It’s not just the Billboard Hot 100, Dan, charts everywhere have lost much of their relevance and are struggling to adapt to the realities of the streaming era. Record labels now receive an enormous amount of data directly from DSPs, so they no longer rely on charts to tell them whether a song or artist is performing well.
As for the issue of one artist dominating the chart with multiple tracks, there’s actually a straightforward solution, one that Billboard itself pioneered. In the late ’70s, when they first introduced their dance charts, they faced a similar challenge: disco albums often had multiple tracks being played in clubs. Instead of charting them individually, they grouped the tracks together.
For some reason, that approach was abandoned by the end of the decade. But this would be an ideal time to bring it back. And to avoid the complexity of combining streams from multiple tracks, you simply count the streams of the most popular song, essentially treating it as the single.
That's an interesting solution. I know some artists from that period, such as Donna Summer, often had several songs that ran together on an album. Not sure when they would pull one song out, such as "Try Me I Know We Can Make It" and evaluate it as its own track. It would be curious to see how the Hot 100 would deal with something like that. If Taylor Swift has one song getting substantial airplay they'd need to separate it out at some point. I don't think the record labels would go for it either way. They like their artists to dominate the charts!
At the time, it was linked to the release, but even then, it wasn’t always clear how or why certain decisions were made. Take Donna Summer’s “Try Me, I Know We Can Make It”, it was the lead single from the follow-up album to her breakthrough “Love to Love You Baby.” The song filled the entire A-side of the album. However, there was another track on that album, “Could It Be Magic,” which also became very popular on the dancefloor. In this case, both songs ended up charting separately.
Now consider “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” by Sylvester. It was released together with the follow-up “Dance (Disco Heat)”, and they remained coupled, even though Dance (Disco Heat) eventually became Sylvester’s second and bigger hit on the Hot 100. I believe Fantasy Records released both as a double A-side twelve-inch, which likely explains why Billboard treated them as one entry. They simply followed the label’s lead.
That said, I think this kind of system could be reintroduced quite easily. If a record label releases multiple songs, say from an album or EP, together, they could be charted as a unit. It could even be limited to a maximum of three tracks. If the songs are released individually, then they would chart individually. After all, charts have always been vanity metrics for record companies.
Back in my day, we had to send the Belgian charts to International and would highlight whatever results looked best. We were expected to report weekly on our marketing progress, so being able to mention a strong chart result was already half the battle won 😁. I suspect it’s not much different today, though now, record companies seem to care less about the “legacy” charts and more about the ones on Spotify.
Yeah and the whole approach to releasing songs is so different today. If Taylor Swift drops a song first then I can see how it would chart on its own. However, once the album is released Billboard considers any of those songs as individual tracks and allows them to chart on their own. Of course, this keeps an album from really having an follow-up "singles" - unless they remix them or add a vocalist. I do like the idea of allowing only three tracks to chart at a time though.
The music industry is puppeteered in a way I confess I'll never fully understand. I still remember being a music fan in my youth and completely mystified when a major artist would follow a hit record with a new album that would get no airplay and vanish despite being more of the same thing.
It sounded a lot like new rules led to more gamification of the charts than any actual reflection on what was popular. Drake did something I remember when he released his entire album as singles, nabbing the first fourteen slots or something. Who does that benefit, except for him?
Of course, the absence of MTV is massive. The people who run the network have turned it into some cheap monstrosity that has just about no interest in ANY music. Imagine if you wanted to see today's big music artists and all you had to do was turn to a certain channel. How nice would that be?
From what I've been able to tell, the formula is not transparent. So Billboard tells us the main ingredients going into the Hot 100 recipe, like youtube views, platform streams, radio play, and physical sales, but neglects to share some of its secret ingredients (like payola, which some articles I've read claim is still happening).
The record companies have promotion departments whose job is to understand and 'game' those numbers, and with money and bots what can't they do. I haven't looked at the songs you mentioned, but are they all record label songs? That would be a clear tell.
And who's keeping the system honest would also be my question?
So I think you're right to call them out on it, Dan. A lot of money is involved for artists and it's wrong if they're not playing fair.
It's like when a consultant advised country radio stations not to play songs by women back to back and there was a dramatic drop in radio play for women, which had a dramatic impact on their sales. This stuff matters! It needs to be called out.
That's an interesting question Ellen. In looking at Billboard's website and its listing of the top songs, record labels are not mentioned as they were years ago. Perhaps they don't want us to see the monopolies certain labels have? I'm sure payola still exists in some form. It's true that promoters can help get certain songs in front of listeners on sites like Spotify and Apple Music by getting them positioned on key charts such as "Release Radar" and "New Music Friday." How exactly they are doing it I can't answer. I'd love to hear from someone at Billboard about this!
I don’t think I’ve ever felt more disconnected from what constitutes “popular music” as I am now. When growing up in the 70s and 80s there just seemed to be so much diversity on the Billboard Hot 100, which speaks to your point about the short sliver of time songs would stay at the top of the chart (or on the chart period). These current Billboard charts just seem nonsensical to me.
I agree with this, doesn’t make sense that a whole album can end up in the charts. I think it was after Ed Sheeran released ‘divide’ he had nine of the top ten in the UK. After that they changed the rules.
An artist can only have three songs in the top 100 at any one time and once the song has been in the charts for a number of weeks, the streaming ratio changes so that you need more streams to count as one sale.
I guess no one really talks about it, but that would suggest people are happy with it.
Everyone said at the time it was dumb that all of Ed Sheeran’s songs from divide were in the singles charts because that’s what the album charts for. I suppose because it hasn’t happened before there wasn’t a rule to stop it.
I think another way the Billboard charts are different to a lot of countries is they take into account radio play, whereas a lot of other countries charts don’t. I’m not sure exactly how that affects the charts but just another observation.
The original Hot 100 was a hodgepodge based on a combination of radio and jukebox airplay and retail sales, which had each previously had their own separate chart. And each of these sources could easily be corrupted if songs got play based on "payola" or the "jobbers" who sold the records favored certain tunes and artists over others.
Whereas the Soundscan/streaming charts are based on a single computer program that can't be easily influenced to include or exclude certain artists- it tracks popularity and nothing else. And popularity on a chart doesn't necessarily reflect the creative quality of the work.
True but are some of those "old" songs in the current Top 40 still as popular as they were six month ago? I think there has to be a better way of evaluating what is hitting the zeitgeist at an given moment.
There's a lot wrong with the Billboard charts these days, though it does sometimes feel like an "old man yells at cloud" situation. Heck, even after Casey ended his first run on AT40, they stopped using Billboard exclusively, choosing instead to gather data from other sources that more accurately reflected the mass market.
Truth is there's no real good single formula to track popularity, because there's so much fragmentation in how people listen and, oddly at the same time, radio has become so homogenized and milquetoast in its offerings that the same 40 songs are literally played everywhere at the same time at the same cadence.
I don't know that it'll ever be as reasonably clear cut as it was, though you could argue that the "old days" were bad, too, using unreliable data like record store phone calls. Because record companies didn't release commercial singles as often in the '90s, many songs that should have been #1 hits didn't even chart (think "Don't Speak" by No Doubt, among others).
As a chart fanatic, I appreciate this line of questioning! Well written piece, as always!
Thanks Matt. You're right about the "old days" using unreliable date for sure. It just seems like we were exposed to a wider variety of music back then. It also felt like it meant something when a song could take its time to reach the Top Ten. Most of those album cuts that hit the list when a new album is released mean nothing to most people in the long run. I appreciate your insightful comments!
You are bang on with this. I loved going to buy a single and getting it home. Streaming, for me, has its place, but the system is definitely broken.
It’s not just the Billboard Hot 100, Dan, charts everywhere have lost much of their relevance and are struggling to adapt to the realities of the streaming era. Record labels now receive an enormous amount of data directly from DSPs, so they no longer rely on charts to tell them whether a song or artist is performing well.
As for the issue of one artist dominating the chart with multiple tracks, there’s actually a straightforward solution, one that Billboard itself pioneered. In the late ’70s, when they first introduced their dance charts, they faced a similar challenge: disco albums often had multiple tracks being played in clubs. Instead of charting them individually, they grouped the tracks together.
For some reason, that approach was abandoned by the end of the decade. But this would be an ideal time to bring it back. And to avoid the complexity of combining streams from multiple tracks, you simply count the streams of the most popular song, essentially treating it as the single.
That's an interesting solution. I know some artists from that period, such as Donna Summer, often had several songs that ran together on an album. Not sure when they would pull one song out, such as "Try Me I Know We Can Make It" and evaluate it as its own track. It would be curious to see how the Hot 100 would deal with something like that. If Taylor Swift has one song getting substantial airplay they'd need to separate it out at some point. I don't think the record labels would go for it either way. They like their artists to dominate the charts!
At the time, it was linked to the release, but even then, it wasn’t always clear how or why certain decisions were made. Take Donna Summer’s “Try Me, I Know We Can Make It”, it was the lead single from the follow-up album to her breakthrough “Love to Love You Baby.” The song filled the entire A-side of the album. However, there was another track on that album, “Could It Be Magic,” which also became very popular on the dancefloor. In this case, both songs ended up charting separately.
Now consider “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” by Sylvester. It was released together with the follow-up “Dance (Disco Heat)”, and they remained coupled, even though Dance (Disco Heat) eventually became Sylvester’s second and bigger hit on the Hot 100. I believe Fantasy Records released both as a double A-side twelve-inch, which likely explains why Billboard treated them as one entry. They simply followed the label’s lead.
That said, I think this kind of system could be reintroduced quite easily. If a record label releases multiple songs, say from an album or EP, together, they could be charted as a unit. It could even be limited to a maximum of three tracks. If the songs are released individually, then they would chart individually. After all, charts have always been vanity metrics for record companies.
Back in my day, we had to send the Belgian charts to International and would highlight whatever results looked best. We were expected to report weekly on our marketing progress, so being able to mention a strong chart result was already half the battle won 😁. I suspect it’s not much different today, though now, record companies seem to care less about the “legacy” charts and more about the ones on Spotify.
Yeah and the whole approach to releasing songs is so different today. If Taylor Swift drops a song first then I can see how it would chart on its own. However, once the album is released Billboard considers any of those songs as individual tracks and allows them to chart on their own. Of course, this keeps an album from really having an follow-up "singles" - unless they remix them or add a vocalist. I do like the idea of allowing only three tracks to chart at a time though.
Streaming has completely fucked up the system. I miss the days when going out to buy a record meant something.
The music industry is puppeteered in a way I confess I'll never fully understand. I still remember being a music fan in my youth and completely mystified when a major artist would follow a hit record with a new album that would get no airplay and vanish despite being more of the same thing.
It sounded a lot like new rules led to more gamification of the charts than any actual reflection on what was popular. Drake did something I remember when he released his entire album as singles, nabbing the first fourteen slots or something. Who does that benefit, except for him?
Of course, the absence of MTV is massive. The people who run the network have turned it into some cheap monstrosity that has just about no interest in ANY music. Imagine if you wanted to see today's big music artists and all you had to do was turn to a certain channel. How nice would that be?
Fromtheyardtothearthouse.substack.com
Well said! I appreciate your comments!
From what I've been able to tell, the formula is not transparent. So Billboard tells us the main ingredients going into the Hot 100 recipe, like youtube views, platform streams, radio play, and physical sales, but neglects to share some of its secret ingredients (like payola, which some articles I've read claim is still happening).
The record companies have promotion departments whose job is to understand and 'game' those numbers, and with money and bots what can't they do. I haven't looked at the songs you mentioned, but are they all record label songs? That would be a clear tell.
And who's keeping the system honest would also be my question?
So I think you're right to call them out on it, Dan. A lot of money is involved for artists and it's wrong if they're not playing fair.
It's like when a consultant advised country radio stations not to play songs by women back to back and there was a dramatic drop in radio play for women, which had a dramatic impact on their sales. This stuff matters! It needs to be called out.
That's an interesting question Ellen. In looking at Billboard's website and its listing of the top songs, record labels are not mentioned as they were years ago. Perhaps they don't want us to see the monopolies certain labels have? I'm sure payola still exists in some form. It's true that promoters can help get certain songs in front of listeners on sites like Spotify and Apple Music by getting them positioned on key charts such as "Release Radar" and "New Music Friday." How exactly they are doing it I can't answer. I'd love to hear from someone at Billboard about this!
Me too!
I don’t think I’ve ever felt more disconnected from what constitutes “popular music” as I am now. When growing up in the 70s and 80s there just seemed to be so much diversity on the Billboard Hot 100, which speaks to your point about the short sliver of time songs would stay at the top of the chart (or on the chart period). These current Billboard charts just seem nonsensical to me.
^This^
I completely agree Mark!
I like some of these songs but agree with all of your points.
What really frustrates me are album bombs (when an entire album ties up the charts for a week).
They cracked down on it in the UK.
I agree with this, doesn’t make sense that a whole album can end up in the charts. I think it was after Ed Sheeran released ‘divide’ he had nine of the top ten in the UK. After that they changed the rules.
Oh really? I didn't know that. Do you know what the rules are?
An artist can only have three songs in the top 100 at any one time and once the song has been in the charts for a number of weeks, the streaming ratio changes so that you need more streams to count as one sale.
Hmm... interesting. Sounds like a system Billboard should employ. Are people happy with it?
I guess no one really talks about it, but that would suggest people are happy with it.
Everyone said at the time it was dumb that all of Ed Sheeran’s songs from divide were in the singles charts because that’s what the album charts for. I suppose because it hasn’t happened before there wasn’t a rule to stop it.
I think another way the Billboard charts are different to a lot of countries is they take into account radio play, whereas a lot of other countries charts don’t. I’m not sure exactly how that affects the charts but just another observation.
It always curious as to how radio is actually counted in rankings! It used to be self-reported by radio stations. Not sure how they are doing it now.
The original Hot 100 was a hodgepodge based on a combination of radio and jukebox airplay and retail sales, which had each previously had their own separate chart. And each of these sources could easily be corrupted if songs got play based on "payola" or the "jobbers" who sold the records favored certain tunes and artists over others.
Whereas the Soundscan/streaming charts are based on a single computer program that can't be easily influenced to include or exclude certain artists- it tracks popularity and nothing else. And popularity on a chart doesn't necessarily reflect the creative quality of the work.
It's never been perfect, but it could be worse.
True but are some of those "old" songs in the current Top 40 still as popular as they were six month ago? I think there has to be a better way of evaluating what is hitting the zeitgeist at an given moment.
There should be. But maybe it’s not in “Billboard” any more.
Very good point!
There's a lot wrong with the Billboard charts these days, though it does sometimes feel like an "old man yells at cloud" situation. Heck, even after Casey ended his first run on AT40, they stopped using Billboard exclusively, choosing instead to gather data from other sources that more accurately reflected the mass market.
Truth is there's no real good single formula to track popularity, because there's so much fragmentation in how people listen and, oddly at the same time, radio has become so homogenized and milquetoast in its offerings that the same 40 songs are literally played everywhere at the same time at the same cadence.
I don't know that it'll ever be as reasonably clear cut as it was, though you could argue that the "old days" were bad, too, using unreliable data like record store phone calls. Because record companies didn't release commercial singles as often in the '90s, many songs that should have been #1 hits didn't even chart (think "Don't Speak" by No Doubt, among others).
As a chart fanatic, I appreciate this line of questioning! Well written piece, as always!
Thanks Matt. You're right about the "old days" using unreliable date for sure. It just seems like we were exposed to a wider variety of music back then. It also felt like it meant something when a song could take its time to reach the Top Ten. Most of those album cuts that hit the list when a new album is released mean nothing to most people in the long run. I appreciate your insightful comments!