Billboard Hot 100: 12/26/2020

[wavey.]

Dec 21, 2020 15:11:39 GMT -5 inverse said:

how is dynamite back in the top 10 again ;-;

Holiday Remix.

[jayhawk1117]

Dec 21, 2020 15:11:05 GMT -5 iHype. said:

Dec 21, 2020 15:06:46 GMT -5 deepston said:

Obviously anyone is allowed to employ tactics to go/stay #1, and Mariah knows a few tricks herself from a few years ago 
But what is another week at #1 for AIWFCIY's success? Mariah probably doesn't even care, and rightfully so. 

I see your point. But to some people additional weeks at #1 is also just as nice to celebrate as going #1 the first time.

Seen recently with Taylor herself doing the tactics/new versions against competition in further weeks after Folklore debuted #1 to get additional weeks atop. 

Mariah is past the point of strongly following her charting I would guess, and AIWFCIY hitting #1 for the first time was the final icing on the cake for the song to her. 

yeah until Mariah is close to the all time record, she won't have to do promo lol

[Choco]

Dec 21, 2020 14:48:54 GMT -5 deepston said:

Dec 21, 2020 13:12:54 GMT -5 iHype. said:

90s Mariah would've never let a #1 slip away by 2 points. 

Why wouldn't she let it slip away now? The song is a surefire hit with plenty of weeks at #1 (and probably many more to come). 
Pushing tactics to prevent it from falling from #1 would just have been petty.

But she was straight up savage (and even petty sometimes) in how she worked the chart tactics back in the day.

With her legacy secure now, I don't think she even cares for this particular chartweek, back in the day she would have discounted, sold signed copies and even done radio shows for promo.

[deepston]

Dec 21, 2020 15:18:25 GMT -5 Choco said:

Dec 21, 2020 14:48:54 GMT -5 deepston said:

Why wouldn't she let it slip away now? The song is a surefire hit with plenty of weeks at #1 (and probably many more to come). 
Pushing tactics to prevent it from falling from #1 would just have been petty.

But she was straight up savage (and even petty sometimes) in how she worked the chart tactics back in the day.

With her legacy secure now, I don't think she even cares for this particular chartweek, back in the day she would have discounted, sold signed copies and even done radio shows for promo.

In my opinion using some sort of tactic to fend off Taylor for an extra week at #1 would have just tarnished this legacy. The song will return to #1 next week and collect its annual 2/3 weeks at #1 until God knows when anyways 

[renfield75]

So were there 20 or 21 number one hits this year? Billboard carefully worded it as 20 to "spend their first week at number one", but since AIWFCIY is technically in a separate chart run from last year it should be 21, yes? "The Twist" counted as a separate number one in 1962.

[Choco]

Dec 21, 2020 15:21:59 GMT -5 renfield75 said:

So were there 20 or 21 number one hits this year? Billboard carefully worded it as 20 to "spend their first week at number one", but since AIWFCIY is technically in a separate chart run from last year it should be 21, yes? "The Twist" counted as a separate number one in 1962.

Didn't it technically spend a week at #1 in a January week (according to the Billboard calendar). It should count as a returning #1 hit.

[renfield75]

Dec 21, 2020 15:27:17 GMT -5 Choco said:

Dec 21, 2020 15:21:59 GMT -5 renfield75 said:

So were there 20 or 21 number one hits this year? Billboard carefully worded it as 20 to "spend their first week at number one", but since AIWFCIY is technically in a separate chart run from last year it should be 21, yes? "The Twist" counted as a separate number one in 1962.

Didn't it technically spend a week at #1 in a January week (according to the Billboard calendar). It should count as a returning #1 hit.

It did, but that was an entirely separate chart run from the current one.

[Gary]

All statistics are depending on how you word it.

Mariah was #1 in chart weeks for both years and "charted in 3 decades" based on that.
It is also a 2019 #1 because that is when it first hit

Willow is the 1115th #1 of the Hot 100 era if you count The Twist once but it had two chart runs.


Another fun example:
The "Trollz" record for instance is the biggest drop from #1 to another position

All in the wording

[iHype.]

Dec 21, 2020 15:28:36 GMT -5 renfield75 said:

Dec 21, 2020 15:27:17 GMT -5 Choco said:

Didn't it technically spend a week at #1 in a January week (according to the Billboard calendar). It should count as a returning #1 hit.

It did, but that was an entirely separate chart run from the current one.

It's definitely a weird situation since it was #1 in 2019, going into 2020, then went #1 again in 2020. Which is definitely what caused them to practically re-word the way they'd phrased 2020 #1's.

I think it's debatable.  It had a separate chart run this year, but also, say if "Life Goes On" fell off last week and BTS stans miraculously mass-bought and it returned on the charts at #1 this week I wouldn't count it as two separate #1s in 2020 either.

[slw84]

7th #1 for Taylor.

Sadly, Mariah misses out on a week but as long as Billboard doesn't change any rules to prevent Mariah for slowly reclaiming her time from Old town road then i guess it's all good

[Gary]

Not to worry I think counting Christmas songs as "popular" during Christmas season is here to stay.

[atg]

Dec 21, 2020 14:57:55 GMT -5 Lost In Musical Reverie said:

The fact nobody here brought up "FRANCHISE" in the discussion of forgettable #1s this year. 😭

That one definitely takes the cake, I think. As you said, at least "TROLLZ", "Stuck With U", and "Life Goes On" had some controversy attached to them.

Franchise is so forgettable as a #1, it doesn’t even make ‘forgotten’ lists

[Henry Suárez]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number_ones_of_2020

Final list of #1s in 2020!

Wow, 2020 looks like those years from the mid 80s to early 90s in terms of #1s.

[slw84]

Dec 21, 2020 13:11:30 GMT -5 xyz said:

Wow, 2 points difference according to TOTC

Giving me behind-the-scenes political moves but it wouldn't be the first time.

[gikem]

28 new arrivals this week. That's one more than the week Drake's album Scorpion impacted the Hot 100. Crazy.

[kimberly]

Dec 21, 2020 15:31:00 GMT -5 Gary said:

Another fun example:
The "Trollz" record for instance is the biggest drop from #1 to another position

All in the wording

aaah, Gareth never misses

[85la]

I feel like up to a certain point, if AIWFCIY keeps reaching #1 for too many years, there will be backlash, and many people, even her fans, will start getting tired of it, in terms of both the chart placement and the song itself. It will just get too bland and predictable with such chart domination, and will block many other songs from #1. Eventually, I wouldn't be surprised if her label even tries to mitigate its success for this reason, such as voluntarily forgoing points towards the charts. I know this sounds crazy and don't even know if it's possible, but it's a similar thing with awards like the Grammy's or Emmy's, how on occasion, certain artists don't submit their work because they don't want to dominate and take away from other deserving artists too much.

More likely though, eventually sometime over the years it will decrease in popularity or consumption patterns or chart rules will change, in which it will slide lower and lower or eventually not chart at all. This is eventually what happened exactly to White Christmas - hard to believe that what just receives minor attention in recent years used to be the big Christmas hit for most of last century.

[Gary]

Dec 21, 2020 15:45:39 GMT -5 gikem said:

28 new arrivals this week. That's one more than the week Drake's album Scorpion impacted the Hot 100. Crazy.

Will slow the upward movement of some of the Christmas songs but when most of the Taylor songs freefall next week, the Christmas songs will get one more week in the spotlights

[Amnesiac]

Evermore charting all at once means Haim and The National have both made their first Hot 100 appearance. Haim have never even made the Bubbling Under chart before - not for "Forever" or "The Wire" or "Wan't You Back". It's less surprising to me that The National are making their Hot 100 debut, particularly because they didn't start charting on any of the three rock airplay charts (even Triple A!) until their seventh album.

[renfield75]

Dec 21, 2020 15:33:59 GMT -5 iHype. said:

Dec 21, 2020 15:28:36 GMT -5 renfield75 said:

It did, but that was an entirely separate chart run from the current one.

It's definitely a weird situation since it was #1 in 2019, going into 2020, then went #1 again in 2020. Which is definitely what caused them to practically re-word the way they'd phrased 2020 #1's.

I think it's debatable.  It had a separate chart run this year, but also, say if "Life Goes On" fell off last week and BTS stans miraculously mass-bought and it returned on the charts at #1 this week I wouldn't count it as two separate #1s in 2020 either.

In that scenario I wouldn't count "Life Goes On" as a separate number one because it's still in the same promotional release cycle. If it became a TikTok hit and went to #1 next November I might consider it a different number one for 2021. Or, say "The Chipmunk Song" had a huge revival next Christmas and went to number one. Would it be considered a number one hit of 2021 or just a fifth week added to 1958?

Christmas songs make for a lot of weird scenarios on the chart these days.

[ry4n]

Most number one debuts:

Ariana Grande 5

Drake 3
Justin Bieber 3
Mariah Carey 3
Taylor Swift 3
Travis Scott 3

[Gary]

Dec 21, 2020 16:02:07 GMT -5 renfield75 said:

Or, say "The Chipmunk Song" had a huge revival next Christmas and went to number one. Would it be considered a number one hit of 2021 or just a fifth week added to 1958?

.

Both - all in the wording

[ccchui]

Dec 21, 2020 15:45:39 GMT -5 gikem said:

28 new arrivals this week. That's one more than the week Drake's album Scorpion impacted the Hot 100. Crazy.

I think it is nice to see one of them is from Nat King Cole to debut another song in the chart.

[Choco]

Tbh blocking Mariah next year is as easy as "BTS Xmas Single".

Imagine the mass buying.

Taylor did it this week and it wasn't even one of her strongest number one hits in terms of SPS.

[Gary]

From a market perspective, all the remixes being downloaded suggests to me that the digital single isn't quite dead yet and there is still a market for it. It is not really 100% streaming quite yet, people still buy stuff.

[iHype.]

Dec 21, 2020 16:10:30 GMT -5 Gary said:

From a market perspective, all the remixes being downloaded suggests to me that the digital single isn't quite dead yet and there is still a market for it. It is not really 100% streaming quite yet, people still buy stuff.

And the song will probably never even surpass 200k total pure sales seeing as it's possibly going to fall below 5k sales next week. We are in a time where songs are going Diamond off streams alone.

Digital sales are practically a dead horse in comparison to streaming. Arguing over to the extent of how much they've eroded and how much further they can erode is rather semantics at this point. 

[Choco]

Dec 21, 2020 16:10:30 GMT -5 Gary said:

From a market perspective, all the remixes being downloaded suggests to me that the digital single isn't quite dead yet and there is still a market for it. It is not really 100% streaming quite yet, people still buy stuff.

It's mostly just for chart manipulation though. There is no other reason for these people to mass-buy instead of mass-stream, if they really wanna play the track over and over again.

If and when sales get nerfed to lower their impact on the Hot 100 these mass buying movements will die down, because it's not really about the product being bought, it's just to artificially drive up a peak position.

[Gary]

Dec 21, 2020 16:14:14 GMT -5 iHype. said:

Dec 21, 2020 16:10:30 GMT -5 Gary said:

From a market perspective, all the remixes being downloaded suggests to me that the digital single isn't quite dead yet and there is still a market for it. It is not really 100% streaming quite yet, people still buy stuff.

And the song will probably never even surpass 200k total pure sales seeing as it's possibly going to fall below 5k sales next week. We are in a time where songs are going Diamond off streams alone.

Digital sales are practically a dead horse in comparison to streaming. Arguing over to the extent of how much they've eroded and how much further they can erode is rather semantics at this point. 

Wasn't trying to argue anything actually

The point of my post was to point out people still download songs if there is enough interest in the song.

[Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ]

[iHype.]

2020 Mid-Year Report:

TOP 10 DIGITAL SONG CONSUMPTION
1 “The Box” - 6.058 million (182k sales, 3% of total consumption)
2 “Life Is Good” - 4.248 million (145k sales, 3% of total consumption)
3 “Blinding Lights” - 3.748 million (372k sales, 10% of total consumption)
4 “Say So” - 2.677 million (217k sales, 8% of total consumption)
5."Dance Monkey” - 2.645 million (275k sales, 10% of total consumption)
6. “Savage” - 2.625 million (261k sales, 10% of total consumption)
7. "Don't Start Now” - 2.594 million (204k sales, 8% of total consumption)
8. "Circles” - 2.438 million (214k sales, 9% of total consumption)
9. “Rockstar” - 2.425 million (124k sales, 5% of total consumption)
10. “Roxanne” - 2.362 million (96k sales, 4% of total consumption)

And that's before they outruled the not-shipped-for-months bundles boosting some of these songs sales numbers lol. Let's see how lower sales are in the total consumption for hits a year from now.

Sales for songs are easily at early 2000s level at irrelevance. I think total digital sales will be the lowest since 2004.