Billboard Hot 100: 07/13/2019

[mzumii]

Posty and Thugger have arrived

[Mauricio]

It’s a whole bop 😭

[Crimsonio]

Goodbyes is amazing actually, I hope it dethrones OTR with the MV and #1 TTH placement.

[jdanton2]

Old Town Road is discounted in the US . must have thought there was going to be competition for another week.

[TylerG11]

Well at least OTR doesnt have to worry about Ed/Bruno. As a huge Bruno stan, that colab is TRASH.

[rfucom]

Jul 4, 2019 23:40:34 GMT -5 jdanton2 said:

Old Town Road is discounted in the US . must have thought there was going to be competition for another week.

Lil Nas is smart as ever and its now annoying.

[thegreatdivine]

Sunflower, Wow. and Goodbyes are all less than 3 minutes long, lol.

[Enigma.]

Jul 5, 2019 0:40:19 GMT -5 rfucom said:

Jul 4, 2019 23:40:34 GMT -5 jdanton2 said:

Old Town Road is discounted in the US . must have thought there was going to be competition for another week.

Lil Nas is smart as ever and its now annoying.

The discount is the most meaningless action Columbia can take at this point though.

[korbel16]

pride month is over but hey what a time to be alive

[#LisaRinna]

NOT a discount! And y'all said Mariah used tactics to get 16 weeks. EGGS ON YOUR FACES.

[rimetm]

I wasn’t about to bring that up because all of the 16+ weekers had discount tactics. Despacito had some for the remix and original as the run went along (along with when it got dethroned to slow its descent). I will say this is what finally convinces me to plunk down, so let’s not underestimate the potential effect amongst even more casual purchasers.

[Kris]

Can’t wait for the remix collab with Rihanna and Marshmallow. We Found the Old Time Road In a Hopeless Place written by Max Martin and Dr Luke with backing vocals from Cher and Axel Rose. Incoming 36 week smash.

[fhas]

Jul 5, 2019 7:29:12 GMT -5 rimetm said:

I wasn’t about to bring that up because all of the 16+ weekers had discount tactics. Despacito had some for the remix and original as the run went along (along with when it got dethroned to slow its descent). I will say this is what finally convinces me to plunk down, so let’s not underestimate the potential effect amongst even more casual purchasers.

The original version of Despacito was discounted in the 15th week and the remix in the 16th week.

The discount didn't increase its sales a lot, but gave it stability.

Week 11: 118k downloads
Week 12: 102k
Week 13: 84k
Week 14: 82k
Week 15: 83k (original version discounted)
Week 16: 80k (all the versions discounted)

[chartfreak]

Rooting for OTR!

[#LisaRinna]

"bad guy" reaches 100M impressions today.

[Choco]

Jul 5, 2019 1:42:42 GMT -5 thegreatdivine said:

Sunflower, Wow. and Goodbyes are all less than 3 minutes long, lol.

It's a new trend yo maximize streams.

YNTCD also clocks in at under 3m too, for example.

[thegreatdivine]

Jul 5, 2019 9:12:34 GMT -5 Choco said:

Jul 5, 2019 1:42:42 GMT -5 thegreatdivine said:

Sunflower, Wow. and Goodbyes are all less than 3 minutes long, lol.

It's a new trend yo maximize streams.

YNTCD also clocks in at under 3m too, for example.

I mean, I get it, but when EVERY song an artist drops is that short, it kinda becomes sad. Also, a 4 minute song that will be streamed 4 billion times will eventually hit that mark and a song that's 2 minutes long won't always have tons of streams. I don't like my songs being THAT short. Sunflower, Wow. and Goodbyes end before I even know what's happening.

[Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ]

Jul 5, 2019 9:21:23 GMT -5 thegreatdivine said:

Jul 5, 2019 9:12:34 GMT -5 Choco said:

It's a new trend yo maximize streams.

YNTCD also clocks in at under 3m too, for example.

I mean, I get it, but when EVERY song an artist drops is that short, it kinda becomes sad. Also, a 4 minute song that will be streamed 4 billion times will eventually hit that mark and a song that's 2 minutes long won't always have tons of streams. I don't like my songs being THAT short. Sunflower, Wow. and Goodbyes end before I even know what's happening.

Totally agree with you, that's like making music for more streams and money.

[thegreatdivine]

Jul 5, 2019 9:26:57 GMT -5 Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ said:

Jul 5, 2019 9:21:23 GMT -5 thegreatdivine said:

I mean, I get it, but when EVERY song an artist drops is that short, it kinda becomes sad. Also, a 4 minute song that will be streamed 4 billion times will eventually hit that mark and a song that's 2 minutes long won't always have tons of streams. I don't like my songs being THAT short. Sunflower, Wow. and Goodbyes end before I even know what's happening.

Totally agree with you, that's like making music for more streams and money.

Yup. I think the streaming game is still in such a fluid state that there isn't an exact formula for how success can be achieved. Making a 50-track album doesn't assure you tons of streams and sometimes, short albums garner more streams than really long albums. Same goes for songs. It just sucks that less than 5 years into the streaming era, tons of artists already feel the need to make songs that short. That's part of what turned me off to Lil Nas X's EP. It's clear the dude isn't a real artist and is just here to make as much money as he can as quickly as he can.

I don't mind short songs (especially when they're singles), but what's next? We start getting songs that are one minute long? Billboard reported earlier this year that songs in 2019 are 30 seconds shorter than they were in 2018.

[Kris]

Is there not a way to adjust the streaming formula to weigh songs based on length? Example a 2:38 song would weigh the same as a 4:12 song, just use a multiplier to adjust points.

[Gary]

The average song length across the board is down over prior years

[KeepDeanWeird]

divasummer brings up an important point about RIAA and Label accountability. I always found it shady that Motown refused certifications during the 1970s and early 1980s.

There were also issues with labels instantly certifying on shipments - even though a lot of stock was returned. In 1978, two big things happened: 1) four solo KISS albums were released the same day, all certified platinum, all bombed and most were returned; 2) The Sgt Pepper Soundtrack was similar with a 2 MILLION returns. The next year, RIAA put in 120-day rule to apply for cert, which ended being reduced to 30 days years later.

Certifications meant a lot more (to me) when it involved the sale of product rather than streams. With streaming apps on your phone, is it any different than playing the songs you own? I flip back n forth being the Music App and Spotify, but the latter continually counts while the former counted once at time of purchase. Streaming is the best thing to ever happen to music - it's instant, makes discovering new genres/artists/songs from the entire world accessible, eliminates being burned by weak albums carried by a 'hit,' etc.

[#LisaRinna]

Final Spotify numbers for the week:

"Senorita" - 12,255,537
"Old Town Road" - 11,446,077

[kimberly]

Jul 5, 2019 10:59:38 GMT -5 Kris said:

Is there not a way to adjust the streaming formula to weigh songs based on length? Example a 2:38 song would weigh the same as a 4:12 song, just use a multiplier to adjust points.

I said this in a different thread before, but if streams could be counted by seconds streamed instead of granting one stream per 30-seconds of a song, that would make things more exciting & make the album SEA unites more accurate, too. (1 popular single wouldn't boost the album as much as it does right now)

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

kworb's Billboard Radio Songs Estimates 2019/07/05

1(=) Khalid - Talk 166.60(+0.12)
2(=) Jonas Brothers - Sucker 148.14(+0.39)
3(=) Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber - I Don't Care 138.18(+1.07)
4(=) Sam Smith & Normani - Dancing with a Stranger 108.16 -0.80 5 148.02 39 83 171 39
5(=) Lil Nas X - Old Town Road (feat. Billy Ray Cyrus) [Remix] 105.73(-0.70)
6(=) Shawn Mendes - If I Can't Have You 105.34(+2.66)
7(=) Billie Eilish - bad guy 100.22(+1.75)
8(=) Panic! At the Disco - Hey Look Ma, I Made It 95.42(+1.12)
9(=) Post Malone - Wow. 90.25(-0.14)
10(=) Ava Max - Sweet but Psycho 73.32(-0.11)

16(+1) Katy Perry - Never Really Over 57.24(+0.78)

19(+4) Lizzo - Truth Hurts 54.03(+1.99)

22(=) Taylor Swift - You Need To Calm Down 53.95(+1.58)

40(+2) Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello - Señorita 40.03(+1.74)

[kcdawg13]

I cannot believe Sucker is still gaining, I'm so burnt on that track.

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

kworb's Billboard Radio Songs Estimates 2019/07/06

1(=) Khalid - Talk 167.26(+0.66)
2(=) Jonas Brothers - Sucker 149.00(+0.87)
3(=) Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber - I Don't Care 139.31(+1.14)
4(=) Sam Smith & Normani - Dancing with a Stranger 107.49(-0.67)
5(=) Lil Nas X - Old Town Road (feat. Billy Ray Cyrus) [Remix] 104.96(-0.77)
6(=) Shawn Mendes - If I Can't Have You 104.53(-0.81)
7(=) Billie Eilish - bad guy 101.76(+1.55)

8(=) Panic! At the Disco - Hey Look Ma, I Made It 97.23(+1.80)
9(=) Post Malone - Wow. 89.85(-0.40)
10(=) Ava Max - Sweet but Psycho 72.97(-0.36)

19(=) Lizzo - Truth Hurts 55.59(+1.57)

20(+2) Taylor Swift - You Need To Calm Down 55.08(+1.13)

21(=) Eric Church - Some of It 54.99(+1.01)

37(+3) Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello - Señorita 41.66(+1.63)

[pnobelysk]

Old town road passes 1 million in sales this week. There’s a high chance it will be the only million seller this year outside of hopefully Adele’s lead.


Shallow is in second place around 700k for the year (over a million with 2018s sales), maybe if Gaga gets the vanguard at the vmas and includes shallow for a performance of hits, she can get the momentum to have it pass 1 million for the year.

[85la]

I don't think song length is such a big deal (barring extremes of course, like 45 seconds or 8 minutes). Just because one song is a little longer than another (say 4:30 minutes compared to 2:30) doesn't necessarily mean it's more valuable or that most people will enjoy it more. It's quality, not length/quantity, which is why weighing longer songs more would be a terrible and meaningless idea. And it's not like this is new or anything, for most of recorded music history up until maybe about the 70s, most pop songs were around 3 1/2 minutes or less.

[Au$tin]

Hasn't it actually been proven that shorter songs are more likely to be repeated? It makes sense too, for 2 reasons. The first reason is that the song isn't long enough to satisfy a listener, so they play it twice to get those sweet endorphins. The second reason is that a shorter song allows for more time to be played on repeat. Believe it or not, there are people out there that put songs on repeat for a lengthy amount of time. So, for example, if someone puts a 3:30 length song for an hour, they'll play it about 17 times. If the song is only 2:30 in length, they'll play it about 24 times.

So, yeah, add those two things up and you'll get a noticeable difference in streaming numbers. Not enough that I would say there needs to be a weighting system set in place, but enough for the industry to push for shorter songs. And the reasoning behind it has nothing to do with chart placements, it's about money. More streams means more streaming revenue. The chart benefit is just icing on the cake.

And really it's not much different than when songs had to be super short for radio airplay back in the 50s and 60s. Songs over 2.5 minutes back in those days typically reveived a radio edit to make them that short in order for radio to play them more. Otherwise songs were just made to be that short. A similar thing still takes place today it's just that somewhere along the line the limit increased from 2.5 to ~4 minutes. Streaming is just the new thing to shorten songs again rather than airplay as streaming is the dominant music consumption component now.