HITS 8/30: Sabrina Carpenter 362k, Travis Scott 361k

[Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ]

As far as I'm concerned, Billboard 200 doesn't even have to exist anymore. It was never perfect, but I feel like this year is especially a joke and basically a contest of who has the richest fanbase / people who are willing to buy 20 variants of the album, just to make their idol happy for like 3 minutes.

I know they probably think it's a embarrassing for a #1 album to only sell like 40k 'normal' units, but it's better than whatever this is.

[HamedM1 💔]

The amount of dickriding fans do for sales tactics these days never fails to amuse me and warrants a major overhaul to the Billboard 200, between this and albums that debut high and falloff considerably faster than ever before these days (Smile by Katy Perry, the last Demi album, If I Can't Have Love I Want Power, etc) its in desperate need of some changes cause there are so many records from established artists that struggle to even reach 2 months of charting time these days.

[Mayman]

[Love Plastic Love]

Haha yeah, pretty much. I just think the optics are not going to look good if they immediately spring to action when a black man does it once versus the past year of variant-crazy releases. (Edit-sorry was responding to Choco)

[Mayman]

Billboard numbers are in:

[zdm1998]

I really think that somehow they need to only count one purchase per customer. I feel like a specific fan base buying 20 or more variants of an album makes the credibility of the chart mean less. It really is basically who wants to blow the most money to give their fave some spotlight. It really does take the fun out of the chart.

This isn't even towards one specific artist, just on the whole.

[👑 Eloquent ™]

Can I petition the whole "variants" topic have its own thread so every single Billboard 200 thread doesn't have to be derailed every single week from now on out (since variants are absolutely a regular implementation for most artists now)? I just feel like there's no need to go in circles about the same topic over and over and over again every week, but if people feel they must, can it not be all condensed to its own thread so others who just want to enjoy a less hostile chart discussion without the same tired topic can do so? lol

[Choco]

Sept 3, 2024 11:18:02 GMT -5 Love Plastic Love said:

Haha yeah, pretty much. I just think the optics are not going to look good if they immediately spring to action when a black man does it once versus the past year of variant-crazy releases. (Edit-sorry was responding to Choco)

This type of change usually takes place in January. They should bite the bullet for the rest of the year but announce beforehand... whether that entices, say, Taylor, to drop one more TV before the game is over, would be surely justs a coincidence lol. (A win in my books - creatively I think she needs to wrap this retrospective era asap).

[joshtheking]

thankfully the actual popular album won.

[👑 Eloquent ™]

Sept 3, 2024 11:24:54 GMT -5 zdm1998 said:

I really think that somehow they need to only count one purchase per customer. I feel like a specific fan base buying 20 or more variants of an album makes the credibility of the chart mean less. It really is basically who wants to blow the most money to give their fave some spotlight. It really does take the fun out of the chart.

This isn't even towards one specific artist, just on the whole.

Pretty sure they have bulk purchasing rules in place still.

[Private Dancer]

This thread is messier than the chart battle itself. I low-key live for it

[Choco]

Sept 3, 2024 11:37:27 GMT -5 👑 Eloquent ™ said:

Sept 3, 2024 11:24:54 GMT -5 zdm1998 said:

I really think that somehow they need to only count one purchase per customer. I feel like a specific fan base buying 20 or more variants of an album makes the credibility of the chart mean less. It really is basically who wants to blow the most money to give their fave some spotlight. It really does take the fun out of the chart.

This isn't even towards one specific artist, just on the whole.

Pretty sure they have bulk purchasing rules in place still.

Isn't it 4 copies per credit card per version? A person with two credit cards (common) can get the 15 or so Travis versions and account for 120 albums sold. 119 never get played whatsoever 99% of the time. Time to make it 1 copy period.

Mind you I do not really hate the abusing acts. Every chart era has had similar exploits. But BB is too fucking slow to react. Nobody shades Gaga for the 99 cent albums anymore, or Mariah for repressing her single sales until radio could carry her safely to the top.

[👑 Eloquent ™]

Sept 3, 2024 11:48:10 GMT -5 Choco said:

Sept 3, 2024 11:37:27 GMT -5 👑 Eloquent ™ said:

Pretty sure they have bulk purchasing rules in place still.

Isn't it 4 copies per credit card per version? A person with two credit cards (common) can get the 15 or so Travis versions and account for 120 albums sold. 119 never get played whatsoever 99% of the time. Time to make it 1 copy period.

I'm not sure the specifics, might be the case, I just knew there were limitations on how many purchases could be made per person so it isn't like someone could just go and by 10,000 copies of something. Regardless I still find these insinuations of "fans going wild and buying in bulk" moot at best, because if we look at Taylor for example (whose arguably the biggest artist to be able to benefit from this), variants barely boosted her near 6 million figure by maybe 200k copies total. So variants are never gonna make some huge discrepancy between sales without vs sales with their use. People are really exaggerating their potential affects. Even the potential example with Travis you cited is going to be very very rare in instance, especially in this economy of someone who could even afford 120 albums.

[musiclife]

Yay Sabrina. You deserve it so much unlike Travis. You go. ❤️

[alchemy]

Such hullabaloo over who’s more popular for two artists that non-netizens will have a hard time identifying, lol. And not one fanbase accusing the other of unfair dick riding tactics when they both and pretty much anyone who plays the charts do.

Amusing to read when I truly have no horse in this race. Y’all are entertaining messes.

[avamaxstan]

Sept 3, 2024 12:08:43 GMT -5 alchemy said:

Such hullabaloo over who’s more popular for two artists that non-netizens will have a hard time identifying, lol. And not one fanbase accusing the other of unfair dick riding tactics when they both and pretty much anyone who plays the charts do.

Amusing to read when I truly have no horse in this race. Y’all are entertaining messes.

You'd have to be 50+ years old to think that only chronically online people know who Travis and Sabrina are 

[jenglisbe]

It felt like Sabrina's album was bigger so congrats to her, though what feels big obviously depends on where you are, who you are around, etc.

All things considered, Travis' sales total is the most impressive I've seen in a long time.

[Coco Yu'Kneek- Saint]

Congrats 🎉🎉 Sabrina Carpenter

[fridayteenage]

Sept 3, 2024 12:18:02 GMT -5 avamaxstan said:

Sept 3, 2024 12:08:43 GMT -5 alchemy said:

Such hullabaloo over who’s more popular for two artists that non-netizens will have a hard time identifying, lol. And not one fanbase accusing the other of unfair dick riding tactics when they both and pretty much anyone who plays the charts do.

Amusing to read when I truly have no horse in this race. Y’all are entertaining messes.

You'd have to be 50+ years old to think that only chronically online people know who Travis and Sabrina are 

Do ppl under 50 use the word "netizens"?

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

Sept 3, 2024 12:19:10 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

It felt like Sabrina's album was bigger so congrats to her, though what feels big obviously depends on where you are, who you are around, etc.

All things considered, Travis' sales total is the most impressive I've seen in a long time.

On the latter point, the most impressive part, by comparison, is that it is higher than any weekly sales by a BTS song in spite of whatever rules were applied to them.

[alchemy]

Sept 3, 2024 12:18:02 GMT -5 avamaxstan said:

Sept 3, 2024 12:08:43 GMT -5 alchemy said:

Such hullabaloo over who’s more popular for two artists that non-netizens will have a hard time identifying, lol. And not one fanbase accusing the other of unfair dick riding tactics when they both and pretty much anyone who plays the charts do.

Amusing to read when I truly have no horse in this race. Y’all are entertaining messes.

You'd have to be 50+ years old to think that only chronically online people know who Travis and Sabrina are 

Sorry to burst your bubble but it’s true. :/

Sept 3, 2024 12:26:33 GMT -5 fridayteenage said:

Sept 3, 2024 12:18:02 GMT -5 avamaxstan said:

You'd have to be 50+ years old to think that only chronically online people know who Travis and Sabrina are 

Do ppl under 50 use the word "netizens"?

No as evidenced by my 94 years on this planet.

[Choco]

Sept 3, 2024 12:19:10 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

It felt like Sabrina's album was bigger so congrats to her, though what feels big obviously depends on where you are, who you are around, etc.

All things considered, Travis' sales total is the most impressive I've seen in a long time.

I get this point but next week's number will dispel any notion that Travis wasn't largely boosted by stans mass buying.

Not that these numbers aren't a huge win for him regardless.

[websites]

Sept 3, 2024 11:57:42 GMT -5 musiclife said:

Yay Sabrina. You deserve it so much unlike Travis. You go. ❤️

She doesnt know u 😭

[Music Fan]

Sept 3, 2024 10:39:13 GMT -5 Love Plastic Love said:

Watch Billboard suddenly change the variant rules after Travis Scott does it and beats Sabrina VS when Taylor has been doing it for months lmao.

Honestly. I was rooting for Sabrina to take the #1 (she's the legitimate #1 album in my book). However, I'm somewhat hoping Travis takes the #1 because only then will there me more outrage about the variants and mid-week releases with 1 additional song, etc, that it may force Billboard to take some action. They should've have done something with Taylor but we all know that was never going to happen.

It helps that I'm confident Sabrina will go back to #1 next week (unless someone wants to pull a Travis again), so she's likely to get the #1 regardless.


EDIT: I just saw Sabrina took it by 1k. Still hope this race battle makes Billboard act and put some rules in play. Having multiple versions of an album is cool and all, but really taking it and abusing it is not.

[SPRΞΞ]

Sept 3, 2024 11:56:31 GMT -5 👑 Eloquent ™ said:

Sept 3, 2024 11:48:10 GMT -5 Choco said:

Isn't it 4 copies per credit card per version? A person with two credit cards (common) can get the 15 or so Travis versions and account for 120 albums sold. 119 never get played whatsoever 99% of the time. Time to make it 1 copy period.

I'm not sure the specifics, might be the case, I just knew there were limitations on how many purchases could be made per person so it isn't like someone could just go and by 10,000 copies of something. Regardless I still find these insinuations of "fans going wild and buying in bulk" moot at best, because if we look at Taylor for example (whose arguably the biggest artist to be able to benefit from this), variants barely boosted her near 6 million figure by maybe 200k copies total. So variants are never gonna make some huge discrepancy between sales without vs sales with their use. People are really exaggerating their potential affects. Even the potential example with Travis you cited is going to be very very rare in instance, especially in this economy of someone who could even afford 120 albums.

its not about the sales total, per se. Didn't Taylor block like 7 other artists from #1 with her weekly variants? When she WOULDN'T have been #1 otherwise? It's those types of shady chart tactics that people have more issue with, not the sales themselves.

[Ernesto]

C'mon, Sabrina!

[Mayman]

Sept 3, 2024 12:38:33 GMT -5 Choco said:

Sept 3, 2024 12:19:10 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

It felt like Sabrina's album was bigger so congrats to her, though what feels big obviously depends on where you are, who you are around, etc.

All things considered, Travis' sales total is the most impressive I've seen in a long time.

I get this point but next week's number will dispel any notion that Travis wasn't largely boosted by stans mass buying.

Not that these numbers aren't a huge win for him regardless.

Just a note that Travis still has CDs and vinyl that will ship within 1 or 2 weeks.

[Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ]

So happy for Sabrina, insane how she went from #23 and 18k to #1 and 362k in 2 years. Also insane for Travis, he was at 217k at midweek.

[areyoureadytojump]

hitsdailydouble.com/news&id=342468&title=SABRINA-TAKES-#1-IN-ULTIMATE-SQUEAKER

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

SABRINA TAKES #1 IN ULTIMATE SQUEAKER

UPDATE: Island's Sabrina Carpenter has prevailed after a protracted chart battle with Cactus Jack/Epic's Travis Scott, taking 362k over Scott's 361k (the overwhelming majority of which was in pure album sales).

The FINAL chart has not been posted yet here:

hitsdailydouble.com/news&id=342468&title=SABRINA-TAKES-#1-IN-ULTIMATE-SQUEAKER

[jenglisbe]

Aug 29, 2024 19:37:47 GMT -5 iHype. said:

I feel like a decent rule that Billboard could implement for the version-spamming tactics would be versions with new tracklists cannot be released mid-week. Like they have to have been available on midnight Friday when the week started or they would simply not begin to count for tracking until the next midnight Friday for the following chart week.

This would also be helpful to consumers as the most frustrating thing is labels/artists doing these new versions with more music *extremely shortly after* their fans have already purchased a version.

It would largely halt these instances of inflating numbers last minute and it would help the fans from being screwed over first week as any deluxe/special editions would’ve had to been an option from the beginning when they made the first purchase.

I like this idea personally. Release whatever versions you want to release on the opening day and let the consumers decide what they want to buy.

The thing is this trend is definitely artists taking advantage of fans. The reality is fans want an album when it drops; one because they want to hear the album, and because there is also a psychological aspect to wanting the product of your faves right away. To that end, an artist purposely holding tracks for later in the week (or different weeks) and then 'making' fans re-buy the album to get the track/s is 100% an intentional taking advantage of fans.

I know an argument some make is that fans are still choosing to buy all of these variants. Obviously on at least some level that's true. IMO though it's still shady of artists and their teams to be intentionally sneaky, but I also think there is a psychological aspect to standom that in some ways prevents truly rational choice.

I'm also of the opinion that the chart should represent general popularity, not how hardcore (and rich) your stans are. I'm well aware my opinion means nothing to Billboard or record labels, I'm just sharing my opinion because this is a discussion board.