Billboard Hot 100: 08/05/2023

[eagle27]

The Weeknd is definitely getting overexposed from all the things he has released/feautred/went viral on since 2020 and he doesn’t have the massive core fanbase like Taylor and Morgan. He honestly relies on mass appeal to both pop and hip hop fans (#1 Spotify monthly listeners) which especially makes his singles popular if they actually interest his gigantic net of casual fans. However, his pop fans are not interested to K-POP like they were for After Hours, Creepin, Die For You.

[goldentakes]

Jul 24, 2023 10:40:25 GMT -5 Baby Yoda Hot100Fan said:

I completely forgot Post Malone was dropping an album this Friday. It's amazing how quickly he became uncool lol

[85la]

Jul 24, 2023 3:11:16 GMT -5 gs said:

- Travis Scott had the Astroworld controversy, and even aside from that he was already declining in 2020 with Franchise bombing. It's not 2018/2019 anymore - people have been gassing him and Utopia up way too much
- The Weeknd's new work has been on a downward trajectory since Take My Breath. All of his recently released stuff has been flopping (save DFY remix, which is an old song) and The Idol doesn't help his image
- It's very early, but it _kind of_ seems like Bad Bunny peaked in 2022, and has shown signs of being replaced by Peso Pluma? His singles this year haven't been performing as well as last year. This could explain its floppage on YouTube as a platform

I would agree with you probably the most on Travis. The Weeknd, a little bit but not so much (you're also ignoring Creepin' which has of course been a massive hit largely due to his inclusion, and there was also You Right and One Right Now, which were big probably not entirely due to him, but he certainly helped), so with him I think it's more of a mixed bag and not a clear-cut case, where post-Blinding Lights and Save Your Tears, he's definitely been over-saturated and the public is tiring of him, but he's still an extremely marketable name and with the right song radio will still play and the public will still stream him en masse. Bad Bunny already peaking might be the weakest argument, that's still too early to tell as he's still relatively early in his career and coming off of his biggest year yet by far, however I guess this under-performing (as well as Where She Goes earlier this year) might be the earliest sign of the possible beginning of a decline.

[atg]

Apparently Abel is retiring the name “The Weeknd” after the last installment in his new trilogy, which is most likely to come in 2024. This is probably why he’s doing way more than ever and doesn’t really care as much for “overexposure” anymore. After having the biggest hit ever what more do you really need to prove at this point.

You guys keep forgetting he still had a good run post BL. Save Your Tears, Creepin, and Die For You aside, there was still Take My Breath and the songs he was featured on like You Right, One Right Now, even Hurricane still all hit the top 10 and made some sort of year end list (now KPOP will most likely follow as well). Its not like he’s completely flopping with every single thing he’s involved in, people on here overthink it way too much.

[musiclife]

TTIAST has sold about 250k since Friday.

[badrobot]

I feel like people's takes on The Weeknd are all over the place. A lot of folks make it sound like he's done nothing but flop since "After Hours" and yet he's been a fixture in the top ten (including a #1) across multiple songs in the last few years.

Also to the "overexposed"/"needs to take a break" crowd, there are plenty of artists who have released *way* more music than The Weeknd has. The difference is he's actually pretty consistently getting strong support for his music (counter to the "he's been flopping" narrative), so if anything, your beef should be with the fans/radio who stream/play his songs.

So for all the notions that he's doing something wrong with his career right now -- I don't really get your argument. His career is going great, and while not every project is a smash (Dawn FM certainly underperformed), he has no shortage of success.

[kcdawg13]

The Weeknd is doing fine, since Save Your Tears he's had 8 Top 20 hits, 5 of which went Top 10 and he had a #1 hit too (Also Creepin' spent almost 30 weeks in the Top 10), and K-POP looks to be another Top 10 hit added to his collection. The couple Idol singles didn't do terrible either, Double Fantasy hit Top 20 and Popular has stuck around in the bottom half of the Hot 100 for the last couple weeks.

I don't where this "downward trajectory" narrative has come from, like he hasn't had a Blinding Lights level hit in a couple years but that was a once in a lifetime single run, otherwise he's had plenty of hits and success. And if he plays his cards right and actually does an After Hours type promo run for his next album, I suspect he'll have another round of smash singles on his hands.

[waluigionascooter]

I think it comes almost entirely from The Idol, being really bad.
I refuse to watch it, bc as a long time fan I don't want this show to ruin his image in my head.

[kcdawg13]

Jul 24, 2023 14:46:45 GMT -5 waluigionascooter said:

I think it comes almost entirely from The Idol, being really bad.
I refuse to watch it, bc as a long time fan I don't want this show to ruin his image in my head.

Chronically online people think The Idol is Abel's downfall and despite being embarrassing, it really has done nothing to dissuade the general public's feelings on him. Like nobody cares, people on Twitter still sending tweets out right now like "I can't listen to Abel anymore because of The Idol" and thinking it would actually kill his career. Please be forreal, go touch grass and turn on the radio, you'll still hear him like 3 times an hour on the radio. The Idol didn't do anything to Abel, good or bad. It's just there.

And in a years time no one will remember it.

[waluigionascooter]

I didn't say it was his DOWNFALL, it's just a dip in his reputation. It's gonna make it a little more challenging for his team to promote his next album but I'm sure he'll be fine (also because Dawn FM by his standards underperforming and his team promoting Die For You instead).
Like Taylor or Morgan he's too big to be stopped.

[eagle27]

Where are 40m streams for TTIAST even coming from? Not disagreeing but curious what is giving it the highest streaming week of the year besides Flowers first 3 weeks and Last Night album week and not doing insane on any major platform

The Barbie songs are doing really well!

[Myth X]

Jul 24, 2023 13:37:50 GMT -5 musiclife said:

TTIAST has sold about 250k since Friday.

Did chartdata post about this?

[musiclife]

Jul 24, 2023 15:06:07 GMT -5 eagle27 said:

Where are 40m streams for TTIAST even coming from? Not disagreeing but curious what is giving it the highest streaming week of the year besides Flowers first 3 weeks and Last Night album week and not doing insane on any major platform

The Barbie songs are doing really well!

I think Apple Music and Amazon. Its doing decent on spotify too.

[After Minutes]

Jul 24, 2023 7:00:18 GMT -5 neel said:

Unrelated note, but I'm I the only one that just wants Abel to go away completely......for at least three and a half years again? "After Hours" era was a huge success, dominating the entirety of 2020 which then lasted all the way till the summer of '21. Yeah, still frustrating Grammys completely snubbed the masterpiece of an album for whatever f-cking reason. But ever since that era ended, and "Take My Breath" was released as the lead single for "Dawn FM", he's just been releasing or jumping on songs that sound like cheap "After Hours" tracks and riding out the remnants of said album for nearly 4 years now! This of course results radio to keep it months(or years) on end. If that was what the public really wanted then why did they let "Dawn FM" flop but pull all the way back to "Starboy" and made a track that was originally planned to set off throughout Winter 2017/2018 his latest big hit?

That's a strange take because Dawn FM is generally considered to be better than After Hours and his new music (The Idol soundtrack) doesn't sound anything like either of those album - Die For You, however, became so big in my opinion because it sounded so similarly to After Hours.

Abel is currently doing a stadium tour for both AH and Dawn FM because the AH tour was cancelled because of COVID. The two projects are also tied artistically, since they are both part of a "new trilogy", basically The Weeknd's take on the Divine comedy.

I assume that after the next and final album of this trilogy releases - likely late this year or early next year - Abel will go on tour again and go on a break. But right now it makes no sense for him to go on a break, since that would go against this concept of a new trilogy.

[Mike]

So Jason Aldean is getting the Morgan Wallen treatment. Rewarding idiots with success. Only in the US.

[tommy1860]

Jul 24, 2023 15:30:11 GMT -5 musiclife said:

Jul 24, 2023 15:06:07 GMT -5 eagle27 said:

Where are 40m streams for TTIAST even coming from? Not disagreeing but curious what is giving it the highest streaming week of the year besides Flowers first 3 weeks and Last Night album week and not doing insane on any major platform

The Barbie songs are doing really well!

I think Apple Music and Amazon. It’s doing decent on spotify too.

It’s been behind Fukumean on Spotify and Apple Music the whole week. Would Amazon Music really be the thing that gets it 15 million more streams? I don’t know how big Amazon music is, so genuinely asking.

[Music Fan]

TTIAST is probably going to start dropping. It fell out of the Top 10 on Spotify already with 858,185 streams, dropping 258,199. I'd expect 30M streams AT BEST but if it keeps dropping even 100k on Spotify per day, no chance it even reaches somewhere near that.

[mikeymonster]

Praying Dua's "Dance The Night" can remain stable and somehow sneak a week in the top 10 within the next 2-3 weeks (as well as "Snooze") *fingers crossed*

[Myth X]

I wonder if the #2 debut is gonna give some sales boost to the Jason Aldean song, especially since it's so close to be #1.

[korbel16]

kill bill barely managing to hit #1, now snooze taking just as long to just enter the top 10…. i’m convinced it’s sza 😭

[Darkest Hour]

Jul 24, 2023 15:12:10 GMT -5 Myth X said:

Jul 24, 2023 13:37:50 GMT -5 musiclife said:

TTIAST has sold about 250k since Friday.

Did chartdata post about this?

Original chartdata post is saying over 500k units since release. It cannot be inferred like the OP by any way because (1) they are not downloads and (2) there were some activities prior to the controversy.

[chartfreak]

TTIAST would not have blown up if the "ban" was so publicly talked about. CMT could have just stopped playing it. It would be a different top 10. Going to support DUA as we speak.

[Darkest Hour]

Jul 24, 2023 15:06:07 GMT -5 eagle27 said:

Where are 40m streams for TTIAST even coming from? Not disagreeing but curious what is giving it the highest streaming week of the year besides Flowers first 3 weeks and Last Night album week and not doing insane on any major platform

Youtube, because that's where the controversial music video is.
But I doubt the streams ending up this high, as indicated by the steep drops in Youtube daily chart.

[shadowthehedgehogfan]

there's no way that jason aldean sng has 40 million streams. that would mean roughly 60% of it's streams are on AM. Are people getting apple music just to stream this one song?

[musiclife]

Jul 24, 2023 18:27:16 GMT -5 Darkest Hour said:

Jul 24, 2023 15:12:10 GMT -5 Myth X said:

Did chartdata post about this?

Original chartdata post is saying over 500k units since release. It cannot be inferred like the OP by any way because (1) they are not downloads and (2) there were some activities prior to the controversy.

I just assumed because I thought someone said somewhere sales we awful for it. It did like 15k its first week and then sold like 1k a week after.

[shadowthehedgehogfan]

this year we've gotten great music from P!nk, Kelly Clarkson, Jimin, Metro Boomin, and america decides to listen jason aldean instead.
it's almost because even country fans think jason's low tier country.

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

Jul 24, 2023 18:30:13 GMT -5 Darkest Hour said:

Jul 24, 2023 15:06:07 GMT -5 eagle27 said:

Where are 40m streams for TTIAST even coming from? Not disagreeing but curious what is giving it the highest streaming week of the year besides Flowers first 3 weeks and Last Night album week and not doing insane on any major platform

Youtube, because that's where the controversial music video is.
But I doubt the streams ending up this high, as indicated by the steep drops in Youtube daily chart.

But still, most of those streams will be for the US. As long as nothing reignites the controversy even further, it should definitely continue to drop everywhere, except for radio, where it appears to be gaining some.

[Fears in the Fire]

Jul 24, 2023 18:34:40 GMT -5 shadowthehedgehogfan said:

there's no way that jason aldean sng has 40 million streams. that would mean roughly 60% of it's streams are on AM. Are people getting apple music just to stream this one song?

Amazon heavy maybe?

[jenglisbe]

Jul 24, 2023 18:29:06 GMT -5 chartfreak said:

TTIAST would not have blown up if the "ban" was so publicly talked about. CMT could have just stopped playing it. It would be a different top 10. Going to support DUA as we speak.

CMT did just stop playing it (if they ever played it at all) and to my knowledge hasn't made any sort of comment. Billboard and other sources reported the ban, and tellingly in those articles it's specifically noted that CMT declined to comment. That's why many of us think Aldean's team had a plan to cause this controversy and rally support, and it's likely his team got those media outlets to report the ban.

[enwhy]

Amazon Music listeners skew much older than Spotify or Apple Music. They don't display much in terms of stats, but even their top playlists are all Country or Classic Rock. It would not surprise me at all if this song is doing absurd numbers on there.

Also, maybe YouTube is contributing? The video has nearly 20M views and a really high percentage of them are coming from the US.