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

[Ivy Leegue™]

WE NEVER TALK ABOUT ITTTTTT!!

Congrats, Sabrina! I love you so much, bestie!

[jdanton2]

Sept 5, 2024 7:30:55 GMT -5 pnobelysk said:

Did they ever post the top 50? I use it to track sales

they probably had Travis at #1 and did not want to post their list.

[Juan Carlos]

hitsdailydouble.com/near_truths_item&id=342514

Friday, September 6, 2024

TICKETS AND CITATIONS

DON’T HATE THE PLAYER—HATE THE GAMING: The charts are royally fucked up. Billboard's Luminate has decimated the significance of its storied chart, once the richest metric of the state of play in the biz. The jockeying for #1—the only spot on the chart that matters anymore—has too often become a contest of manipulation as combatants scramble for one-off tricks like gamers deploying cheat codes.

That a 10-year-old SoundCloud mixtape with an SEA of about 30k could have come within inches of taking the #1 chart spot from the hottest pop act in the business only underscores how broken the current system is.

The spirited attempt by Travis Scott to wrest the crown from Island’s Sabrina Carpenter—she reportedly held onto #1 with just a .02% advantage (about 600 units)—might almost have been a protest effort to demonstrate that the present chart environment is bullshit, particularly given that hip-hop’s commercial relevance has taken some hits of late. What better time to demonstrate how the fix is in? Scott, manager David Stromberg and Sony’s Darren Stupak managed to create enough chaos with digital sales of the 2014 set (accompanied by some late-inning items direct from his hard drive) to show their muscle and make the point. Word has it that Luminate Partnerships Manager Nelson Thomas was at the center of the weekend’s prolonged tabulation controversy.

Carpenter scored Island’s first #1 album since Shawn Mendes summited the chart in 2020, and she’s approaching the 1m mark in ATD as of this writing; her album’s first week saw 2024’s third-biggest chart debut. As of this writing, Sabrina holds three of the top five spots (including #1) on the Spotify U.S. chart and four of the top six globally. Prognosticators are prognosticating that she’ll do 10m units globally.

Republic has been able to take the art of the chart to a new level—props to lieutenant Jim Roppo in particular—and Taylor Swift’s astounding retail game has helped her rule the chart for an astounding 15 nonconsecutive weeks and successfully defend the #1 spot against big debuts by Billie Eilish, Zach Bryan and Gracie Abrams, to name but three.

In any case, it shouldn’t be possible to game the chart by unleashing old mixtapes and manipulating the cost of digital downloads when this in no way expresses the true state of the marketplace. Scott has made his point; is the chart cabal paying attention?

[Juan Carlos]

I was initially planning to lock this thread once HITS reveals the final figures for this week (8/30), but if it's taken into consideration that they only have revealed the Top 2 and have moved on with the final figures of the current week (9/7), I guess it's not necessary to keep this thread open anymore.