Billboard Hot 100: 05/23/2020

[Gary]

A song with no airplay getting top 3 is weird - his opinion seems fine.


I think some are reading a little too much into that.   It is just an opinion

 

[strongerq]

May 18, 2020 17:42:00 GMT -5 Gary said:

A song with no airplay getting top 3 is weird - his opinion seems fine.


I think some are reading a little too much into that.   It is just an opinion

 

Wierd yes. It has happened before in 2020 (Godzilla #3, songs from Lil Uzi Vert in top 10 with 0 radio).

But GOOBA was among the 3 most popular songs last week.  Just asked weather chartfreak agrees or not.

[Myth X]

Why Scooter and Bieber keep saying that Tekashi is talking about global views? That 50 million number he's mentioning is the number reported by youtube from the US only.

The truth is that Billboard has been counting 60% of the views from hip hop videos this year. It happened with The Box, Life is good and even Savage

[chartfreak]

It deserves #3 based on the stats yes. Most songs seem popular to us because we follow this board. But that's a whole other discussion, lol.

[kanimal]

May 18, 2020 17:49:24 GMT -5 Myth X said:

Why Scooter and Bieber keep saying that Tekashi is talking about global views? That 50 million number he's mentioning is the number reported by youtube from the US only.

The truth is that Billboard has been counting 60% of the views from hip hop videos this year. It happened with The Box, Life is good and even Savage

To be fair, 6ix9ine didn't do a good job of explaining the numbers he was showing in that initial IG video.

But - yes - the "global" point mischaracterizes his argument. Scooter's bot allegation would be more relevant, but I don't think we can just take that claim for granted given the other examples you provided.

[Myth X]

May 18, 2020 17:54:47 GMT -5 kanimal said:

May 18, 2020 17:49:24 GMT -5 Myth X said:

Why Scooter and Bieber keep saying that Tekashi is talking about global views? That 50 million number he's mentioning is the number reported by youtube from the US only.

The truth is that Billboard has been counting 60% of the views from hip hop videos this year. It happened with The Box, Life is good and even Savage

To be fair, 6ix9ine didn't do a good job of explaining the numbers he was showing in that initial IG video.

But - yes - the "global" point mischaracterizes his argument. Scooter's bot allegation would be more relevant, but I don't think we can just take that claim for granted given the other examples you provided.

Exactly. I think 69 is a clown but what happened to his video happened with so many hip hop videos this year.

Are we gonna say that Roddy Ricch, Future, Megan, Drake, etc also used bots just because Billboard didn't count a big part of their streams?

[hughster1]

This whole discussion summarizes why there can never be a resolution of what is "fair" or "accurate" in the charts: any time you are mixing different kinds of data, especially when it involves weighing it, there is always an element of subjectivity. It was true of the Hot 100 in the pre-Soundscan days (if you want to see REAL chart manipulation, read about the 70s when the Hot 100 was regularly skewed and manipulated by chart director Bill Wardlow)

at40fg.proboards.com/thread/2089?page=1

and it's true today, because no formula is "objectively" the best one. Some may be better than others, but you can't really say which is objectively the most accurate. And add to that what in my opinion is the fact that streaming probably gets a narrower group of more active music listeners, and radio a broader group of more passive music listeners, and it gets even more complicated - the question of whose preferences should count more is pretty much a value judgment, not an objective fact. (Nowadays I'd bet sales fall somewhere in the middle - sometimes big fans who purchase music, sometimes more occasional listeners who might buy something once in a while like a charity single or something that gets big exposure on a TV show, although this is just my opinion.) And you have to decide not only what the overall share of each type of data contributes to the chart, but also how much to make them equivalent - how many streams equal one sale (let alone differentiating between different types of streams). And that doesn't even get into the issue of how streaming a whole album counts towards the Hot 100, but buying a whole album doesn't.

So it's all pretty arbitrary, ultimately.

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

May 18, 2020 15:00:27 GMT -5 kalmanta said:

May 18, 2020 14:41:43 GMT -5 Rose "Payola" Nylund said:

Would you rather the chart be less accurate tho

Less accurate of what? Certainly not what‘s popular. They way the sales metric has been abused lately to picture false realities, there has to be done something against it.

But who decides what’s considered accurate? That’s always the question. We can say sales have been abused but we can see cases of streaming being abused too. Nothing is going to be perfect because there are multiple ways to possibly look at how to determine what’s popular.

[jenglisbe]

May 18, 2020 16:28:37 GMT -5 GP said:

Ariana and Justin spoke super well. Nicely done!

Well, Ariana showed she knows exactly how the charts work (4 copies!) right after saying numbers don't matter.

And Justin admitted it was all "strategy," even though they'd been saying it's a charity single.

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

May 18, 2020 15:41:38 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

May 18, 2020 14:03:08 GMT -5 wayneashleymusic said:

6ix9ine has no freaking chill. Calm TF DOWN and celebrate everything that your scary ass did achieve. Good move by Ariana and Justin (and that thing that manages them) to donate proceeds of the song SALES to Pandemic Relief. Sorry but I cannot be mad about that. Push your merch, make those sales and help some people.

Sure, it's nice that if there were any actual proceeds they will go to charity, but considering they now dropped the push for the charity, it's clear they used the charity angle to help spur momentum for a #1. That's shameless.

Unless they were able to get donations and didn’t have to actually pay for some/most of that promo.

[hughster1]

Off topic, but an interesting tale of chart manipulation: how, back in 1978, Billboard had made "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty no. 1 after a long wait at number 2, only to do a last minute "correction" - after "American Top 40" had already been recorded saying "Baker Street" was number 1 - to keep Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing" at number 1 after the chart manager had dinner with Gibb's management and Gibb threatened to pull out of a performance sponsored by Billboard:

djrobblog.com/archives/6222

[jenglisbe]

May 18, 2020 18:18:51 GMT -5 Rose "Payola" Nylund said:

May 18, 2020 15:41:38 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

Sure, it's nice that if there were any actual proceeds they will go to charity, but considering they now dropped the push for the charity, it's clear they used the charity angle to help spur momentum for a #1. That's shameless.

Unless they were able to get donations and didn’t have to actually pay for some/most of that promo.

Then why aren't they continuing the charity promotion this week?

[lights]

Did stuck with u go back to full price on iTunes?

[Golden Bluebird]

May 18, 2020 18:22:13 GMT -5 hughster1 said:

Off topic, but an interesting tale of chart manipulation: how, back in 1978, Billboard had made "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty no. 1 after a long wait at number 2, only to do a last minute "correction" - after "American Top 40" had already been recorded saying "Baker Street" was number 1 - to keep Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing" at number 1 after the chart manager had dinner with Gibb's management and Gibb threatened to pull out of a performance sponsored by Billboard:

djrobblog.com/archives/6222

Yeah. If you think there's a lot of chart manipulation these days, it's nothing compared to what they were doing back in the chart's first few decades. Thank God for Soundscan.

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

May 18, 2020 18:30:14 GMT -5 lights said:

Did stuck with u go back to full price on iTunes?

If I'm not mistaken, it was back to that since Friday.

[Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ]

May 18, 2020 18:26:07 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

May 18, 2020 18:18:51 GMT -5 Rose "Payola" Nylund said:

Unless they were able to get donations and didn’t have to actually pay for some/most of that promo.

Then why aren't they continuing the charity promotion this week?

that's usually a one-week thing. This year, UK had like 3-4 charity songs topping the chart, and then falling out of the top 10.

We Are The World 25 For Haiti spent 5 weeks on chart in 2010 (2-6-36-66-96).

[kierz7]

I love how artists that once supported 6ix9ine (especially those from NYC) are either outright shading him or have just left him in the dust! 💀

Whew. It’s hard out here!

[kimberly]

May 18, 2020 18:26:07 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

May 18, 2020 18:18:51 GMT -5 Rose "Payola" Nylund said:

Unless they were able to get donations and didn’t have to actually pay for some/most of that promo.

Then why aren't they continuing the charity promotion this week?

what do you want them to do, post "buy our song for charity" right after addressing the accusations?

Ariana posts regularly about charities people should support on her IG stories, and highlights them in her profile so they stay there and not disappear. She last posted 2 days ago, but has been doing it weekly for the last 4 weeks & a couple more times before that. I don't follow Justin on any platform, so can't speak for him. 

Charity songs have a shelf life and I'm sure everyone is aware of that. Beyond the initial response, there won't be much interest in buying the song, and instead of promoting the song to get 5k weekly sales, I'd rather have them promote charities. The song did its thing and raised at least $140k. 

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

May 18, 2020 18:48:03 GMT -5 Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ said:

May 18, 2020 18:26:07 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

Then why aren't they continuing the charity promotion this week?

that's usually a one-week thing. This year, UK had like 3-4 charity songs topping the chart, and then falling out of the top 10.

We Are The World 25 For Haiti spent 5 weeks on chart in 2010 (2-6-36-66-96).

We Are The World being #1 for 4 weeks and charting for 18 weeks in the Hot 100 was an anomaly in terms of charity songs. Do They Know It's Christmas which preceded and inspired it, managed a #13 peak and charted for 9 weeks.

[think pink.]

LMAO

http://instagram.com/p/CAWS574p-Kn

[lurker2]

Americans just don’t like charity singles. I blame the fact that, in general, they aren’t good.

[jenglisbe]

May 18, 2020 18:51:49 GMT -5 kimberly said:

May 18, 2020 18:26:07 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

Then why aren't they continuing the charity promotion this week?

what do you want them to do, post "buy our song for charity" right after addressing the accusations?

Ariana posts regularly about charities people should support on her IG stories, and highlights them in her profile so they stay there and not disappear. She last posted 2 days ago, but has been doing it weekly for the last 4 weeks & a couple more times before that. I don't follow Justin on any platform, so can't speak for him. 

Charity songs have a shelf life and I'm sure everyone is aware of that. Beyond the initial response, there won't be much interest in buying the song, and instead of promoting the song to get 5k weekly sales, I'd rather have them promote charities. The song did its thing and raised at least $140k. 

They could spread out the deals, the matching donations, whatever. Why not try to bring continual focus (and proceeds) to the charity? They seemed to have literally pulled out all of the tricks to get a #1 debut and then just dropped the charity. It makes it all feel like a gimmick to get a #1, and not a selfless act of charity.

[Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ]

May 18, 2020 18:59:10 GMT -5 think pink. said:

LMAO

http://instagr.am/p/CAWS574p-Kn

2 weeks later:

1.(NEW) Lady Gaga & ARIANA - Rain On Me
2.(NEW) 6ix9ine - TOOBA

[Enigma.]

Based on his IG comment section, I wouldn't count on that most of 6ix9ine's followers 1) have any idea of how charts work, and 2) care about them.

[kimberly]

May 18, 2020 19:02:47 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

May 18, 2020 18:51:49 GMT -5 kimberly said:

what do you want them to do, post "buy our song for charity" right after addressing the accusations?

Ariana posts regularly about charities people should support on her IG stories, and highlights them in her profile so they stay there and not disappear. She last posted 2 days ago, but has been doing it weekly for the last 4 weeks & a couple more times before that. I don't follow Justin on any platform, so can't speak for him. 

Charity songs have a shelf life and I'm sure everyone is aware of that. Beyond the initial response, there won't be much interest in buying the song, and instead of promoting the song to get 5k weekly sales, I'd rather have them promote charities. The song did its thing and raised at least $140k. 

They could spread out the deals, the matching donations, whatever. Why not try to bring continual focus (and proceeds) to the charity? They seemed to have literally pulled out all of the tricks to get a #1 debut and then just dropped the charity. It makes it all feel like a gimmick to get a #1, and not a selfless act of charity.

they are still continuing to donate the proceeds, so I don't get your point. charity singles, by default, even more front loaded than a BTS single. people who normally wouldn't have downloaded the song (like me) dipped into their bank accounts for a one-time thing, and have already moved on. there isn't a point in either artist promoting a song that doesn't define their artistic direction for the sake of proving that they care. they showed that they care by releasing the song in the first place, matching donations, and supporting other charities outside of the context of this song.

spreading out deals (by this I assume you mean the amazon music deal) they would only be hurting the total amount of donations. same goes for the signed cd's. people decide to purchase faster if the item is "limited edition" or discounted. it's consumer psychology. I sure wouldn't have jumped to buy the song on Amazon if the deal weren't ending the next day.

[Glove Slap]

May 18, 2020 15:40:15 GMT -5 tanooki said:

scooter braun after his plot to buy his own single 30,000 times for that #1 spot actually worked

LMAO my exact thoughts! Probably sending both of them the text for social media posts too.

[GW]

Billboard with a serve.

[Tea-why]

Good lord....


How Billboard Came to Its Calculations in This Week's Race For the Hot 100 No. 1

Pop fans anxiously awaited the announcement of this week's No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 today (May 18), with new singles from rapper 6ix9ine ("Gooba") and the pop star duo of Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber ("Stuck With U") likely to be in contention for the chart's top spot.

Ultimately, Billboard announced that "Stuck With U" had debuted atop this week's listing, with "Gooba" landing two spots below at No. 3 in its first week. ("Say So," last week's No. 1 from Doja Cat featuring Nicki Minaj, finished between them at No. 2.)

Ariana Grande & Justin Bieber's 'Stuck With U' Debuts at No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100
This was met with some controversy on social media, as 6ix9ine had taken to Instagram shortly before the chart's reveal to assert that streams of his single had been improperly discounted, and allege that the powers behind "Stuck With U" had "bought" their No. 1 through ill-gotten sales totals. (Grande, Bieber, and manager/"Stuck" co-writer Scooter Braun all later took to Instagram to deny the rapper's claims.)

In an effort towards transparency regarding the Hot 100's chart rules and tabulation process -- and the calculations that go into the determinations of its final rankings -- Billboard wanted to clear some things up regarding this week's chart, and the stats accumulated by the two singles that marked its highest debuts.

The total stream count for "Gooba": 55.3 million combined audio and video U.S. streams for “Gooba” were reported to Nielsen Music/MRC Data and Billboard for this week’s Hot 100.

6ix9ine's claims that not all of his streams were properly counted: Streaming numbers visible on audio and video data platforms do not reflect the volume included in Billboard’s chart calculations. That includes stream counts publicly viewable on platforms, or those made available to content owners (including 6ix9ine and his team) directly through a proprietary data feed or dashboard.

Each data provider provides a post-audit number to Billboard and Nielsen Music/MRC Data -- excluding streams that do not meet long-standing charting parameters, such as U.S.-based-only plays, minimum play length, excessive plays and lack of user verification. This is applied to all songs from all artists. (Billboard has reached out to YouTube for further comment about their play statistics for "Gooba.")

The 30 million streams that 6ix9ine said Billboard counted matches the included chart total for all video plays. That number is more than double any single-week video stream total for any song so far this year.

The discrepancy between YouTube's visible play count for "Gooba" (over 180 million) and the number of streams Billboard counted for the song this week (55.3 million): Counts for a video on its YouTube page are for global plays, and absent any other auditing filters mentioned above. Billboard counts only U.S.-based plays for its charts.

The Hot 100 forecast 6ix9ine referenced in his Instagram video: The chart forecast referenced was not created nor provided by Billboard to the industry. Those with access to sales, streaming and radio data from various sources often create their own chart models and update them at their own frequency. Billboard does not distribute any Hot 100 ranking forecast to labels, management or artists.

The late 24-hour sales spike for "Stuck With U" alleged by 6ix9ine in the video: “Stuck With U” was available to purchase through the week as a digital download, as well as in various physical format/digital download combinations through Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber’s webstores. The sales spike is likely referring to sales on Thursday, May 14 -- the final day of the tracking week -- when signed “Stuck With U” singles were put up for sale in Grande and Bieber’s webstores.

A signed single or album is an accepted form of sales available to any artist and has been noted repeatedly within Billboard chart stories when such items have impacted the Hot 100. 6ix9ine, meanwhile, released a non-signed CD single/digital download on the last day of the tracking week via his webstore.

As noted in this week’s story announcing the results on the latest Hot 100, “Stuck With U” sold 108,000 in the tracking week ending May 14 and “Gooba” sold 24,000, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data.

6ix9ine's claims that "six credit cards" were responsible for a hefty percentage of the "Stuck With U" sales: Billboard and Nielsen Music/MRC Data conducts audits on all sales reported with access to purchase-level detail, and works with data partners to recognize excessive bulk purchases and remove those units from the final sales total. All titles this week, as in every week, were put under the same scrutiny. (Billboard has reached out to Fame House/Bravado, retailer and reporter of director-to-consumer sales, for further comment about the sales data provided for "Stuck With U.")

6ix9ine's claims that Billboard would not "disclose" information about data when asked: Billboard and Nielsen Music/MRC Data were open and forthright with all information pertaining to “Gooba” with 6ix9ine’s team. That includes explaining the Hot 100 methodology and how the final ranking and chart points for “Gooba” were calculated. Billboard and Nielsen Music/MRC Data cannot, however, provide granular detail on a title to anyone but its content owner.

How the Hot 100's multi-metric calculations are tabulated, and how it led to this week's results: The Hot 100 has a locked-in methodology, updated at least once a year, with each metric divided by a certain number, which results in an average chart ratio whereby streams are the most heavily weighted factor, followed next by radio airplay and then sales. Each song has its own ratio breakdown based on its specific activity, which contributes to the overall chart average each week .

Overall, “Stuck With U” drew 28.1 million U.S. streams, 26.3 million in radio airplay audience and 108,000 sold in the tracking week. “Gooba” had 55.3 million U.S. streams, 172,000 in radio airplay audience and 24,000 sold.

Those sums resulted in the songs’ respective rankings on this week’s Hot 100.

[Myth X]

I have to say this fool is hilarious
He's mocking Scooby Braun here

http://instagram.com/p/CAWS574p-Kn

[Kurt]

May 17, 2020 1:29:35 GMT -5 𝕡𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕓𝕤 said:

May 16, 2020 23:16:05 GMT -5 Rose "Payola" Nylund said:

I remember in the early days of Pulse, or on the board before Pulse, we had a chart called Peoplebase, where members sent in lists that applied points to individual songs and the songs with the most collective points charted highest that week. Each person had 1000 points to distribute among whatever singles they wanted - a max of 99 points for one song. It worked well for a few months but soon people started making deals where they would exchange points for certain songs to get them higher on the chart. I think some even registered fake accounts to get their favs higher too. In the end, all the plotting and trades ended up ruining the fun and the chart just died out. It stopped being accurate and fun/useful for everyone except the select few leading the deals.

The same thing is beginning to happen to Crownnote's Crown 100. K-pop groups are blowing up (NCT Dream reached #3 over..."Physical" & "Savage"?!?) and songs like Adele's "Hello", Ellie Goulding's "Love Me Like You Do" and especially Carrie Underwood's "Two Black Cadillacs" (which spent nine weeks charting, reaching #38 before suddenly dropping off) are charting in 2020. Its frustrating. 

lol I don't know why I just saw this (and more, why I dared venture into the Hot 100 thread – I have my blinders on for this post and this post alone lmfao), but trust me, it's just as weird to me too hahaha. They're all happening because of the same group of ~15 people, but I'm not sure what compels them to suddenly stan five-year-old singles.