Billboard Hot 100: 08/21/2021

[iamsorare]

Aug 7, 2021 13:52:51 GMT -5 phieaglesfan712 said:

Aug 7, 2021 13:38:50 GMT -5 kcdawg13 said:

Abel's team is better at keeping tracks on the charts long-term compared to others who get that first breakthrough week and let the track go, I expect Take My Breath to debut Top 5 and hang around. Reminder Heartless had a larger debut on streaming but fell to #17 in it's second week on the Hot 100, and BL debuted at #11 and took a dive for weeks before recovering.

Although Heartless was released on a Wednesday, and charted at #32 during that preliminary week. That said, the drop from 1-17 should come with an asterisk due to the holiday season. If not for the Christmas songs, Heartless would not have dropped out of the Top 15 immediately following the week at #1.

heartless was a hit with longevity.yes it was not as big as blinding lights but it was a decent hit.it stayed in top 20 of hot 100 for many weeks and it went top 10 again on the album release week... 3x platinum and also top 5 on pop radio..

[jaffery]

Also, when Bieber debut with similar numbers with holy which has absolutely no replay value, people said he was over. And he was coming from the bomb that was changes. So if that’s an underperformance then this definitely is

[suzcruz7]

Oh my god it's been one day. Y'all need to relaaaaaaaaaax.

[kcdawg13]

Heartless came after 3 years of no proper Weeknd single, aside from Call Out My Name which did alright for a bit but sorta went away. It makes sense the hype was up.

I already see people calling this debut "disappointing" but dude is following up the biggest song of all time, what do you expect? Blinding Lights took months to become a huge hit, same with Save Your Tears which also didn't manage to hit #1 without the help of a remix.

Doesn't help both of those singles are still in heavy rotation on radio and on streaming, now we have 3 Weeknd hits at the same time plus You Right. It's gonna take a bit to warm up to it. Radio will still likely carry Take My Breath for months to come like it has with the last couple singles Abel has put out.

[mylo]

Aug 7, 2021 14:22:27 GMT -5 jaffery said:

Aug 7, 2021 9:04:40 GMT -5 Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ said:

tbh I expected 2M, but these numbers are good too. It's not like he's famous for huge Spotify debut numbers like Ariana, Drake or Olivia.

Just look at the Blinding Lights opening numbers, it's literally the biggest song of all time now.

Shape of you is bigger than blinding lights even though I hate it. 

BL is bigger than Shape of You. It'll hold all longevity records if it hangs on this week and it is already bigger than The Twist. The Weeknd has never debuted higher than 4. His team are longevity based, not Peak based. It'll debut at 4 or 5 and then radio will eat it up. We shall see what happens after this but I think it'll go number 1.

[Caviar]

Sigh

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

kworb's Billboard Radio Songs Estimates 2021/08/07

1(=) Dua Lipa - Levitating 92.99(-1.02)
2(=) Doja Cat - Kiss Me More (feat. SZA) 88.35(+0.11)
3(=) Olivia Rodrigo - good 4 u 87.13(+0.33)
4(=) Olivia Rodrigo - deja vu 77.78(-0.10)
5(=) Ed Sheeran - Bad Habits 76.93(+0.81) +
6(=) Lil Nas X - MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) 73.64(-0.68)
7(=) Justin Bieber - Peaches (feat. Daniel Caesar & GIVĒON) 62.35(-0.79)
8(=) The Weeknd & Ariana Grande - Save Your Tears (Remix) 58.31(-0.98)
9(=) Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak & Silk Sonic - Leave The Door Open 53.20(-0.00)
10(=) GIVĒON - Heartbreak Anniversary 49.73(-0.52)

23(=) Doja Cat & The Weeknd - You Right 38.24(+0.68)

24(+2) The Kid LAROI & Justin Bieber - STAY 37.43(+0.79)

26(+1) Roddy Ricch - Late At Night 37.34(+0.89) +

28(+1) Thomas Rhett - Country Again 33.10(+0.62)

100(+8) Lil Nas X & Jack Harlow - INDUSTRY BABY 13.52(+0.69)

-(-) Jason Aldean & Carrie Underwood - If I Didn't Love You 13.07(+0.83)

-(-) The Weeknd - Take My Breath 9.62(-)

-(-) Jake Owen - Best Thing Since Backroads 7.40(-)

-(-) Aventura & Bad Bunny - Volví 1.75(+1.03) +

[kcdawg13]

Aug 7, 2021 14:22:27 GMT -5 jaffery said:

Aug 7, 2021 9:04:40 GMT -5 Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ said:

tbh I expected 2M, but these numbers are good too. It's not like he's famous for huge Spotify debut numbers like Ariana, Drake or Olivia.

Just look at the Blinding Lights opening numbers, it's literally the biggest song of all time now.

Shape of you is bigger than blinding lights even though I hate it. 

Definitely not, BL has all the longevity records pretty much at this point and it's the biggest charting hit of all time in the US. You could argue worldwide maybe but Blinding Lights is a huge worldwide hit and it's a couple hundred million shy of passing Shape of You on Spotify as the most streamed song of all time, and BL has been out for less time.

[jaffery]

Aug 7, 2021 15:20:01 GMT -5 kcdawg13 said:

Aug 7, 2021 14:22:27 GMT -5 jaffery said:

Shape of you is bigger than blinding lights even though I hate it. 

Definitely not, BL has all the longevity records pretty much at this point and it's the biggest charting hit of all time in the US. You could argue worldwide maybe but Blinding Lights is a huge worldwide hit and it's a couple hundred million shy of passing Shape of You on Spotify as the most streamed song of all time, and BL has been out for less time.

Except shape of you came out when spotify was weaker and digital sales were still somewhat decent. It has an insane amount of digital sales and 5b YouTube views. It has sold 90m units worldwide and bl hasn’t even sold 40m yet. Bl is not in any way shape or form bigger or even close to being as big as shape of you worldwide. And even in America, it will only be bigger based on hot 100 points because it stuck Around longer on radio, not on actual consumption.

[kcdawg13]

Aug 7, 2021 15:22:33 GMT -5 jaffery said:

Aug 7, 2021 15:20:01 GMT -5 kcdawg13 said:

Definitely not, BL has all the longevity records pretty much at this point and it's the biggest charting hit of all time in the US. You could argue worldwide maybe but Blinding Lights is a huge worldwide hit and it's a couple hundred million shy of passing Shape of You on Spotify as the most streamed song of all time, and BL has been out for less time.

Except shape of you came out when spotify was weaker and digital sales were still somewhat decent. It has an insane amount of digital sales and 5b YouTube views. It has sold 90m units worldwide and bl hasn’t even sold 40m yet. Bl is not in any way shape or form bigger or even close to being as big as shape of you worldwide. And even in America, it will only be bigger based on hot 100 points because it stuck Around longer on radio, not on actual consumption.

This is a moot point, trying to attach Blinding Light's immense longevity to only radio is a complete lie, BL is still Top 40 on Spotify right now and it's been huge on streaming.

[mylo]

"Only Radio" yet it is the second most streamed song of all time on Spotify? Some people are crazy.

[phieaglesfan712]

For what it's worth, Blinding Lights has already passed Shape of You on the United World Chart, and is within striking distance of CITW 1997 for #1 all-time:

[lugus15]

Why is EVERY metric of the Hot 100 doing such low numbers?

Radio is a fraction of what it used to be, digital sales are all but dead and streaming (which was suppossed to pick up the slack of the previous two) is very low compared to years ago.

[thegreatdivine]

Aug 7, 2021 15:42:12 GMT -5 mylo said:

"Only Radio" yet it is the second most streamed song of all time on Spotify? Some people are crazy.

Isn't Blinding Lights also the biggest radio hit of all time? It's been on the Billboard Radio Songs chart for 79 weeks now and it's STILL in the top 15 as at last week.

Yes, it's also done really well on streaming (and even pure sales, to some extent) but it's chart run on the Hot 100 benefitted more from radio than any other song in Hot 100 history. It was the right song released at the right time and benefitted a lot from the pandemic last year (as many other radio-fueled hits did).

When it broke the record for most weeks at #1 on the Radio Songs chart, Billboard published an article acknowledging the achievement and offered some context to how it was able to pull if off in the first place.

www.billboard.com/amp/articles/business/chart-beat/9437326/weeknd-blinding-lights-radio-history

Not trying to take away from it's success but to act like radio didn't play a huge role in how it was able to spend so many weeks in the top 10 and isn't a big reason why it's still so stable in the top 20 even now, is being disingenuous.

[Limited Edition]

Blinding Lights isn't bigger than Shape Of You worldwide. SOY was the best selling song of 2017 with 26.6M units sold (Blinding Lights sold 21.7M in 2020). It was also the 3rd best selling song of 2018 with 14.9M units, which I don't see Blinding Lights surpassing this year. So SOY was bigger than BL for the first two years of their release, and considering Shape Of You is still currently #61 on Billboard Global 200, it's hard to imagine Blinding Lights closing the gap in units. It's probably going to surpass Shape Of You on Spotify because the platform has grown immensely in popularity since 2017. On Youtube, the gap is over 5B views and will continue to widen.

It's a different story in the US. Blinding Lights was much bigger on the radio, while Shape Of You had a bigger peak and great longevity but not as good as Blinding Lights. Shape Of You reached Diamond in 2 years and it looks like Blinding Lights will do it in around two years too. I'd give Blinding Lights the edge because of longevity and radio.

[somelikeitwhen]

Aug 7, 2021 0:23:37 GMT -5 jamatthews83 said:

Before He Cheats was still charting when So Small debuted I believe, but that was a 3rd single.

It was actually the fourth

[After Minutes]

As I said - chill. Abel's team know what they are doing. They released the single earlyto take the attention off Blinding Lights and Save Your Tears so that they could pave the road for the rest of this era without having to worry about them. Despite that, unless the song dives on streaming, it will most likely be Abel's biggest debut.

As for why Heartless and COMN had such high debuts - they're partly the old, dark sound. That gets XO hyped more than anything. Had Take My Breath been The Hills, it would have cracked 3 million streams on it's opening day, but it wouldn't have the longevity that Abel and his team are aiming for. Let it breathe and see what happens.

[thegreatdivine]

Since the pandemic hit, the metric that best assures stability on the Hot 100, is radio. Digital sales keeps losing it's power with every passing year and streaming in the US hasn't been stable since last year (even if you score yourself a massive streaming debut week with your single, within 10 weeks, you're down to less than 40M weekly streams. In 15 weeks, you'll be lucky to still be above 30M weekly streams. In 25 weeks, you're barely managing to average 15M weekly streams), so if your song doesn't do really well on radio, it won't have any longevity, especially in the top 10 - top 30 region of the Hot 100. Check out the songs that spent the most time in the top 10 from last year till now and you can draw a direct correlation to how well they performed on radio.

[iHype.]

Abel & his team are as chart obsessed as Travis (let’s remember Heartless having 50~ different CDs, Vinyls, and Casettes) so I’m sure they’ll make the numbers look good on paper at the end of the day.

[KeepDeanWeird]

If Abel had a pre-launch campaign for this era like Kanye, who is all over the music and mainstream media, then it could be a red flag. Or if it was tied to the SB hype. Fact is, I only knew TMB was coming out because of Pulse. I'm sure I'm not alone. He has a solid and broad fanbase, they'll find him.

[Au$tin]

Aug 7, 2021 16:16:45 GMT -5 lugus15 said:

Why is EVERY metric of the Hot 100 doing such low numbers?

Radio is a fraction of what it used to be, digital sales are all but dead and streaming (which was suppossed to pick up the slack of the previous two) is very low compared to years ago.

Radio - because fewer people are listening
Sales - because who buys songs anymore?
Streaming - because COVID changed everyone's listening habits

[fridayteenage]

digital is kinda over, but interesting that abel is already booted from the itunes #1

[rainygirl]

I keep saying it .. there is such a thing as overexposure . They all need to pull an Adele and disappear between eras . No matter how good the songs are , the GP can feel saturated by any specific artist

[GW]

the back and forth arguments about if a song's streaming numbers are an underperformance or not are so on-brand pulse. like clockwork. love you guys.

I can see both sides of the "argument" but let's all be real.. the song will do well. it's gonna get an eye roll from some of his moody r&b fans, but we'll get more of that, so whatever. This will appeal to many.

[Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ]

Aug 7, 2021 19:12:55 GMT -5 rainygirl said:

I keep saying it .. there is such a thing as overexposure . They all need to pull an Adele and disappear between eras . No matter how good the songs are , the GP can feel saturated by any specific artist

no? It's not like you hear a song and you really love it...and then you're like: is this The Weeknd? omg, no thanks. keep it.

give this song time people, and some of you act like it debuted with 500k streams.

also, Bruno's comeback single (first in 2 years), debuted with 1,7M streams too, and it topped the chart later for 2 weeks, and spent 18 weeks in the top 10. Maybe that's underwhelming for some people too, idk.

[rainygirl]

Aug 7, 2021 20:00:58 GMT -5 Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ said:

Aug 7, 2021 19:12:55 GMT -5 rainygirl said:

I keep saying it .. there is such a thing as overexposure . They all need to pull an Adele and disappear between eras . No matter how good the songs are , the GP can feel saturated by any specific artist

no? It's not like you hear a song and you really love it...and then you're like: is this The Weeknd? omg, no thanks. keep it.

give this song time people, and some of you act like it debuted with 500k streams.

also, Bruno's comeback single (first in 2 years), debuted with 1,7M streams too, and it topped the chart later for 2 weeks, and spent 18 weeks in the top 10. Maybe that's underwhelming for some people too, idk.

so you’re saying there is no such thing at all as overexposure? Ok then … I respect your pov . It’s not that deep for me

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

So, is the weeknd’s career over now or…?

[kcdawg13]

Getting positions flashbacks, "it's her flop era," "thank u, next was her commercial peak"

Then she proceeded to get two No. 2 hits and everyone shut up

[korbel16]

I have a hard time believing this.. i swear we were predicting this s**t like 6 months ago. time is fake

[thegreatdivine]

Aug 7, 2021 18:27:29 GMT -5 iHype. said:

Abel & his team are as chart obsessed as Travis (let’s remember Heartless having 50~ different CDs, Vinyls, and Casettes) so I’m sure they’ll make the numbers look good on paper at the end of the day.

Blinding Lights also had bundles to help it rise to #1 in the UK.