Billboard Hot 100: 4/28/2018

[Gary]

Avicii's Song Sales Increase 6,000% in U.S. Following Death
News
By Keith Caulfield | April 21, 2018 5:00 PM EDT

In the wake of Avicii’s death on Friday (April 20), his digital song sales in the U.S. grew tremendously as fans remembered the superstar DJ/producer/artist’s music. Based on preliminary sales reports to Nielsen Music, Avicii’s song sales increased by over 6,000 percent on April 20 versus the previous day.

Collectively, his catalog of songs sold around 25,000 downloads on Friday, as compared to just under 1,000 the previous day.
Meanwhile, sales of his albums -- which include the No. 5-peaking Billboard 200 chart hit True -- increased by 12,000 percent on April 20 to around 2,000 copies sold (up from a negligible figure the previous day).

His biggest selling song on April 20 was his No. 4-peaking Billboard Hot 100 hit “Wake Me Up!,” which sold nearly 8,000 downloads -- up over 6,100 percent. His top three sellers were rounded out by “Levels” and “Hey Brother.”
News on streaming gains for Avicii will likely be announced in the coming days

[Deleted]

Apr 21, 2018 18:40:38 GMT -5 Abbaschand said:

Being honest, we Indonesians almost know next to nothing about J. Cole. We always one step behind about rap/hip-hop music.

blame jokowi

[jayhawk1117]

Apr 21, 2018 18:32:16 GMT -5 Harx said:

Apr 21, 2018 17:36:29 GMT -5 fhas said:

I tried to estimate how he would debut if the songs had the exact Friday streaming numbers for the entire week (obviously this is not going to happen) and added sales points for his top 3-4 songs and it was super funny.

He would've the top 2 songs, three songs in the top 5, six in the top 10 and twelve (the entire album) in the top 20.

Meant To Be would fall from #3 to #10 but with more points than it had when it was #2.

The ultimate album bomb

...until Drake in June at least


...or until Post Malone next week


these are kind of getting out of hand

eventually billboard is gonna do something about it imo. It's getting to the point where an artist than bad proven streaming can drop an album and have half of it in the top 20, I mean j Cole is probably getting at least a top 5 debut this week imagine what Drake is gonna do.

[Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ]

What's the deal with J Cole? He has one of the weirdest music careers of this decade. 14 top 40 hits, but only one was a hit (Work Out). Also, he's on Drake's streaming level, which is crazy.

[Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ]

Apr 21, 2018 20:14:51 GMT -5 jayhawk1117 said:

Apr 21, 2018 18:32:16 GMT -5 Harx said:

The ultimate album bomb

...until Drake in June at least


...or until Post Malone next week


these are kind of getting out of hand

eventually billboard is gonna do something about it imo. It's getting to the point where an artist than bad proven streaming can drop an album and have half of it in the top 20, I mean j Cole is probably getting at least a top 5 debut this week imagine what Drake is gonna do.

I really like Drake's music, but I'm scared of that.

[Gary]

Why would they do that? The most popular songs are what they are, even if they come from the same album

[pnobelysk]

Apr 21, 2018 20:24:08 GMT -5 Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ said:

What's the deal with J Cole? He has one of the weirdest music careers of this decade. 14 top 40 hits, but only one was a hit (Work Out). Also, he's on Drake's streaming level, which is crazy.

Crooked smile and power trip also got him singles success

[Deleted]

I only really cared for a few J.Cole songs
Crooked Smile especially


Have yet to hear a thing from his new album
Also Drake's next album...ooh lord he will practically rape the streaming services with an orgy of songs

Likely most of them won't be anything great cause this is Drake but it is what it is sadly

[Gary]

J Cole's hits (minimum 3 weeks in the top 40)

Work Out, J. Cole 13
Power Trip, J. Cole Featuring Miguel 19
Crooked Smile, J. Cole Featuring TLC 27
No Role Modelz, J. Cole 36

[Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ]

Apr 21, 2018 20:31:00 GMT -5 Gary said:

Why would they do that? The most popular songs are what they are, even if they come from the same album

Yeah, but the difference is that Peacock by Katy, Gaga's Monster and Bruno's Marry You were quite popular non-singles 6-7 years ago and still without chart success..and these songs were from blockbuster albums and by the biggest artists at the time. 

[CF15]

Apr 17, 2018 21:37:58 GMT -5 iHype. said:

Also I'm thinking if Billboard is going to eventually only allow singles to chart.

Didn't this, in a way, used to be a thing in the 1990's? That is how songs such as "Iris" got screwed out of Hot 100 success. They were radio singles (and huge hits on radio), but not actualy singles singles. I can't imagine why they would go back to something similar to that. It isn't really an accurate representation of what is popular, IMO. Maybe it is possible that they will just launch an entirely new chart for actual singles, and I think that would be pretty cool, provided that it isn't too similar to the actual Hot 100 chart in its current form.

[Gary]

I don't see this happening just to keep the Drakes of the world from 30 chart singles at once.

The key thing is longevity, only a couple of the songs from the album bomb drops last more than a couple weeks

[jenglisbe]

Apr 21, 2018 20:24:08 GMT -5 Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ said:

What's the deal with J Cole? He has one of the weirdest music careers of this decade. 14 top 40 hits, but only one was a hit (Work Out). Also, he's on Drake's streaming level, which is crazy.

Well, he's big on streaming, so as its influence has increased, so has his chart presence.

[lazer]

Man, Spotify is gonna collapse when Post Malone and Drake release their new albums.

[Au$tin]

Apr 21, 2018 20:58:57 GMT -5 Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ said:

Apr 21, 2018 20:31:00 GMT -5 Gary said:

Why would they do that? The most popular songs are what they are, even if they come from the same album

Yeah, but the difference is that Peacock by Katy, Gaga's Monster and Bruno's Marry You were quite popular non-singles 6-7 years ago and still without chart success..and these songs were from blockbuster albums and by the biggest artists at the time. 

And songs like Don't Speak and Torn were massive success in the US, but their Hot 100 chart lives (of which Don't Speak's is nonexistent) don't reflect that.

In the history of the Hot 100, it has never gotten more restrictive as to what is allowed to chart, only more inclusive (other than recurrent rules), and I don't see that trend suddenly changing.

Especially when we consider album bombs have been a thing since 08/09 when artists that sold a bunch of digital sales with an album drop and Glee/The Voice invaded the chart.

And there aren't any reasonable rules they can set in place to remedy it anyway. Only singles? Well what counts as a single in the age of streaming and digital downloads? Is "I Like It" a single? Is "Sad!"? Is "Call Out My Name"? Is "I Fall Apart"? Was "Gummo"? Was "Harlem Shake"? Okay, but what about limiting it to two or three songs per album? What happens when an artist dominates so hard that they have multiple singles charting at once? It's happened before. I'm sure the label isn't going to be happy when their artist's current single isn't allowed to chart because their previous two or three are still charting. Or what if the artist has a couple album tracks that do very well and surpass the current single? Are we going to leave off the current single?

There's really nothing that can be done and quite frankly nothing should be done. The Hot 100 is supposed to be as inclusive and accurate as possible. It loses both of those components when we put limits on album bombs. We can't just ignore popular album tracks and pretend their popularity isn't as important or real as singles.

[jenglisbe]

Apr 21, 2018 22:19:43 GMT -5 Au$tin said:

Apr 21, 2018 20:58:57 GMT -5 Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ said:

Yeah, but the difference is that Peacock by Katy, Gaga's Monster and Bruno's Marry You were quite popular non-singles 6-7 years ago and still without chart success..and these songs were from blockbuster albums and by the biggest artists at the time. 

And songs like Don't Speak and Torn were massive success in the US, but their Hot 100 chart lives (of which Don't Speak's is nonexistent) don't reflect that.

In the history of the Hot 100, it has never gotten more restrictive as to what is allowed to chart, only more inclusive (other than recurrent rules), and I don't see that trend suddenly changing.

Especially when we consider album bombs have been a thing since 08/09 when artists that sold a bunch of digital sales with an album drop and Glee/The Voice invaded the chart.

And there aren't any reasonable rules they can set in place to remedy it anyway. Only singles? Well what counts as a single in the age of streaming and digital downloads? Is "I Like It" a single? Is "Sad!"? Is "Call Out My Name"? Is "I Fall Apart"? Was "Gummo"? Was "Harlem Shake"? Okay, but what about limiting it to two or three songs per album? What happens when an artist dominates so hard that they have multiple singles charting at once? It's happened before. I'm sure the label isn't going to be happy when their artist's current single isn't allowed to chart because their previous two or three are still charting. Or what if the artist has a couple album tracks that do very well and surpass the current single? Are we going to leave off the current single?

There's really nothing that can be done and quite frankly nothing should be done. The Hot 100 is supposed to be as inclusive and accurate as possible. It loses both of those components when we put limits on album bombs. We can't just ignore popular album tracks and pretend their popularity isn't as important or real as singles.

Plus, isn't the Hot 100 largely about what information record companies want? If they want to see the data for all songs from an album, the chart will remain as it stands now. If for some reason they move to only wanting to see actively promoted songs charting (which as you point out, would be tough to determine) then we might see some type of change.

[Abbaschand]

Apr 21, 2018 19:49:39 GMT -5 @statemusix said:

Apr 21, 2018 18:40:38 GMT -5 Abbaschand said:

Being honest, we Indonesians almost know next to nothing about J. Cole. We always one step behind about rap/hip-hop music.

thank jokowi

[iHype.]

Apr 21, 2018 21:31:14 GMT -5 Gary said:

I don't see this happening just to keep the Drakes of the world from 30 chart singles at once.

The key thing is longevity, only a couple of the songs from the album bomb drops last more than a couple weeks

It's going to happen very often and to a higher extent once streaming fully monopolizes the chart though.

J. Cole has 9/10 of the Top 10 on Apple Music & Spotify right now. Post Malone will probably do similar, Drake will do similar, Kanye could do similar, etc. 

The idea of people constantly having 5+ songs in the top 10 of Hot 100 everytime an album is released with huge numbers is gonna be a huge discussion. Even if its only for a few weeks, different artists doing it every month or so would still cause a long-term stress with the charts.

[Au$tin]

Isn't it just as likely that as streaming grows, album bombs will become harder and harder to achieve? Think of it this way, as more and more demographics and people turn to streaming, that makes it harder for the direct fans of an artist to secure all of the album tracks to debut high. Suddenly the random Drake album tracks will have to fight the actual hits from pop, rock, country, etc. The casual listeners and fans will begin to dominate the streaming charts rather than the die hards and curious listeners.

If we drop it down to much smaller numbers, we can comprehend this theory better. Let's say only ten people use Spotify. Seven of them are Drake fans and will check out his album immediately upon release, drawing in an average of 2 streams per track per person, so the album track is going to get 14 plays from them. Two others are curious about the buzz on Drake's album and give it a spin, but each only once, now we're at 16. However, these two are really into Katy Perry instead, whose album also dropped this week, and they each listened to the album twice, giving the tracks 4 streams. The last guy is a casual listener of both, but not enough to care about their full albums. He listens to the lead single from each one time, upping the leads to 17 and 5 over the album tracks at 16 and 4.

Check back in three years and Katy and Drake are set to release albums again on the same day (wow, what a coincidence!). However, now Spotify is up to 100 users! 36 of them are die hards for Drake and listen to his album tracks two times each, so 72 streams. However, now we have 42 casual listeners listening to singles by other artists 2-3 times each. Uh oh! That puts the singles from completely different artists ahead of the album tracks from Drake now. The casual fans of Drake do help to pull it up, but these casual fans are also casual fans of the artist that casual listeners are already listening to, so the bump is the same to both the Drake album tracks and the other artists' singles.

Basically, as streaming grows and reaches other demographics, those other demographics' favorite singles will hold more power than they do now, making it harder for one demographic's album tracks to take over the chart. Yes, it's going to get "worse" before it gets "better" as more and more rap/hip-hop fans switch to streaming before the fans of other genres, but eventually it will level out, and when that happens, the album drops aren't going to be as major. They'll still happen, but instead of an entire album taking up the vast majority of the top 20, they'll now all land in the top 50 or top 75.

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

The reason why it's an issue now is because album tracks weren't able to chart (without radio airplay) before streaming became as big as it is. If there had been a way to measure album tracks before now, we'd have seen this before with major releases. Can you imagine if every sale of an album counted as x points contributing to each track's placement toward the Hot 100.

[iHype.]

Apr 21, 2018 23:47:12 GMT -5 Au$tin said:

Isn't it just as likely that as streaming grows, album bombs will become harder and harder to achieve? Think of it this way, as more and more demographics and people turn to streaming, that makes it harder for the direct fans of an artist to secure all of the album tracks to debut high. Suddenly the random Drake album tracks will have to fight the actual hits from pop, rock, country, etc. The casual listeners and fans will begin to dominate the streaming charts rather than the die hards and curious listeners.

If we drop it down to much smaller numbers, we can comprehend this theory better. Let's say only ten people use Spotify. Seven of them are Drake fans and will check out his album immediately upon release, drawing in an average of 2 streams per track per person, so the album track is going to get 14 plays from them. Two others are curious about the buzz on Drake's album and give it a spin, but each only once, now we're at 16. However, these two are really into Katy Perry instead, whose album also dropped this week, and they each listened to the album twice, giving the tracks 4 streams. The last guy is a casual listener of both, but not enough to care about their full albums. He listens to the lead single from each one time, upping the leads to 17 and 5 over the album tracks at 16 and 4.

Check back in three years and Katy and Drake are set to release albums again on the same day (wow, what a coincidence!). However, now Spotify is up to 100 users! 36 of them are die hards for Drake and listen to his album tracks two times each, so 72 streams. However, now we have 42 casual listeners listening to singles by other artists 2-3 times each. Uh oh! That puts the singles from completely different artists ahead of the album tracks from Drake now. The casual fans of Drake do help to pull it up, but these casual fans are also casual fans of the artist that casual listeners are already listening to, so the bump is the same to both the Drake album tracks and the other artists' singles.

Basically, as streaming grows and reaches other demographics, those other demographics' favorite singles will hold more power than they do now, making it harder for one demographic's album tracks to take over the chart. Yes, it's going to get "worse" before it gets "better" as more and more rap/hip-hop fans switch to streaming before the fans of other genres, but eventually it will level out, and when that happens, the album drops aren't going to be as major. They'll still happen, but instead of an entire album taking up the vast majority of the top 20, they'll now all land in the top 50 or top 75.

I thought about this possibility but it seems the younger demo in general just shifts towards Hip-Hop, and ofcourse -- the younger demo streams much more on a daily basis, and they listen to new music more.

Yeah other age groups will join, but if they listen to 10-15 songs a day while younger demo listens to 20-50 songs a day, they're going to still be outdone. And the thing with older users are they stream old music so much -- so many adults still listen to their favorite albums from decades ago exclusively on a frequent basis. They aren't listening to new radio hits.

So while the possibility of other demographics embracing streaming can disolve album bombs, it also can have relatively no effect. We won't know til then.

[Au$tin]

Your first paragraph is not necessarily true. Just five years ago, the young listeners were into EDM and pop as evidenced by the digital sales and streaming numbers of those days. As the years progress, so will the tastes of the new generation, and very rapidly as well.

As far as older users, their listening habits vary widely. Artists like P!nk and Meghan Trainor have audiences that skew older and would benefit greatly if their demographics started to stream more.

I also don't believe age factors in to how much music a person will listen to. Why can't a 35 year old listen to as much music as a 15 year old? Sure, things like work and responsibilities get in the way, but the same can be said for teens (school and homework). Plus, several adults work in places where they can listen to music while at work. I don't know of any school that would allow that. I really think they're equally balanced in that regard.

You do have a point that older generations tend to not play newer releases, but that wasn't really who I was talking about. I meant more fans of different genres. The urban music crowd took to streaming in droves as it appeals to them a lot more than others. Urban music also saw higher digital sales at first when that started taking off and iirc, was the genre with the highest amount of piracy back in the day. The pop, rock, and country listeners have yet to make the switch to streaming in droves. This is evidenced by iTunes. Take a look at how well pop and country are selling compared to their urban counterparts. Now compare their streaming numbers. Eventually, those that download will make the switch to streaming, and that's going to level the genre playing field.

[iHype.]

Apr 22, 2018 0:43:53 GMT -5 Au$tin said:

Your first paragraph is not necessarily true. Just five years ago, the young listeners were into EDM and pop as evidenced by the digital sales and streaming numbers of those days. As the years progress, so will the tastes of the new generation, and very rapidly as well.

As far as older users, their listening habits vary widely. Artists like P!nk and Meghan Trainor have audiences that skew older and would benefit greatly if their demographics started to stream more.

I also don't believe age factors in to how much music a person will listen to. Why can't a 35 year old listen to as much music as a 15 year old? Sure, things like work and responsibilities get in the way, but the same can be said for teens (school and homework). Plus, several adults work in places where they can listen to music while at work. I don't know of any school that would allow that. I really think they're equally balanced in that regard.

You do have a point that older generations tend to not play newer releases, but that wasn't really who I was talking about. I meant more fans of different genres. The urban music crowd took to streaming in droves as it appeals to them a lot more than others. Urban music also saw higher digital sales at first when that started taking off and iirc, was the genre with the highest amount of piracy back in the day. The pop, rock, and country listeners have yet to make the switch to streaming in droves. This is evidenced by iTunes. Take a look at how well pop and country are selling compared to their urban counterparts. Now compare their streaming numbers. Eventually, those that download will make the switch to streaming, and that's going to level the genre playing field.

I think its an age skew more than a demographic/genre skew, which is why I brought up age.

Per RIAA there's already nearly 35.3 million Americans who pay to stream. Then when you factor free accounts.... likely over 50 million+ Americans. 

When there's over 50 million+ streaming I don't think it's simply fans of one genre having the majority. 50 million+ people is a large makeup of people who listen to different genres. 

However there is def an age skew imo. If you ask a group of 45 year olds do they use Spotify or Apple Music, versus 20 year olds you'll get an entirely notable percentage difference.  

Country & HAC as example genres you listed that do good on iTunes, are also genres which lean towards an older/middle-aged demographic. HAC itself is specifically for middle-aged adults.

And yes the young's taste towards genres does shift, but that doesn't necessarily mean the problem will cease if that happens. Theoretically if they switch to EDM/Dance again, then EDM/Dance artists would also start occupying Spotify's Top 10 with their albums.

And it seems Hip-Hop monopolizes streaming each year even more than it ever did prior. If you go all the way back to on-demand charts in 2013, Pop was actually doing just as well on Streaming as on Hot 100. Which is why I'm sorta having doubts about streaming growing meaning Hip-Hop's share will go down.

[Zach]

Apr 22, 2018 2:32:59 GMT -5 Codex said:

By this logic, the top 15 songs on the BB100 should have been the album tracks from 25 when it sold 3.5 million.

How do you figure that? Because all those people were buying the album and therefore buying each song by extension?

Apr 22, 2018 2:32:59 GMT -5 Codex said:

People aren’t listening to these songs individually, they’re putting the album on repeat. Once streams get big enough, I’m sure Billboard will do something. There was huge backlash when Ed dominated the entire UK top 15 with Divide last year.

If part of your thinking is looking how the Official Charts Company in the UK responded to that Ed situation and saying Billboard is likely to respond similarly then that's faulty thinking. History shows that the OCC and Billboard are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to striving for their charts to reflect the actual popularity of songs. The OCC often takes a manipulative approach and would respond to such a situation quickly and drastically to prevent it from happening again, as they did. Billboard is unlikely to react in anywhere near the same way.

The most I see Billboard doing is continuing to adjust the Hot 100's formula to lower the influence of streaming as the raw streaming figures grow while boosting airplay's influence at the same time. That would help temper the impact of album bombs. And this is all assuming that growing streaming will actually increase the frequency and severity of album bombs. Maybe as streaming grows across different genres and the streaming power gap between artists of different genres shrinks, it'll become more difficult for one artist/one album to completely dominate the streaming scene in any given week.

[Zach]

Apr 22, 2018 3:06:37 GMT -5 Codex said:

Yes. People go on Spotify, click on the new J.Cole album, and listen to it 3 million times. But instead of the album getting 3 million streams, it’s given to each individual song.

It’s the same thing when you buy an album on iTunes, you’re technically buying every song individually, but Billboard counted it as “1 album sale” instead of “15 track sales”, to stop album bombs.

That's a very huge technicality as it completely discounts digital album purchases but I get what you're saying. It just seems to me that there will likely never be an ideal solution to all this but that the best option is to leave things as they are. Continue to count purchases of entire albums on iTunes as an "album sale" without any contribution to the sales of the individual songs. In other words, that makes sense to me not just as a method of reducing album bombs but as the most logical way of doing it. It also makes much more sense in my head that the sales and streams of individual songs count towards the popularity of an album project than digital album purchases counting towards each track on the album.

I may disagree with you but I understand where you're coming from. 

[rimetm]

I mean, the main reason the chart watchers of us non-industry lot seem to care about this is when songs get shunted to recurrency before their time (e.g. Hello during the Beyonce/Prince-death double bomb), and really, the solution that'd be most productive would also be future-leaning towards the front-loaded nature of 2 out of the 3 current metrics:

If a song is no longer one of the top 50 songs that has been on the chart for longer than 1 week past its 20th week (or top 25 in 52 weeks), then it shall be moved to recurrency.

That way, the only songs that would meet their demise were going there eventually and album bombs will only truly impact the charts if they have considerable legs.

[Normi]

Apr 22, 2018 2:32:59 GMT -5 Codex said:

Just look at the Ariana fans in the NTLTC thread saying that they’ve already listened to it 80 times in a day.

*hides*

Talking about it, where will it debut? #1 is a stretch I know but how possible is it

[renaboss]

One of my biggest problems with these high debuts is how they can consistently keep other, more enduring songs from entering the top 10. I know the Hot 100 is a weekly chart and is supposed to represent the most popular songs in each given week, but people are always gonna look back on its history, as we do now, and all of these frontloaded songs are gonna be such headscratchers in the future because no one will remember them anymore, they won't have made any sort of legitimate impact in the musical scene.

I agree with those that say the labels should inform Billboard of which songs are singles, and that the streams for the album tracks should be counted solely towards the Billboard 200 albums chart. People brought up the examples of "Don't Speak" and "Iris", but those songs were impaired, per the rules of the time, because they weren't released as physical singles. That rule would not be brought back, as no one buys physical singles anymore, there would just be a concrete definition of which songs are supposed to try their luck in the Hot 100.

I can't imagine this would be without controversy though, especially considering how hip-hop has long been regarded as an underdog genre in a sense, despite its constant popularity since the early 90s. People would say Billboard is trying to ignore the genre just like radio typically does, and given how much hip-hop is represented by people of color, the accusations of racism would fly high. But I honestly believe this would be the most fair and satisfying solution.

[Golden Bluebird]

Apr 22, 2018 4:41:46 GMT -5 renaboss said:

One of my biggest problems with these high debuts is how they can consistently keep other, more enduring songs from entering the top 10. I know the Hot 100 is a weekly chart and is supposed to represent the most popular songs in each given week, but people are always gonna look back on its history, as we do now, and all of these frontloaded songs are gonna be such headscratchers in the future because no one will remember them anymore, they won't have made any sort of legitimate impact in the musical scene.

So basically, most songs that have charted throughout the Hot 100's history?

[Sherane Lamar]

Apr 22, 2018 4:41:46 GMT -5 renaboss said:

One of my biggest problems with these high debuts is how they can consistently keep other, more enduring songs from entering the top 10. I know the Hot 100 is a weekly chart and is supposed to represent the most popular songs in each given week, but people are always gonna look back on its history, as we do now, and all of these frontloaded songs are gonna be such headscratchers in the future because no one will remember them anymore, they won't have made any sort of legitimate impact in the musical scene.

I agree with those that say the labels should inform Billboard of which songs are singles, and that the streams for the album tracks should be counted solely towards the Billboard 200 albums chart. People brought up the examples of "Don't Speak" and "Iris", but those songs were impaired, per the rules of the time, because they weren't released as physical singles. That rule would not be brought back, as no one buys physical singles anymore, there would just be a concrete definition of which songs are supposed to try their luck in the Hot 100.

I can't imagine this would be without controversy though, especially considering how hip-hop has long been regarded as an underdog genre in a sense, despite its constant popularity since the early 90s. People would say Billboard is trying to ignore the genre just like radio typically does, and given how much hip-hop is represented by people of color, the accusations of racism would fly high. But I honestly believe this would be the most fair and satisfying solution.

People in the future will understand, because they'll have those types of songs too. It's been happening since American Idol started, and it's not going to stop any time soon. It's a product of being in a consumer-controlled industry, rather than the radio/retail controlled industry of the 1900's. 

It's a product of being in a "listen to whatever you want" industry instead of a "listen when it's available" industry. People will naturally be hyped about something when it comes out, and forget about it a week later like a neglected goldfish. 

I think it's so much better this way because the chart is better at doing what it's supposed to do: reflecting the popularity of these most hyped artists. These mass debuts give the exact context of how strong of a core fanbase each of these artists have. Without them, I think the Hot 100 would lose a lot of its current relevancy. 

I also think that future generations would be sad to know that their artists will never ever beat records set by Drake, Glee Cast, Lil Wayne, etc.