about stuff.

In 20 years, our much younger counterparts will be like "remember when people actually bought individual songs, so crazy!"

Yeah Trainor looks to debut with maybe 50k sold. In a country of hundreds of millions of people, that’s almost literally nothing.

[Gary]

How many of those hundreds of millions of people buy pop songs anyway?

I would compare it to where sales used to be - - Over 200K plus for a number one song -- which routinely happened

200K is still also literally almost nothing

There is very rarely a song of any sort that will appeal to all segments of the population

[Sherane Lamar]

Yeah, numbers always look weak when compared to the size of the population.

Personally, I think radio should be weighted so that one person hearing a song on traditional radio is just as impactful as one person hearing a song on streaming. That only seems fair.

(And this is coming from somebody who likes music that benefits from streaming. I just think that accuracy is more important.)

[Deleted]

I think there's a key difference between hearing something on the radio and actively clicking on specific songs to listen to them via streaming. But I also recognize that streaming is like radio in that we can choose a station/playlist and listen to it by choice for long periods of time, without every song being chosen by us. I would say that most of the time, streaming is more active listening, while radio is more passive. Not always, and not for everyone, but generally and comparatively speaking.

It's a very tricky if not impossible thing to measure and formulate and make everyone happy.

[lazer]

Would streaming be better if there's a lot of movement instead of one song staying at the top for 3-5 months? I think pop music listeners have to adjust to streaming and support their favorite artists there.

[Golden Bluebird]

Mar 8, 2018 10:34:59 GMT -5 annoymous1 said:

Does No Excuses not have any airplay right now ?

124. (+19) MEGHAN TRAINOR - No Excuses (16.972) (+2.764)

[Deleted]

Mar 8, 2018 13:37:05 GMT -5 lazer said:

Would streaming be better if there's a lot of movement instead of one song staying at the top for 3-5 months? I think pop music listeners have to adjust to streaming and support their favorite artists there.

Yep - and I think it's a natural yet slow-going part of the transition.  Digital sales haven't crashed over night, everything is gradual.  It's going to take time to change people's listening methods and habits.

[Gary]

everything is cyclical too. Hip hop is the dominant genre now but that won't be forever

Tastes and trends change over time

[kcdawg13]

Mar 8, 2018 14:59:17 GMT -5 Gary said:

everything is cyclical too. Hip hop is the dominant genre now but that won't be forever

Tastes and trends change over time

Exactly, hip-hop was huge in the early 2000's then it fazed into pure pop as the decade ended. Now we are back with hip-hop dominating but I feel like in a year or so it'll be fazed out, maybe not by pure pop again but something else. PC music or a more out of the left field genre is my prediction.

[mako]

It'll be meme music as the decade comes to an end. Mark my words.

[Au$tin]

Mar 8, 2018 14:59:17 GMT -5 Gary said:

everything is cyclical too. Hip hop is the dominant genre now but that won't be forever

Tastes and trends change over time

I honestly think this is just generally what's happening. It's not really the fact the pop fans are still downloading while hip-hop fans switched to streaming. If that were the case, the pop artists should still be selling very well digitally, but they aren't. Tastes have just changed. The people I grew up with were into the pop hits of the day but are all interested in hip-hop and rap right now too. Eventually hip-hop will be replaced by the next genre everyone's into. My bet is on rock since it's been awhile since that genre really ruled the charts. Probably more alternative sounds than edgier rock sounds, though. I would even argue that transition is already happening as we're seeing more artists like Halsey, Foster the People, Lorde, Imagine Dragons, etc. reach either commercial or critical success. It's only a matter of time before that sound becomes the dominant genre. I bet we even see alt rap become a popular genre as the bridging of the gap.

There will always be a place for pop, though. It might be awhile before it dominated again, but it'll happen again. Until then, pop fans just have to settle for lower success.

[Sherane Lamar]

Mar 8, 2018 15:08:56 GMT -5 kcdawg13 said:

Mar 8, 2018 14:59:17 GMT -5 Gary said:

everything is cyclical too. Hip hop is the dominant genre now but that won't be forever

Tastes and trends change over time

Exactly, hip-hop was huge in the early 2000's then it fazed into pure pop as the decade ended. Now we are back with hip-hop dominating but I feel like in a year or so it'll be fazed out, maybe not by pure pop again but something else. PC music or a more out of the left field genre is my prediction.

What is PC music? 

[Sherane Lamar]

Mar 8, 2018 17:18:47 GMT -5 Au$tin said:

Mar 8, 2018 14:59:17 GMT -5 Gary said:

everything is cyclical too. Hip hop is the dominant genre now but that won't be forever

Tastes and trends change over time

I would even argue that transition is already happening as we're seeing more artists like Halsey, Foster the People, Lorde, Imagine Dragons, etc. reach either commercial or critical success. 

Hip-Hop has only been on the upswing since 2015. 2010-2014 is the worst 5 year span for Hip-Hop on the charts this century. Lorde, Imagine Dragons, and Foster the People all got popular in a time when Hip-Hop was not doing well at all (fun. The Lumineers, Gotye, Hozier as well). Alternative's best year so far has been 2012 I believe. 

Lorde and Foster the People aren't getting popular. Foster the People is a one-hit wonder from 7 years ago. Lorde was big from 2013-2014 and had very little presence at all from her latest release.

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

I guess is computer music? lol. Then it'll be followed by Mac music? idk

[Golden Bluebird]

PC Music is a record label.

[Sherane Lamar]

Hip-Hop being more popular than Pop is a weird and unnatural position that we're in right now. It's only really been this way for maybe about a year.

It's been aided not just by the great success of Hip-Hop artists. It's also been caused by a series of relative failures and absences from Pop artists Rihanna and Bieber aren't around as main artists in 2017-2018. Katy Perry, Miley, Taylor Swift, and Justin Timberlake all had/having eras that were poor compared to their previous eras. There's been few fresh artists to come in and make up for them. And a lot of the non-Hip-Hop artists to do incredibly in 2017 and 2018 aren't Pop artists either. 

Hip-Hop being dominant over Pop is a very strange situation that I don't think will last for long. But, we can still be dominated by an urban music culture and still have Pop above Hip-Hop. Just like we did in 2015 and 2016. 


I don't see a slow down for Hip-Hop anywhere on the horizon though. The thing that Pop, and basically all non-Hip-Hop artists seem to lack right now, is a strong ability to debut. The best debuters in 2017 were... Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran, Future, Jay-Z, Migos, Lil Uzi Vert, Taylor Swift, Kodak Black. In that order. In 2018, it's Migos, Justin Timberlake, Drake, Huncho Jack, 6ix9ine. In that order. 

This entire streaming era, the biggest mass debuts were: More Life, Views, Damn, 4 Your Eyez Only, Lemonade, Culture II, Purpose, Starboy, and What A Time To Be Alive. So 5 Hip-Hop albums, 1 black R&B artist, 1 black urban Pop artist, and only one white non-urban Pop artist. 

What Hip-Hop (and through extension urban music like the Weeknd and Beyonce) have surrounding it is a culture that really excited about the music. Non-urban Pop can barely say that right now. 

I think that before we see a real change in the type of music dominating culturally, we're going to have to see non-Urban artists have strong debuts. 

[Au$tin]

PC Music from the uninformed.

Mar 8, 2018 17:27:49 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Mar 8, 2018 17:18:47 GMT -5 Au$tin said:

I would even argue that transition is already happening as we're seeing more artists like Halsey, Foster the People, Lorde, Imagine Dragons, etc. reach either commercial or critical success. 

Hip-Hop has only been on the upswing since 2015. 2010-2014 is the worst 5 year span for Hip-Hop on the charts this century. Lorde, Imagine Dragons, and Foster the People all got popular in a time when Hip-Hop was not doing well at all (fun. The Lumineers, Gotye, Hozier as well). Alternative's best year so far has been 2012 I believe. 

Lorde and Foster the People aren't getting popular. Foster the People is a one-hit wonder from 7 years ago. Lorde was big from 2013-2014 and had very little presence at all from her latest release.

more artists like meaning not them specifically, but other artists who take that sound and roll with it. Also, I never said alternative rock, but alternative in general. Alternative pop also exists, which has been getting more exposure. There's also alternative rap and alternative hip-hop which are also growing in popularity.

To put it in more blatant terms, see:

-Alice Merton
-Murs
-Logic
-Khalid
-SZA
-Portugal. The Man
-AJR
-St. Vinvent
-Sigrid
-Bishop Briggs
-Run the Jewels
-Chance the Rapper
-Hoodie Allen
-Childish Gambino
-J. Cole
-Lana Del Rey
-Marina and the Diamonds
-Poppy
-Billie Eilish
-Sophie
-Hannah Diamond
-Phoebe Ryan
-Carly Rae Jepsen
-Charli XCX
-Tinashe

But to add to that, I do also mean those artists I mentioned before as well. Just because they've seen success before and not as much now doesn't mean the interest in this particular area of music is dead, as evidenced by the list of artists above. In fact, there early hits are pretty spaced out and uneven, which just verifies my point that it's getting more popular. There's always going to be a few hits from a new genre here or there until it breaks out to become the next big thing. To clarify:

Halsey - having more success now than ever before
Foster the People - "Pumped Up Kicks" was one of those early hits I mentioned. They just hit the mainstream chart for the first time since "Don't Stop," with a track called "Sit Next to Me."
Lorde - She's part of the other side of the coin I mentioned: "or critical success." Melodrama earned her an AOTY nomination and huge buzz. Just because it didn't produce any hits (because frankly, nothing from it was really all that radio friendly), doesn't mean she's performing worse than before. She's actually selling out arena tour dates right now. Something she didn't do back in 2014.
Imagine Dragons - While "Radioactive" was massive and "It's Time" and "Demons" did well too, I think we can all agree "Believer" and "Thunder" are much bigger than their previous hits sans "Radioactive." Even then, "Thunder" could arguably be labeled bigger than "Radioactive."

So to put everything into a neat, final bow: alternative music is what I believe the next trend will be and that I have plenty of evidence for above, not just alternative rock. I believe that alternative rock bubble we saw in 2012 was just a small precursor as the tracks that were hits then were more accessible to mainstream at the time than what the artists above are delivering now (sans "Thunder").

Will this happen overnight? Of course not. I'm talking 3-5 years from now. The following around these artists right now is niche and small, but very strong and very loyal. Similar to hip-hop/rap just a few years ago. It's only a matter of time before that loyalty pays off. These are artists with cult followings, not fickle fans.

[Deleted]

Mar 8, 2018 16:19:40 GMT -5 mako said:

It'll be meme music as the decade comes to an end. Mark my words.

The emo phase would be dominant again if that happens lmao

[tanooki]

I feel like emo, or at least emo inspired music could be the new trend. We've seen some very dark songs do well on the chart, and seeing the rise of emo hip hop, its very possible we start getting "emo pop" and a larger rise of emo rap. This could also be backed up because as we roll into the 2020s, we're gonna start seeing artists born in the 2000s who will likely have at least some inspiration from that time period, which was arguably the peak of emo.

[Deleted]

Not to mention every damn teenager has depression nowadays and I'm sure they're just as dominant as the adult oriented music audience.

[kindofbiased]

Mar 8, 2018 13:37:05 GMT -5 lazer said:

Would streaming be better if there's a lot of movement instead of one song staying at the top for 3-5 months? I think pop music listeners have to adjust to streaming and support their favorite artists there.

Honestly I think once pop eventually makes the full transition to streaming like hip-hop has the charts will start to have a lot more movement. Not only will it be due to two major genres as opposed to one, but Ive noticed pop fans tend to move on faster? I guess??? Idk it seems like with the exception of a few songs at any given time there tends to be a lot more movement with the songs pop fans listen to.

[jenglisbe]

Mar 8, 2018 10:56:19 GMT -5 Gary said:

How many of those hundreds of millions of people buy pop songs anyway?

I would compare it to where sales used to be - - Over 200K plus for a number one song -- which routinely happened

200K is still also literally almost nothing

There is very rarely a song of any sort that will appeal to all segments of the population

In the grand scheme 200k vs 50k isn't huge, but think of the cumulative effect; that's a 150k a week difference, so across months it ends up being a difference of millions. In other words, sales used to represent millions of people, but now they only represent hundreds of thousands of people. That is a big difference.

[inverse]

Mar 8, 2018 18:45:21 GMT -5 @statemusix said:

Not to mention every damn teenager has depression nowadays and I'm sure they're just as dominant as the adult oriented music audience.

Wtf??

also no way Thunder is bigger than Radioactive. Less weeks top 10 top 25 top 100 everything. 

[Deleted]

Mar 8, 2018 19:04:27 GMT -5 inverse said:

Mar 8, 2018 18:45:21 GMT -5 @statemusix said:

Not to mention every damn teenager has depression nowadays and I'm sure they're just as dominant as the adult oriented music audience.

Wtf??

also no way Thunder is bigger than Radioactive. Less weeks top 10 top 25 top 100 everything. 

well i'd post evidence but that would give me a warning

[Keelzit]

I can't believe I'm rooting for XXXTentacion to get a legit hit. The 2 songs he dropped recently are really good and I'm digging this whole rap/lo-fi-oriented emo that is slowly becoming mainstream cause it sounds nothing like the pop/rock 'emo' from last decade from the likes of legend Avril Lavigne and Tokio Hotel.

[Sherane Lamar]

Mar 8, 2018 17:50:41 GMT -5 Au$tin said:

PC Music from the uninformed.

Mar 8, 2018 17:27:49 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Hip-Hop has only been on the upswing since 2015. 2010-2014 is the worst 5 year span for Hip-Hop on the charts this century. Lorde, Imagine Dragons, and Foster the People all got popular in a time when Hip-Hop was not doing well at all (fun. The Lumineers, Gotye, Hozier as well). Alternative's best year so far has been 2012 I believe. 

Lorde and Foster the People aren't getting popular. Foster the People is a one-hit wonder from 7 years ago. Lorde was big from 2013-2014 and had very little presence at all from her latest release.

more artists like meaning not them specifically, but other artists who take that sound and roll with it. Also, I never said alternative rock, but alternative in general. Alternative pop also exists, which has been getting more exposure. There's also alternative rap and alternative hip-hop which are also growing in popularity.

To put it in more blatant terms, see:

-Alice Merton
-Murs
-Logic
-Khalid
-SZA
-Portugal. The Man
-AJR
-St. Vinvent
-Sigrid
-Bishop Briggs
-Run the Jewels
-Chance the Rapper
-Hoodie Allen
-Childish Gambino
-J. Cole
-Lana Del Rey
-Marina and the Diamonds
-Poppy
-Billie Eilish
-Sophie
-Hannah Diamond
-Phoebe Ryan
-Carly Rae Jepsen
-Charli XCX
-Tinashe

But to add to that, I do also mean those artists I mentioned before as well. Just because they've seen success before and not as much now doesn't mean the interest in this particular area of music is dead, as evidenced by the list of artists above. In fact, there early hits are pretty spaced out and uneven, which just verifies my point that it's getting more popular. There's always going to be a few hits from a new genre here or there until it breaks out to become the next big thing. To clarify:

Halsey - having more success now than ever before
Foster the People - "Pumped Up Kicks" was one of those early hits I mentioned. They just hit the mainstream chart for the first time since "Don't Stop," with a track called "Sit Next to Me."
Lorde - She's part of the other side of the coin I mentioned: "or critical success." Melodrama earned her an AOTY nomination and huge buzz. Just because it didn't produce any hits (because frankly, nothing from it was really all that radio friendly), doesn't mean she's performing worse than before. She's actually selling out arena tour dates right now. Something she didn't do back in 2014.
Imagine Dragons - While "Radioactive" was massive and "It's Time" and "Demons" did well too, I think we can all agree "Believer" and "Thunder" are much bigger than their previous hits sans "Radioactive." Even then, "Thunder" could arguably be labeled bigger than "Radioactive."

So to put everything into a neat, final bow: alternative music is what I believe the next trend will be and that I have plenty of evidence for above, not just alternative rock. I believe that alternative rock bubble we saw in 2012 was just a small precursor as the tracks that were hits then were more accessible to mainstream at the time than what the artists above are delivering now (sans "Thunder").

Will this happen overnight? Of course not. I'm talking 3-5 years from now. The following around these artists right now is niche and small, but very strong and very loyal. Similar to hip-hop/rap just a few years ago. It's only a matter of time before that loyalty pays off. These are artists with cult followings, not fickle fans.

Ok. I misunderstood on a couple levels. 

I agree with you on the type of artists that we can expect to see in the upcoming years, but I just don't have the same definition of "Alternative" as you do. 

People like Chance, Tinashe, Carly Rae, Gambino, Cole, SZA, Khalid, and Logic aren't "Alternative" in the sense that I was thinking. Sound wise, and genre wise, most of those are very down-the-middle for Pop, R&B, or Hip-Hop. But I see what you mean by saying that they are "alternative" in the sense that some of them just have kind of an outsider vibe. 


I was thinking you meant "Alternative" as in bands like of Coldplay, Fall Out Boy, fun., Gotye, Hozier, Lumineers, Imagine Dragons, twenty one pilots, and singers like Halsey and Lana Del Rey. 

Also, BTW, I don't believe that any major genre is "dead" or "dying" with the exception of traditional Rock. More like... ebbing up and down throughout the years. Death is more dramatic and permanent.  

[Sherane Lamar]

Mar 8, 2018 19:04:27 GMT -5 inverse said:

Mar 8, 2018 18:45:21 GMT -5 @statemusix said:

Not to mention every damn teenager has depression nowadays and I'm sure they're just as dominant as the adult oriented music audience.

Wtf??

also no way Thunder is bigger than Radioactive. Less weeks top 10 top 25 top 100 everything. 

It'll be years before we get a song that surpasses Radioactive. 

[85la]

Mar 8, 2018 17:49:57 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Hip-Hop being more popular than Pop is a weird and unnatural position that we're in right now. It's only really been this way for maybe about a year.

It's been aided not just by the great success of Hip-Hop artists. It's also been caused by a series of relative failures and absences from Pop artists Rihanna and Bieber aren't around as main artists in 2017-2018. Katy Perry, Miley, Taylor Swift, and Justin Timberlake all had/having eras that were poor compared to their previous eras. There's been few fresh artists to come in and make up for them. And a lot of the non-Hip-Hop artists to do incredibly in 2017 and 2018 aren't Pop artists either. 

Hip-Hop being dominant over Pop is a very strange situation that I don't think will last for long. But, we can still be dominated by an urban music culture and still have Pop above Hip-Hop. Just like we did in 2015 and 2016. 

Well, not exactly. It's not like hip-hop being huge is new or anything. It started to blow up in the 90s and for a few years in the 2000s (roughly 2002-2007 maybe) it actually was probably bigger than pop. It has been around for awhile with varying periods of waxing and waning, but if anything only seems to be getting bigger rather than smaller, so I wouldn't count on it going away anytime soon (and this is coming from someone who clearly likes pop more than most hip-hop).