Billboard Hot 100: 05/14/2022

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

May 12, 2022 7:18:44 GMT -5 gs said:

May 12, 2022 7:07:37 GMT -5 Rose "Payola" Nylund said:

People were saying Teenage Dream era wasn’t on the same level as the major eras that came before it because it didn’t have the sales they did to match the massive hits it sourced. We easily look back now and say it was huge. The same will happen with Planet Her. People always look for ways to diminish current achievements by new artists but Doja is slaying and no “non-#1” will exempt that.

I mean numbers don't lie, you can't subjectify a #1 hit (that has solid WoC) when "looking back". Anyone who thought those huge consecutive #1s weren't impressive were just delusional and/or haters.

TD & 1989's singles were inescapable while PH has singles that a ton of people haven't even heard still, lol. You can't blame this on the streaming era either, we literally just had an actual blockbuster album (SOUR) — though obviously PH is very successful nonetheless.

Okay but Sour’s dominance doesn’t make Planet Her any less impressive. Otherwise, 21’s dominance cancels out Teenage Dream because while both had the hits, only 21 had the sales, and the awards. In this case, you’re diminishing Planet Her because the singles didn’t happen to reach number one. It’s a minor detail among a list of other ‘criteria’ that has been more than satisfied.


Anyway, my overall point was that back when Teenage Dream was active, people were trying paint it as not as big as we tend to think of it as now, simply because it didn’t meet whatever criteria people used at the time. Likewise, now people are saying the Planet Her singles aren’t as dominant in a time when even the biggest hits rarely reach levels of dominance that we’ve become accustomed to. I don’t necessarily think all of Doja’s singles this era will go down in history, but neither did all of Katy’s TD singles, and neither will Olivia’s. She’ll have Good 4 U and maybe Drivers Licence and Doja will have Kiss Me More. But their eras will quite likely be marked as the pinnacles of hitmaking successes for the early 2020s.

[gikem]

Personally, I think the closer parallels for Planet Her would be albums like Jagged Little Pill and Yourself Or Someone Like You. None of those albums had smash #1 after smash #1 like with Teenage Dream, but they did have tons of hits with those eras lasting well over a year (in the case of YOSLY, it almost went into a fourth year - first single released in mid-1996, last single peaked in mid-1999).

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

May 12, 2022 9:00:53 GMT -5 gikem said:

Personally, I think the closer parallels for Planet Her would be albums like Jagged Little Pill and Yourself Or Someone Like You. None of those albums had smash #1 after smash #1 like with Teenage Dream, but they did have tons of hits with those eras lasting well over a year (in the case of YOSLY, it almost went into a fourth year - first single released in mid-1996, last single peaked in mid-1999).

I like the YOSLY example. It’s not an album/era I see referenced much but that might be because it’s a band rather than a pop singer, but it had four big hits at the time, one of which is still a classic of the 90s.
JLP I’ll disagree with only because that was an actual 21-level monster.

[Ling-Ling]

May 12, 2022 8:52:58 GMT -5 iHype. said:

May 12, 2022 8:46:05 GMT -5 Ling-Ling said:

Eh! In this age, an artist being able to maintain an album era for over a year and land more than two or three hits is a feat. Our biggest artists and stars consistently struggle to pull that off. SOUR and Planet Her are about as TD as we're gonna get IMO.

I don’t think what even makes Teenage Dream the era it was is tied to how long it lasted. It’s about the amount of smash hits it generated. Most #1 hits ever for an era and they were all genuinely huge smashes.

Scorpion era lasted all of 6 months but still generated 3 humongous smashes (Gods Plan, Nice for What, and In My Feelings) that were absolutely everywhere, massive moments in pop culture, and broke records. So with streaming - yes eras are going to be shorter, but I do think you can still get a handful of a humongous hits from a single era.

If an era can still generate 3, 4, or 5 smash hits then that is moreso comparable to Teenage Dream. Even if they were within a much shorter span.

Woman, Need to Know, You Right, etc didn’t reach those levels. Sorry. That’s objective, it doesn’t have anything to do with streaming or the current climate.

Teenage Dream was also very well once in a generation type success, so naturally, it is supposed to be *very* hard for even the most successful eras to be comparable to it. Planet Her was very successful but is it once in a generation type success that won’t be touched for a long time? The most successful era in the past 1-2 years /=/ automatically comparable with the most successful era of a generation.

But it does have to do with the current climate. Because you have to work an album differently to get that kind of success. And Planet Her wasn't worked like Scorpion. Drake released two of those songs months before the album dropped and was able to maximize their success. Doja followed a very traditional album release and her songs were already lingering on the charts/streaming and viral on social media which watered down their peaks when they were actually released as singles. Doja being able to get her fourth single into the top 10 after it had already been streamed heavily speaks to her pull and this era IMO.

And I don't think PH is a once in a generation type of success either. I'm not even the one who brought TD or 1989 into this discussion. I think it's ridiculous to even do so. But in 2020/2021 SOUR and Planet Her were huge eras IMO.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but am I the only one classifying "Need To Know" as a big hit? If it hadn't been split between years, wouldn't it be a lock for the year end top 10 right now?

[iHype.]

May 12, 2022 9:38:03 GMT -5 Ling-Ling said:

May 12, 2022 8:52:58 GMT -5 iHype. said:

I don’t think what even makes Teenage Dream the era it was is tied to how long it lasted. It’s about the amount of smash hits it generated. Most #1 hits ever for an era and they were all genuinely huge smashes.

Scorpion era lasted all of 6 months but still generated 3 humongous smashes (Gods Plan, Nice for What, and In My Feelings) that were absolutely everywhere, massive moments in pop culture, and broke records. So with streaming - yes eras are going to be shorter, but I do think you can still get a handful of a humongous hits from a single era.

If an era can still generate 3, 4, or 5 smash hits then that is moreso comparable to Teenage Dream. Even if they were within a much shorter span.

Woman, Need to Know, You Right, etc didn’t reach those levels. Sorry. That’s objective, it doesn’t have anything to do with streaming or the current climate.

Teenage Dream was also very well once in a generation type success, so naturally, it is supposed to be *very* hard for even the most successful eras to be comparable to it. Planet Her was very successful but is it once in a generation type success that won’t be touched for a long time? The most successful era in the past 1-2 years /=/ automatically comparable with the most successful era of a generation.

But it does have to do with the current climate. Because you have to work an album differently to get that kind of success. And Planet Her wasn't worked like Scorpion. Drake released two of those songs months before the album dropped and was able to maximize their success. Doja followed a very traditional album release and her songs were already lingering on the charts/streaming and viral on social media which watered down their peaks when they were actually released as singles. Doja being able to get her fourth single into the top 10 after it had already been streamed heavily speaks to her pull and this era IMO.

And I don't think PH is a once in a generation type of success either. I'm not even the one who brought TD or 1989 into this discussion. I think it's ridiculous to even do so. But in 2020/2021 SOUR and Planet Her were huge eras IMO.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but am I the only one classifying "Need To Know" as a big hit? If it hadn't been split between years, wouldn't it be a lock for the year end top 10 right now?

Huh. You highkey contradicted yourself.

You said SOUR and PH were “about as TD as we’re gonna get”, but now you agree that PH is not once in a generation type TD success and there will be other eras that can surpass it.

She no doubt is smashing and I didn’t mean to sound like I was diminishing it. I just said it’s not at a Teenage Dream level.

My Everything & Title (also Animal comes to mind as similar to PH) were all very successful and huge eras. Being on their tier would also be pretty good.

I don’t think Woman, You Right, and Need to Know would’ve been as big as a Firework, Last Friday Night, and ET regardless even if they did have a climate for proper traditional releases and were set up to peak on all metrics simultaneously.

You Right was pushed strong and properly during album release also and didn’t make top 10 or do anything notable at streaming.

[Ling-Ling]

May 12, 2022 9:56:52 GMT -5 iHype. said:

May 12, 2022 9:38:03 GMT -5 Ling-Ling said:

But it does have to do with the current climate. Because you have to work an album differently to get that kind of success. And Planet Her wasn't worked like Scorpion. Drake released two of those songs months before the album dropped and was able to maximize their success. Doja followed a very traditional album release and her songs were already lingering on the charts/streaming and viral on social media which watered down their peaks when they were actually released as singles. Doja being able to get her fourth single into the top 10 after it had already been streamed heavily speaks to her pull and this era IMO.

And I don't think PH is a once in a generation type of success either. I'm not even the one who brought TD or 1989 into this discussion. I think it's ridiculous to even do so. But in 2020/2021 SOUR and Planet Her were huge eras IMO.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but am I the only one classifying "Need To Know" as a big hit? If it hadn't been split between years, wouldn't it be a lock for the year end top 10 right now?

Huh. You highkey contradicted yourself.

You said SOUR and PH were “about as TD as we’re gonna get”, but now you agree that PH is not once in a generation type TD success and there will be other eras that can surpass it.

She no doubt is smashing and I didn’t mean to sound like I was diminishing it. I just said it’s not at a Teenage Dream level.

My Everything & Title (also Animal comes to mind as similar to PH) were all very successful and huge eras. Being on their tier would also be pretty good.

TD and 1989 came into the discussion from another poster. I would have never brought them up. And I initially started this off specifically talking about more current female artists (Ariana and Dua were my comparisons). An era like TD is simply never going to happen again (chart-wise anyway, that album's impact outside of the charts is minimal IMO). But I do think a female artist getting four bonafide hit singles from a very traditional album campaign in the streaming era is about as close as we're ever going to get to mirroring those old album campaigns of the past like TD and 1989.

But I do get your point about three big hits possibly being comparable. I think in some cases, like The Weeknd and Harry Styles two is enough. Albums and eras just do not play out the same, so seeing Doja manage a relatively long-term album campaign and seeing her break records at radio and on the singles/albums charts is pretty clutch because we don't see it in this context often.

[nathanalbright]

I think that Doja Cat's success in having a traditional album rollout with post-album singles demonstrates that even in the contemporary era that one need not come out with massive streaming smashes out of the gate to have a successful long-term era, and that is worth appreciating in an age where people have said that the post-album single is dead.

[rihannabiggestfan]

^Future Nostalgia teas, I believe. I want more of that, I miss having real eras

[phieaglesfan712]

May 12, 2022 14:53:26 GMT -5 rihannabiggestfan said:

^Future Nostalgia teas, I believe. I want more of that, I miss having real eras

And we’ve also had After Hours (Save Your Tears) and Dangerous (Wasted on You and Sand in My Boots) as well.

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

This was the only full Hot 100 video on YouTube last week:

 

[rimetm]

There were two others of note, but I do tend to prefer US Charts' presentation anyway.

[85la]

Obviously there are different levels of "blockbuster" eras and albums. Planet Her may not be quite on the level of a Teenage Dream or a 1989 once-in a generation type of blockbuster, but it is definitely, without question, a blockbuster, and one of the biggest at least of the decade so far, and going back to what the original poster said, that Planet Her cannot even be considered so simply because it hasn't produced a #1 (and only one top 5) is absolutely ridiculous, because the longevity and other stats far make up for that:

- first album by a female rapper to spend more than six months in the top 10
- first album by any artist with 4 singles to spend 40+ weeks on the chart, with the majority of those weeks in the top 10/40 (in Kiss Me More's case 27 weeks in the top 10!), PLUS several other decently charting singles of hers both on and off the album charting around this era
- keep in mind that NTK and YR's runs are split between years, so if they were all included in one year, they would most probably rank in the top 20, NTK maybe even the top 10, and Woman's run isn't finished yet so we don't know how high it will place, but it will definitely be fairly high.

Planet Her reminds me a lot of Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway era, which ALSO had no #1s, only one top 5 hit, and the album not reaching #1, but it nonetheless had 5 undeniable smashes and of course it would be outrageous to say that era wasn't a blockbuster.

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

May 16, 2022 11:37:39 GMT -5 rimetm said:

There were two others of note, but I do tend to prefer US Charts' presentation anyway.

I wasn't aware of those. I'll keep those as backups because for some reason the two regular channels didn't post last week. The prior week those two channels created alternative channels to be able to post their Hot 100 article. And yes, US Charts probably does have the best presentation of them all.

[gikem]

I know that this thread should be closed, but since it's being discussed here, I should mention that I'm really sad that Billboard Top Songs 2.0 hasn't uploaded any new chart content to YouTube since last week's Global Excl. US chart. I depend on that account to listen to previews of new charting songs to see if they're worth listening to before going out of my way to hear them in full. Yes, I agree that US Charts & Awards does the same thing with a better presentation, but they've reduced their new content down to just the US Hot 100 and the US Dance/Electronic charts every week plus the occasional awards shows - all other genre charts are no longer being put there like they used to. Plus, they don't upload the major international charts like BTS2.0 does.

I'm really hoping that the content creator behind Billboard Top Songs 2.0 is just taking a break for now and it's not the YouTube and/or Billboard police getting angry at them for uploading so much copyrightable and paywalled content so often.

[annoymous1]

Well it looks like Billboard Top Songs won't be posting anymore videos 💔 🥲. Kinda saw it coming,but I'll miss seeing the international charts and 200s in video form.

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

^Sadly. Another YouTube channel bites the dust ...

[Limited Edition]

Sad to see. I'm really going to miss the weekly Global 200 videos

[crazyb]

It's really sad how many Chart YT channels come and go, but with anything music on YT its gotta be tough with labels down their necks.

[jenglisbe]

May 16, 2022 12:18:55 GMT -5 85la said:

Obviously there are different levels of "blockbuster" eras and albums. Planet Her may not be quite on the level of a Teenage Dream or a 1989 once-in a generation type of blockbuster

Weren't those two, along with 21, from the same generation? You could throw The Fame in there as well. All of them were released within a 6 year span, so hardly once in a generation.

[85la]

May 18, 2022 19:34:04 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

May 16, 2022 12:18:55 GMT -5 85la said:

Obviously there are different levels of "blockbuster" eras and albums. Planet Her may not be quite on the level of a Teenage Dream or a 1989 once-in a generation type of blockbuster

Weren't those two, along with 21, from the same generation? You could throw The Fame in there as well. All of them were released within a 6 year span, so hardly once in a generation.

Yeah it's tough to say, I was thinking about that too for a little after I posted, I was just mentioning them because those were the two albums previously brought up in the discussion. I guess they really weren't once in a generation, but probably bigger than Planet Her.

[iHype.]

May 18, 2022 19:34:04 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

May 16, 2022 12:18:55 GMT -5 85la said:

Obviously there are different levels of "blockbuster" eras and albums. Planet Her may not be quite on the level of a Teenage Dream or a 1989 once-in a generation type of blockbuster

Weren't those two, along with 21, from the same generation? You could throw The Fame in there as well. All of them were released within a 6 year span, so hardly once in a generation.

As far as Hot 100 performance, Teenage Dream was once in a generation. It had 6 top 3s (8 if you include the re-release). 

All those other ones only had 2-3 huge charting hits, and then some decent moderate hits. Teenage Dream clearly has a very strong lead on each of them. 

[jenglisbe]

May 18, 2022 20:29:22 GMT -5 iHype. said:

May 18, 2022 19:34:04 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

Weren't those two, along with 21, from the same generation? You could throw The Fame in there as well. All of them were released within a 6 year span, so hardly once in a generation.

As far as Hot 100 performance, Teenage Dream was once in a generation. It had 6 top 3s (8 if you include the re-release). 

All those other ones only had 2-3 huge charting hits, and then some decent moderate hits. Teenage Dream clearly has a very strong lead on each of them. 

Maybe that one, but then Teenage Dream wasn't as big as an album as others we've seen so that makes it really interesting. (It was a big album so I don't mean to imply otherwise, but it's wild it's not even Diamond.) 21 had fewer hits, but it was a much bigger album in a lot of ways.

I guess it also depends how people define "generation." In a 'scientific' sense, it's a 20-30 year period. If you put TD at the end of a generation that way, Bad, Faith, and Rhythm Nation 1814 could fit in it. I would separate it out since it came so long after them, though.

[iHype.]

May 18, 2022 20:36:08 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

May 18, 2022 20:29:22 GMT -5 iHype. said:

As far as Hot 100 performance, Teenage Dream was once in a generation. It had 6 top 3s (8 if you include the re-release). 

All those other ones only had 2-3 huge charting hits, and then some decent moderate hits. Teenage Dream clearly has a very strong lead on each of them. 

Maybe that one, but then Teenage Dream wasn't as big as an album as others we've seen so that makes it really interesting. (It was a big album so I don't mean to imply otherwise, but it's wild it's not even Diamond.) 21 had fewer hits, but it was a much bigger album in a lot of ways.

I guess it also depends how people define "generation." In a 'scientific' sense, it's a 20-30 year period. If you put TD at the end of a generation that way, Bad, Faith, and Rhythm Nation 1814 could fit in it. I would separate it out since it came so long after them, though.

Well yeah, no doubt Teenage Dream's album performance wasn't one in a generation or as great as the singles performance. But keeping it strictly relating to Hot 100 and records/achievements, it was once in a generation as you can get with an era.

The same could apply with Bad also, really. It was only at 8x Platinum when he died, 20 years after its release. Its sales were much more surprisingly underwhelming coming off the biggest album in history and having the biggest singles run ever at the time.

[jenglisbe]

May 18, 2022 20:51:03 GMT -5 iHype. said:

May 18, 2022 20:36:08 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

Maybe that one, but then Teenage Dream wasn't as big as an album as others we've seen so that makes it really interesting. (It was a big album so I don't mean to imply otherwise, but it's wild it's not even Diamond.) 21 had fewer hits, but it was a much bigger album in a lot of ways.

I guess it also depends how people define "generation." In a 'scientific' sense, it's a 20-30 year period. If you put TD at the end of a generation that way, Bad, Faith, and Rhythm Nation 1814 could fit in it. I would separate it out since it came so long after them, though.

Well yeah, no doubt Teenage Dream's album performance wasn't one in a generation or as great as the singles performance. But keeping it strictly relating to Hot 100 and records/achievements, it was once in a generation as you can get with an era.

The same could apply with Bad also, really. It was only at 8x Platinum when he died, 20 years after its release. Its sales were much more surprisingly underwhelming coming off the biggest album in history and having the biggest singles run ever at the time.

I think it's interesting in general how a lot of albums with a lot of hits aren't as big as albums with fewer hits. Look at how Adele, Norah Jones, Jewel, Hootie, etc sold huge without more than a few hits, while Bad, Faith, Rhythm Nation 1814, Forever Your Girl, and Teenage Dream sold less (though well) despite having more big hits. That could be an oversimplification as obviously Thriller and other big sellers had a lot of hits, but I'd have to really look at it.

[iHype.]

May 18, 2022 21:11:12 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

May 18, 2022 20:51:03 GMT -5 iHype. said:

Well yeah, no doubt Teenage Dream's album performance wasn't one in a generation or as great as the singles performance. But keeping it strictly relating to Hot 100 and records/achievements, it was once in a generation as you can get with an era.

The same could apply with Bad also, really. It was only at 8x Platinum when he died, 20 years after its release. Its sales were much more surprisingly underwhelming coming off the biggest album in history and having the biggest singles run ever at the time.

I think it's interesting in general how a lot of albums with a lot of hits aren't as big as albums with fewer hits. Look at how Adele, Norah Jones, Jewel, Hootie, etc sold huge without more than a few hits, while Bad, Faith, Rhythm Nation 1814, Forever Your Girl, and Teenage Dream sold less (though well) despite having more big hits. That could be an oversimplification as obviously Thriller and other big sellers had a lot of hits, but I'd have to really look at it.

I chalk it up to traditionally Pop music is singles-driven, while other genres are moreso album-driven. 

Metallica, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Linkin Park, etc all have albums with crazy high certifications that are amongst the best-sellers of their time yet none of them really had big mainstream success with singles. Maybe like 1 song that went top 10 or something.  

Then ofcourse the country artists like Garth Brooks and now Morgan Wallen who had very high selling albums that didn't even really have much crossover hits. It was the same a decade ago when you had Mumford & Sons, Michael Buble, Susan Boyle, etc having top-selling albums of the year with no actual hits in any form.

Meanwhile if you think about it, there really isn't nearly as much instances where a Pop album was a really huge seller but didn't have really any notable mainstream single success. An MJ, Madonna, Mariah, Whitney, etc was never able to have an album have one or zero mainstream hits but still get crazy high sales. They always needed a string of big hits. 

People thought/believe streaming would make albums more singles-driven than ever, but honestly, I see the same happening today. Lil Baby & Morgan Wallen have the biggest albums this decade and neither even had one real crossover hit. 

[Groovy]

Since we’re still (kinda) talking about of Planet Her, I went back to one of the old threads regarding the album and You Right and some of the takes there are so laughably bad.

[phieaglesfan712]

The funniest thing is that Doja wasn't #1 on the Artist 100 when Kiss Me More or Planet Her was released, but randomly a few weeks ago (and blocked Morgan Wallen). To be fair, neither Doja nor Morgan should have been the #1 on the Artist 100 that week (it really should have gone to Harry Styles).