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

[thegreatdivine]

The charts seem like a bad joke when artists resort to doing sh*t like this. Smh.

[think pink.]

Aug 29, 2024 19:31:07 GMT -5 Ryan said:

A wise Queen once said

I don't care how long it take to get a opp back

[fridayteenage]

Aug 29, 2024 21:27:45 GMT -5 Choco said:

I juat feel bad for people that bought and preordered only for extra songs to be added on a new version they now don't own.

why? they got what they ordered and paid for.

I didn't find it offensive when Dua added 13 more songs gradually to her debut or 8 songs to her next album. I remember how much hype Rihanna got last last decade for adding new songs to GGGB.

[NeRD]

The fuck is going on here? Lol

[Ling-Ling]

And so the gaslighting begins... "this has always happened!" "they're following chart rules!" "if you don't want it, don't buy it!" "blah blah blah had a deluxe!"

If these sales tactics don't phase you, fine. Be unbothered. But stop telling the people that don't like it they're being unreasonable. I've written paragraphs about why I find it exploitative and the damage I feel it does to albums, especially physical product. And y'all manage to skip over it every single time and make it all about something else. I'm so over it. We don't need another sales thread derailed because of these bullshit variants.

[fridayteenage]

"Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse or manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in their victim's mind."
Let's not throw serious terms around over chart meltdowns

[Ling-Ling]

Aug 29, 2024 23:02:28 GMT -5 fridayteenage said:

"Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse or manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in their victim's mind."
Let's not throw serious terms around over chart meltdowns

Oh please, lol. It's a general term that applies to all sorts of situations. Relationships, work, social media, media, general interactions with people, etc.

[fridayteenage]

incorrectly

like using "literally" and "love" for all sorts of situations that don't merit it.

[Ling-Ling]

By your standards maybe, but feel free to go to any online or scholarly source about gaslighting on the internet and on social media. It's not all about dramatic scenarios like abusive relationships.

But either way, semantics aside, my point stands. The constant trivializing of poster's opinions on variants has bled into dozens of threads. It's infuriating. By all means, be unbothered by them, but the insinuation (or it's said outright) is that we're irrational or it's always happened. When it's very obvious what's been happening this past year is unprecedented. And then queue the "you're all just haters and whiners" posts, because they always come eventually.

[Enigma.]

Wow Sabrina doing ALL THAT for her flavor-of-the-month-6/10-album-about-dumb-partners and Travis doing ALL THAT for his god-knows-where-this-came-from mixtape. Truly wild times.

Sabrina would be #1 next week anyway so what's the point.

[balletgirlmom]

Happy for Sabrina at #1 and Travis at #2.  The music biz is business, so both are trying to do well.  It's all about streaming, buying and radio and what is consumed in any given week. This week it's Sabrina.  In another week (whenever that is), it will be Travis.  

[jenglisbe]

Aug 29, 2024 23:02:28 GMT -5 fridayteenage said:

"Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse or manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in their victim's mind."
Let's not throw serious terms around over chart meltdowns

The point is it hasn't been happening until recently. Rihanna (and many others) releasing a deluxe version months after the original version isn't the same as what has been going on the last year or two. These variants are being released mere days after someone has already bought an album, and then in some cases they keep getting released week after week. One deluxe version released months after the initial version is not the same as 5 versions released within days/weeks of an original version. Plus with deluxe versions in most cases you could download the new tracks individually - i.e. you didn't have to buy the entire album to get the new song/songs. Hell that is how a lot of those new songs were able to go to #1. So yet another difference is that with these variants fans have to re-buy an entire album just to get 1 new song (or voicemail lmao). And then do it again the next day/week with yet another new song.

To that end, anyone trying to convince someone that what is happening now has been done for awhile and is somehow the same could be seen as a form of gaslighting as Ling-Ling stated.

[Rose "Payola" Nylund]

The deluxe version six months later back in the 2000s was annoying enough.

In the end, they should teach us not to buy albums until long after.

[ampersand]

Unless I really love an artist, I have pretty much been trained to not buy a physical copy of an album first week anymore, let alone pre-order. I’m glad I haven’t bought brat on vinyl since the deluxe is getting pressed. It’s so crazy that artists do this, though. If I’m gonna drop $50+ on a record, I want the complete album.

[Ling-Ling]

Aug 30, 2024 8:27:02 GMT -5 ampersand said:

Unless I really love an artist, I have pretty much been trained to not buy a physical copy of an album first week anymore, let alone pre-order. I’m glad I haven’t bought brat on vinyl since the deluxe is getting pressed. It’s so crazy that artists do this, though. If I’m gonna drop $50+ on a record, I want the complete album.

And the sad part is, even if you wait, you might not ever get the full album on physical. I'm a huge proponent/lover of physical albums and this constant devaluation of physical product is destructive. It's my major issue with these variants. Despite the vinyl boost, physicals are still in an delicate place. And it's like the industry is going out of their way to kill them. How much longer are people going to keep buying physical editions if they keep being made irrelevant/incomplete immediately on release week?

[clsvltn]

LOL this is hilarious. Definitely makes it fun this week

[Music Fan]

There really does need to be a rule against this shit. Taylor has abused it so much (which is why I think it hasn't been an issue, because Taylor gets away with things). However, we've been seeing it more and more. If an artist wants to try to get a surefire #1 album, go ahead and put 20+ songs on your album and release the 5 different versions and vinyls at the beginning of the week. I'm still against all the variants, but if the consumer knows what's coming and they decide to purchase all variants that's on them. However, releasing stuff midweek with one added song and then another a day later really screws up the fans. I understand it's a business, but there's gotta be some protection towards the consumers too that Billboard could implement.

I also personally think it's more exciting as a chart watcher when we're at the expectation all week of how much someone will sell based on what was initially released, as opposed to inflated numbers because there were so many versions released throughout the week.

With that said, I still hope Sabrina takes the #1.

[musiclife]

I knew someone was DYING to bring Taylor up in this convo. Lol

Anyways, Sabrina did what she had to do. Travis did it too how come nobody is making a fuss over him? Please Please Please.

[Ling-Ling]

Aug 30, 2024 13:17:10 GMT -5 musiclife said:

I knew someone was DYING to bring Taylor up in this convo. Lol

Anyways, Sabrina did what she had to do. Travis did it too how come nobody is making a fuss over him? Please Please Please.

Taylor is the most egregious example of this tactic. Of course she's gonna get brought up?

And what post in here is only calling out Sabrina? It's them battling with these BS variants that caused the discussion.

[85la]

Aug 30, 2024 8:27:02 GMT -5 ampersand said:

Unless I really love an artist, I have pretty much been trained to not buy a physical copy of an album first week anymore, let alone pre-order. I’m glad I haven’t bought brat on vinyl since the deluxe is getting pressed. It’s so crazy that artists do this, though. If I’m gonna drop $50+ on a record, I want the complete album.

It seems like many more fans would use your rational line of thinking and that sales of albums early upon release would eventually suffer because of this, and maybe a small percentage will wait, but unfortunately it seems this doesn't phase many of them and they have no problem buying however many additional copies.

[👑 Eloquent ™]

As I have said in several past threads before, people have every right to take whatever offense to the usage of variants they take, but they need to prepare themselves because this isn't some one-off tactic utilized by an artist or two, but a new industry standard of practice when launching campaigns. Labels are struggling to make money like they used to and they're seeing real-time financial incentive with the use of variants. It's widespread at this point with a lot of big artists doing it and it shows no signs of slowing down. This is just another thing in the ever-evolving music industry that people are gonna have to make peace with in one way or another. I mean, technically they don't have to make peace with it, but they're not going anywhere anytime soon. Along with their influx of use, we are absolutely going to see artists continue to strategically use variants to secure positions. It's inevitable. Maybe Billboard will step in to tighten the rules up a bit if things get too wild (or what they would consider unfair/too wild), but yeah. I can see why some are frustrated, absolutely, but I can also understand why some feel the continuous complaining is redundant (like people complain of holiday music interrupting the Hot 100 every year and people, myself included, have complained about that when it's all within Billboard's policies and rules). lol


I will also say I don't feel any fans are "cheated" or "robbed" due to these variants as I don't feel fans are entitled to any music/art aside from the music they originally purchased and if an artist withholds certain songs for deluxe or different editions one isn't entitled to those too just because one wants them. An artist has every right to release, price, and distribute their art as they see fit in my opinion. If you don't want to participate, don't. If you want the additional music in physical form, you know the price. Plus there is literally streaming and other ways to acquire the material so it all feels very trivial to me, but obviously everyone has their own feelings.

[musiclife]

Aug 30, 2024 13:32:31 GMT -5 Ling-Ling said:

Aug 30, 2024 13:17:10 GMT -5 musiclife said:

I knew someone was DYING to bring Taylor up in this convo. Lol

Anyways, Sabrina did what she had to do. Travis did it too how come nobody is making a fuss over him? Please Please Please.

Taylor is the most egregious example of this tactic. Of course she's gonna get brought up?

And what post in here is only calling out Sabrina? It's them battling with these BS variants that caused the discussion.

I just love the hypocritical thoughts.

It was literally mentioned above. Lol

[Ivy Leegue™]

I love Ling-Ling because, well, he is Ling-Ling. My coping mechanism is to just pretty much pretend the extra songs don't exist, especially if it's one or two songs. I don't go out of my way to listen to them or I throw them on a playlist and discover them that way. In my head, the version I bought is the complete version. The ONLY exception I can think of is PF2, for which Nicki released a 10 track physical version, but the ACTUAL album was 22+ songs. I convinced someone to buy the CD for me and then downloaded a pirated copy of the album and all was well. Also, Nicki got ZERO of my coins for her shenanigans.

[jenglisbe]

Aug 30, 2024 13:17:10 GMT -5 musiclife said:

Travis did it too how come nobody is making a fuss over him?

There are plenty of posts that speak about both of them and/or speak generally, so your post is a flat out lie:
"Neither of them need to do this"
"...and Travis doing ALL THAT for his god-knows-where-this-came-from mixtape. Truly wild times."
"I juat feel bad for people that bought and preordered only for extra songs to be added on a new version they now don't own."
"Ugh, so ridiculous."
"Hopefully Sabrina and Travis just do this for the debut week, but even then all of this certainly feels like too much."

[👑 Eloquent ™]

Aug 30, 2024 13:13:40 GMT -5 Music Fan said:

If an artist wants to try to get a surefire #1 album, go ahead and put 20+ songs on your album and release the 5 different versions and vinyls at the beginning of the week.

Yeah I don't think it's going to work like that for the majority of artists. I would argue the only artists who will directly benefit in any big/noteable way (in terms of #1 peak or longevity) will be artists who already have a large following and who'd likely be able (or close to being able) to secure the pole position without the variants. Like, if Radical Optimism had 30 songs and 20 variants do we suddenly think it would have debuted at #1 with 200,000 copies? No. lol It really is only going to help artists relative to their "natural" performance. So while a boost is likely across the board, it isn't going to culminate in some massive difference. Look at Taylor. She was already close to #1 when variants helped her secure 3 of her 15 weeks at the top and even with her commercial prowess her average variant drop padded her total by only around 20k copies per implementation (aside from maybe one or two instances off memory), which really is a drop in the bucket of her near 6 million domestic total.

This whole notion of "now anyone can get a #1 just make a double album and put 50 variants out" is a bit ridiculous, as you have to have the initial buying interest there to begin with. That's why I think some are particularly pissed when Taylor utilizes the variants in the way she does, because she is one of the few artists who can do so more successfully and to her advantage.

On a side note: And speaking of Taylor, yes other artists aside from her have received criticism on this forum for using variants, as highlighted in a post above, but I think the degree of criticism and certainly the level of vitriol toward Taylor using them comparatively has always been much, MUCH worse on Pulse and that's just the truth (for whatever reasons there might be: she's most popular, she utilizes them the most etc). People were articulating that she is a horrible human being because she releases variants, whereas with artists like Travis and Sabrina they're just like "they shouldn't do that" or with artists like Dua or Kelly Clarkson there's no criticism at all and that's what musiclife was likely referring to initially when they insinuated the criticism felt a bit uneven.

[jdanton2]

i wonder if there will be a delay with the Sabrina and Travis numbers . if not we should know very soon.

[avamaxstan]

I hope this messy Travis battle at least pushes Sabrina over 400k

[musiclife]

Aug 30, 2024 15:16:12 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

Aug 30, 2024 13:17:10 GMT -5 musiclife said:

Travis did it too how come nobody is making a fuss over him?

There are plenty of posts that speak about both of them and/or speak generally, so your post is a flat out lie:
"Neither of them need to do this"
"...and Travis doing ALL THAT for his god-knows-where-this-came-from mixtape. Truly wild times."
"I juat feel bad for people that bought and preordered only for extra songs to be added on a new version they now don't own."
"Ugh, so ridiculous."
"Hopefully Sabrina and Travis just do this for the debut week, but even then all of this certainly feels like too much."

A lie is a bit of a stretch. You can't be this upset can you?

[musiclife]

Aug 30, 2024 16:05:03 GMT -5 avamaxstan said:

I hope this messy Travis battle at least pushes Sabrina over 400k

Oh yes me too. ❤️ she's gonna have the 2nd highest debut this year. ❤️

[areyoureadytojump]

hitsdailydouble.com/news&id=342457&title=NO-CHART-TODAY%253A-POUR-US-A-DOUBLE.

Friday, August 30, 2024

NO CHART TODAY: POUR US A DOUBLE.

We won’t be publishing the HITS Top 50 chart today, as the question of who will land at #1 has not yet been settled. Sabrina Carpenter is ahead at present, but all parties are fighting the good fight and we have a long weekend’s worth of daydrinking, barbecuing and binge-watching to contemplate. We’ll have a final chart for you as soon as we’re able. Thank you, and down the hatch.