Billboard Hot 100: 01/22/2022

[thegreatdivine]

I'm happy with whatever stops or at least effectively slows down the impact of BTS stans on the charts.

[jayhawk1117]

Jan 11, 2022 20:52:55 GMT -5 𝕡𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕓𝕤 said:

Jan 11, 2022 20:44:31 GMT -5 𝕡𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕓𝕤 said:

the ONLY artists getting these sales in bulk are already super rich lmao does Lil Nas X need more money? Does Nicki? Does Taylor? Does SUGA?

Go buy some music from independent artists through bandcamp or something if you’re THAT concerned, THEY need the money, not Jimin. This is all faux outrage, but we knew that already

LIKE HERE 😭😭😭😭 PFFTFTFTFT DONT you pretend you’re mass-buying for f**king Left at London or Lauren Spencer-Smith or something I’m screaming

“Not all the GP will be aware of this rule” NO ONE will be aware because they DO. NOT. CAAAAARE

literally what stops the "GP" from buying 100 copies per person? 🤔🤔🤔 The gp doesn't care about the charts sooooo...

[Choco]

It wasn't abused so no one cared. Money was being made. And sales were too high for manipulation to matter. The 100k that BTS Army can do on a week wouldn't have been top 5 during the iTunes peak.

[Push The Button]

BTS fans will just start buying hundreds and hundreds of physical singles instead.

[jayhawk1117]

Jan 11, 2022 21:20:39 GMT -5 Push The Button said:

BTS fans will just start buying hundreds and hundreds of physical singles instead.

aren't those vastly more expensive? Also don't think only count when the single ships or am I tripping?

[iHype.]

Jan 11, 2022 21:20:39 GMT -5 Push The Button said:

BTS fans will just start buying hundreds and hundreds of physical singles instead.

Those cost atleast 6x more ($4+ instead of 69 cents) and good luck trying to execute the logistics of bulk purchasing a physical single.

Who is gonna have thousands of physical CDs sent to their address every single week? 

[Lukas]

Jan 11, 2022 20:48:47 GMT -5 iHype. said:

Jan 11, 2022 20:38:52 GMT -5 Lukas said:

You're missing the point entirely and I don't know why I'm still arguing with you.

Credit card/IP bulk sales were always filtered and will continue to be. The problem with Levitating was VPN sales with accounts like dlipahungary among others promoting them.

I doubt they're cracking on remixes anyways. There are lots of legitimate remixes like Savage and Whats Poppin that I doubt that's an actual rule. What I do think they are doing is strengthening their ISRC policies so that alternate covers can't be loopholed like it was with Butter one week. It's ridiculous to think that they mean one copy among all versions.

.....Nobody is arguing. What the hell are you mad about? LMAO

I'm being optimistic that the rule will be executed well and you somehow have an issue with that. What even.

Ofcourse they are not cracking down on remixes. Two versions of a song can be legitimately popular. However the issue was that a consumer likely is not purchasing two versions of a song in 2021, let alone during the same week for any reason other than chart gaming. So if they went as far as disqualifying two+ sales for a song period (or reducing to 1) even with differing versions/remixes I still think that would actually be logical. 

They probably didn't go that far, but they should. 

No person needs to have their 3 purchases of Willow count in one tracking week, even if they happened to genuinely like all 3 remixes. 1 purchase of a song should be the cap counted for someone even including different versions. 

I said that remixes were probably not cracked down on due to the way it was worded and you proceeded to point out unnecessary and irrelevant things like credit cards, IPs, and VPNs, which were not changed and any sane person should know what the rules for those are.

Since you agree that they probably didn't go that far, I think we've come to an agreement on what they actually did. We can rest now.

[iHype.]

Jan 11, 2022 21:29:26 GMT -5 Lukas said:

I said that remixes were probably not cracked down on due to the way it was worded and you proceeded to point out unnecessary and irrelevant things like credit cards, IPs, and VPNs, which were not changed and any sane person should know what the rules for those are.

Since you agree that they probably didn't go that far, I think we've come to an agreement on what they actually did. We can rest now.

No, you misunderstood what I was saying, so I have to unfortunately reiterate....

When the "Levitating" drama unfolded they said this:

As part of our normal process, Billboard and MRC Data audits data received from third party digital service providers and music retailers to verify authenticity of streams and sales before charts are published and in this case it took some additional time to evaluate and authenticate the information provided to us, resulting in a publication delay for this week’s Hot 100 chart.

This shows they have detailed information in place for sales/streams they can view or can request it if flags are raised. IP addresses, credit cards, billing address, whatever. (In "Levitating" case it was the non US locations -- they've always had a firm stance against consumption outside US counting for the charts)

We know in the past they didn't care about IP addresses, credit cards, etc despite having that information. They cared about the number of purchases in a transaction. 5,000 transactions each purchasing 1 song counted. 1 transaction purchasing a song 5,000 time did not count. 

Now they have specifically made a firm stance against bulk buying. They said even purchasing a song 2 times does not count. 

What I think (this isn't for sure, but I simply optimistically theorized) is that now they will possibly flag things that have repetitive personal information even if done over different transactions. If a webstore reports 100,000 sales and over 20,000 came from 1 common credit card or IP regardless if they managed to do them over different transactions. The auditing they conduct now may have much stricter parameters on what will be tossed out as bulk buying.

I don't blame the skepticism that Billboard is probably taking the softest approach, but I also thought that with the bundling-rules they did. I was sure another loophole was going to be made, but then they made sure the practice was effectively ended. So... I'm hoping they have some measures that they didn't specify would now get bulk purchases thrown out. Obviously they would not be publicly transparent about that since they don't want further loopholes to be created.


Nobody was arguing with you, trying to prove you wrong, whatever weird personal feelings you got from reading...

[Az Paynter]

The Army is about to get a rude awakening when they find out how popular BTS actually is within the US market now that they can't game the system anymore. You love to see it.

[fridayteenage]

This seems to mostly apply to artists who, say, have never hit the weekly spotify top 3 but whose fans just bulk buy.

Less so for those who have several streaming #1s and Spotify #1s.

Songs which top the weekly spotify & sales charts simultaneously still deserve their shine on top.

[atg]

I think i’ve come to a point where I just don’t care about chart peaks anymore in this decade. It’s just proven that anyone and anything could go to #1 if they got the right tactics and manipulation to do so (well not anymore as of right now but still). I didn’t even mind that Kodak Black had another top 10 hit which i usually don’t want to happen, or that Shivers is at #4 which was higher than i expected it to be, or that Cold Heart finally entered the top 10 after so long.

Longevity has proven to be the thing that makes a song have lasting impact to me these days. After songs like Circles, BL, Levitating, Stay and Heat Waves breaking record after record thanks to their longevity, that is a much more promising thing to look forward to now. Easy On Me having multiple weeks at #1, it’s sad that’s the only thing now that excites me about a #1 hit.

If i was in 2015 right now, and i just saw Hotline Bling not getting the #1 spot i would’ve been devastated that it didn’t get the top spot. Now, If something like Bruno didn’t get the #1 after all i wouldn’t even care. If it spent like 15-20 more weeks in the top 10 or 20 and have a magnificent run i would be way more interested in where i could land on the year end charts. Longevity > Peak is just where its at now for me.

[𝕡𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕓𝕤]

Jan 11, 2022 21:20:39 GMT -5 Push The Button said:

BTS fans will just start buying hundreds and hundreds of physical singles instead.

what a waste of plastic

[Lukas]

Jan 11, 2022 21:45:28 GMT -5 iHype. said:

Jan 11, 2022 21:29:26 GMT -5 Lukas said:

I said that remixes were probably not cracked down on due to the way it was worded and you proceeded to point out unnecessary and irrelevant things like credit cards, IPs, and VPNs, which were not changed and any sane person should know what the rules for those are.

Since you agree that they probably didn't go that far, I think we've come to an agreement on what they actually did. We can rest now.

No, you misunderstood what I was saying, so I have to unfortunately reiterate....

When the "Levitating" drama unfolded they said this:

As part of our normal process, Billboard and MRC Data audits data received from third party digital service providers and music retailers to verify authenticity of streams and sales before charts are published and in this case it took some additional time to evaluate and authenticate the information provided to us, resulting in a publication delay for this week’s Hot 100 chart.

This shows they have detailed information in place for sales/streams they can view or can request it if flags are raised. IP addresses, credit cards, billing address, whatever. (In "Levitating" case it was the non US locations -- they've always had a firm stance against consumption outside US counting for the charts)

We know in the past they didn't care about IP addresses, credit cards, etc despite having that information. They cared about the number of purchases in a transaction. 5,000 transactions each purchasing 1 song counted. 1 transaction purchasing a song 5,000 time did not count. 

Now they have specifically made a firm stance against bulk buying. They said even purchasing a song 2 times does not count. 

What I think (this isn't for sure, but I simply optimistically theorized) is that now they will possibly flag things that have repetitive personal information even if done over different transactions. If a webstore reports 100,000 sales and over 20,000 came from 1 common credit card or IP regardless if they managed to do them over different transactions. The auditing they conduct now may have much stricter parameters on what will be tossed out as bulk buying.

I don't blame the skepticism that Billboard is probably taking the softest approach, but I also thought that with the bundling-rules they did. I was sure another loophole was going to be made, but then they made sure the practice was effectively ended. So... I'm hoping they have some measures that they didn't specify would now get bulk purchases thrown out. Obviously they would not be publicly transparent about that since they don't want further loopholes to be created.


Nobody was arguing with you, trying to prove you wrong, whatever weird personal feelings you got from reading...

This is the problem. You keep on repeating the exact same information with "Levitating" to prove that they do have processes carried out should they wish, which is something I obviously already know about. I simply said "if something goes differently than we expect no one will know until next week anyways" which is true BECAUSE Billboard already knows what they want to do and it's certainly not clear cut in the article especially with how multiple versions will get treated, meaning what WE expect can be different from what THEY will do. YOU twisted that sentence for it to mean something entirely different. If you can't see this then I have nothing for you. Good day.

[shayonce]

BTS fans already found the way to game the spotify streaming. I think they still can get #1.

[shayonce]

original source said 4 units changed to 1 unit. that's all. so they can still do bulk buying at just smaller way,
like.. buying 5 version on amazon, itunes, tidal, D2C and others.
Also are we really sure that billboard filter multiple orders by same user? like 1 after 1 after 1...

[mms82]

With this rule change I don’t think Willow’s fall from number one record will ever be broken

Given that ME!’s record is almost impossible to break, Taylor will likely always hold the record for biggest upwards movement and biggest downwards movement from #1

[dodgerslakers94]

Hence the new rule, it looks like we might start seeing about 10-13 #1 songs each year like we did in the 2010s 🙂

[mms82]

Jan 11, 2022 23:25:28 GMT -5 dodgerslakers94 said:

Hence the new rule, it looks like we might start seeing about 10-13 #1 songs each year like we did in the 2010s 🙂

Eh, I think we’ll still have a higher turnover of number ones. Songs like Way 2 Sexy, All Too Well would be one week number ones, and if the rule change happened earlier songs like Industry Baby, Say So, Savage, Gooba all would’ve been one week number ones. We’ll see less Life Goes on 1-27 nonsense, but songs like ATW going 1-4-7-30 will still be pretty common because of how accessible music is.

[edward]

Jan 11, 2022 22:45:58 GMT -5 shayonce said:

BTS fans already found the way to game the spotify streaming. I think they still can get #1.

Yeah do y'all forget that BTS stans just got my universe streamed over 600k times a day in Vietnam a few days ago. They'll be fine until spotify finally do something. Then they'll start yelling about the industry being xenophobic and racist again.

[JukeboxJacob]

the Army is LOSING it on Twitter 

[Me. I Am l!nk!nfan815...]

At least there’s hope in the world again

[Az Paynter]

Jan 11, 2022 23:31:22 GMT -5 edward said:

Jan 11, 2022 22:45:58 GMT -5 shayonce said:

BTS fans already found the way to game the spotify streaming. I think they still can get #1.

Yeah do y'all forget that BTS stans just got my universe streamed over 600k times a day in Vietnam a few days ago. They'll be fine until spotify finally do something. Then they'll start yelling about the industry being xenophobic and racist again.

And how much scrutiny is put on Vietnamese Spotify numbers?

(I mean, I legit don't know the answer to this question but) There's just as much reason to think whatever worked here would never land in the US where they would presumably be watching out for any kind of shenanigans.

[dovahduck]

Um these and "Moth to a Flame" got added to the remixes deluxe edition of 'Dawn FM'.

[85la]

Definitely glad this rule is in place, it's been a long time coming, and hopefully it will greatly limit chart manipulation not just for BTS, but for any and every artist!! I do have some faith in Billboard now that they haven't completely lost their integrity.

What's still not clear to me is the multiple accounts thing: will each person still be able to purchase one copy (of each version, remix, etc.) under an unlimited number of accounts/credit cards, or only 1 copy per person period? If I'm not mistaken, the rule before was 4 copies, per version, per account, with no cap on the number of accounts. Or was the rule 4 accounts, and assuming only 1 copy was bought per account?

[85la]

Jan 11, 2022 21:55:41 GMT -5 atg said:

I think i’ve come to a point where I just don’t care about chart peaks anymore in this decade. It’s just proven that anyone and anything could go to #1 if they got the right tactics and manipulation to do so (well not anymore as of right now but still). I didn’t even mind that Kodak Black had another top 10 hit which i usually don’t want to happen, or that Shivers is at #4 which was higher than i expected it to be, or that Cold Heart finally entered the top 10 after so long.

Longevity has proven to be the thing that makes a song have lasting impact to me these days. After songs like Circles, BL, Levitating, Stay and Heat Waves breaking record after record thanks to their longevity, that is a much more promising thing to look forward to now. Easy On Me having multiple weeks at #1, it’s sad that’s the only thing now that excites me about a #1 hit.

If i was in 2015 right now, and i just saw Hotline Bling not getting the #1 spot i would’ve been devastated that it didn’t get the top spot. Now, If something like Bruno didn’t get the #1 after all i wouldn’t even care. If it spent like 15-20 more weeks in the top 10 or 20 and have a magnificent run i would be way more interested in where i could land on the year end charts. Longevity > Peak is just where its at now for me.

Yeah, to a certain extent this is how I've always felt about the charts ever since I first started watching them from the mid-2000s on. To see songs by Kelly Clarkson, Maroon 5, Alicia Keys, and many others rank in the yearly top 10, many of them higher than most of the #1's each year, definitely proved to me early on that reaching the top is DEFINITELY NOT everything. It just provides a tendency that a song will be more successful or more remembered, but definitely won't seal the deal.

[Future Captain]

Honestly, my biggest gripe with BTS stans chart strategies have always been how needlessly prolonged they tend to be. At least with Taylor, it's only for 1 week and it's the 1 week that the song was the most popular in anyways. Like, if somebody say that Taylor Swift have the #1 song of the country during folklore, evermore, and Red TV's album release week, people who doesn't follow charts and stuff would most likely believe it regardless of whether the bulk of the points came from stans mass buying or not (She reserves the multiple weeks of mass buying windows to the album chart lol). Meanwhile, the mass buying kept Butter at #1 even though its long way past its peak in streaming and had already collapsed in radio weeks before despite the radio deal. Same with Dynamite (returning to top 5 for 1 week just to fell straight back to number 25 the week after, hello??).

[iHype.]

Jan 9, 2022 21:13:23 GMT -5 atg said:

First of all, none of the media from the pic are from the new era so i’m saying he doesn’t care about the charts right now.

So he just released a Deluxe mid-week with a collaboration tacked on because he was bored? Nothing to do with him projected to do barely more than the #2 album since he doesn't care about charts right now

[Enigma.]

It's probably the label not him. Still tasteless... like suddenly "Moth" qualifies for the album?

[𝕡𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕓𝕤]

Jan 11, 2022 20:45:32 GMT -5 Baby Yoda Hot100Fan said:

I assume BTS will continue with their gazillion remix strategy.

multiply this by a million. Instead of having six, they’ll have like 20 because people can’t buy the same track over and over.

[Limited Edition]

Moth sounds a lot like the album though. It's by Swedish House Mafia who's also producing Dawn FM.