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Billboard 200 Chart to Incorporate Digital Track Sales, On-Demand Streaming Music
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Definitely about time. I wonder if Iovine had anything to do with this decision, working behind the scenes with his music industry contacts.
Streaming and traditional radio play is a form of advertising which in turn gets fans to attend a concert where the artist makes the bulk of their money.
Well this is smart. I mean do people still buy CDs at brick & mortor music stores? Do they even exist anymore? If so, coomplete psycho move right there.
Thy can just remove themselves from streaming services like Taylor Swift did. Also, Billboard serves a huge purpose and drives a ton of sales and site traffic.
Sue the streaming thieves? Last time I checked you didn't have to stream yourself. That's your choice. Sue them for what? You making less money? or the times changing?
This is not true. Most popular music has always sucked. Look up the top 100 for your senior year of high school and I guarantee it is vastly different from what you think it is.
Here is mine from 1994. Almost all of these songs are terrible: http://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/1994.htm
Again, "radio music" has always been terrible. Now is the best time to be a music fan since discovery and acquisition are so easy. I would have loved to have access to a subscription music service in high school and college.
I think you are forgetting that if it weren't for the record labels stronghold on the music industry, streaming music services would offer artists an exceptionally better deal and much higher $ per play. Record labels are still taking their packaging cuts out of artists percentages, even for digital downloads. They take every last bit of profit they can, and whatever is left gets thrown out to the artists to fight with streaming services over how much more cut THEY can take. Because of course, the streaming service's cut is not going to come out of the profits the record label expects to make.
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because hers are the only fans stupid enough to continually buy outdated media. her fans alone are probably keeping the CD Player industry afloat.
Yours is slightly better, but is still overwhelmingly terrible as well.
It sure is fun to poke around these charts though.I know someone that still uses a portable cd player.
They are mid thirties and already doing that "most everything today sucks" thing. They started getting stuck in the past before they hit thirty.
Everybody: Please post your old playlists!
These are priceless. "Let's get Physical" ?! "Eye of the Tiger"?!
Everybody please post your oldest and/or most shameful playlists. There should be a prize.
These are priceless. "Let's get Physical" ?! "Eye of the Tiger"?!
Everybody please post your oldest and/or most shameful playlists. There should be a prize.
Correct. I still don't believe streaming and the 'charts' have anything in common.
The Billboard chart is now a joke (much like the music industry itself). It's not about the music anymore - it's about popularity, about how many people re-tweeted my photo, and whether I'm one of the 50 Sexiest People Alive. And after this, it won't even be about how many copies you sell, but how many times your music is listened to.
Streaming music vs buying physically/digitally IS NOT THE SAME THING. Otherwise we'd be counting radio plays, and how many times a song is played in your local shopping centre. Just because you get wide exposure, does not mean you/your song is successful - and is in most cases paid for or negotiated anyway (a la Beyoncé with her iTunes release last year, and U2's album this year). Music charts used to be bona fide, because they were a measure of the money people were willing to part with to access your content. Thriller didn't become the best-selling album of all time because it was the most streamed, or most "popular" thing at the time. 40+ million people paid for the album with real dollars and real buying power - it was a measurable level of success.
If I compare "Billie Jean", say, with the recent "Gangnam Style" or "Call Me Maybe" - music these days is all about the throwaway pop hit that can generate as much attention as possible. Nicki Minaj's ass drives this point home. Music is no longer innovative, or pushing the envelope, and it will reach a stage sometime in the future that it's so abused and taken for granted - musicians won't even bother releasing their work. It makes me sick that Billboard are going to support this kind of future, and this kind of abuse to a wonderful art.
I understand that streaming services have definite benefits for consumers, and is in a lot of cases getting money for songs that would otherwise have been illegally downloaded. But to legitimise them as a "chart" of the value and worth of today's music - the music industry is (with the help of pirates) going to kill itself.
Streaming music vs buying physically/digitally IS NOT THE SAME THING. Otherwise we'd be counting radio plays, and how many times a song is played in your local shopping centre. Just because you get wide exposure, does not mean you/your song is successful - and is in most cases paid for or negotiated anyway (a la Beyoncé with her iTunes release last year, and U2's album this year). Music charts used to be bona fide, because they were a measure of the money people were willing to part with to access your content. Thriller didn't become the best-selling album of all time because it was the most streamed, or most "popular" thing at the time. 40+ million people paid for the album with real dollars and real buying power - it was a measurable level of success.
If I compare "Billie Jean", say, with the recent "Gangnam Style" or "Call Me Maybe" - music these days is all about the throwaway pop hit that can generate as much attention as possible. Nicki Minaj's ass drives this point home. Music is no longer innovative, or pushing the envelope, and it will reach a stage sometime in the future that it's so abused and taken for granted - musicians won't even bother releasing their work. It makes me sick that Billboard are going to support this kind of future, and this kind of abuse to a wonderful art.
I understand that streaming services have definite benefits for consumers, and is in a lot of cases getting money for songs that would otherwise have been illegally downloaded. But to legitimise them as a "chart" of the value and worth of today's music - the music industry is (with the help of pirates) going to kill itself.
Mohammed, man! The entire USA isn't determining who hits the Billboard 200, you know. Most people have no part in it.
By the way, the album is called 1989.
THIS. For Billboard to count 1500 streams as a sale is a joke. It no longer measures what people have paid for. If I stream a song 1500 times, that's the same thing as buying it once? I think I would end up in one of the few remaining sanitariums if I streamed any song 1500 times.
The artist, record label, and the songwriter ALREADY get paid whenever a song is played or streamed. Why dilute sales with this number? The only thing I can guess is that Billboard is trying to lend whatever halo it has to streaming, and/or desperately wants to preserve its cachet.
As society hurtles over the cliff of leasing everything and buying nothing, the preexisting world will try to measure just how much leasing is going on. So in this sense, Billboard is trying (poorly) to gauge popularity. However, it is interesting to note that while leasing cars didn't eliminate car sales, leasing music points the gun at the heart of the music business itself. If the only money to be made does come from streaming (i.e. leasing), then there is no money left to subsidize the artist making the album (studio time, PR, travel, etc). Music will survive, because humans will still create it, but it will be interesting to see what kind of forms evolve to take care of things like financial management, promotion, PR, and so forth. It's difficult for an artist or band to be able to handle all that as well as tour and create compelling music. Heck, very few musicians can both make music and manage money.
Yes but.
Great post but in my opinion slightly wrong on two counts:
1 - the charts were never bona fide, staggerings sums of money were spent on manipulating chart positions and 'encouraging' the right shops to push certain artists to better their count.
2 - pirates will eventually save the music industry by forcing it to change, much like the movie industry (that's not to say there will be any increase in quality, there won't be).
From my perspective the youth used to decide what was popular, now the youth are told what's popular) other than a tiny % who continue the good fight to seek out alternate sounds and non mass market homogenous crap).
Just my tuppence worth.
Great post but in my opinion slightly wrong on two counts:
1 - the charts were never bona fide, staggerings sums of money were spent on manipulating chart positions and 'encouraging' the right shops to push certain artists to better their count.
2 - pirates will eventually save the music industry by forcing it to change, much like the movie industry (that's not to say there will be any increase in quality, there won't be).
From my perspective the youth used to decide what was popular, now the youth are told what's popular) other than a tiny % who continue the good fight to seek out alternate sounds and non mass market homogenous crap).
Just my tuppence worth.
Her single has gone 4x Platinum and her album is the only one this year to go Platinum, and it's actually gone 2x Platinum. Not a huge fan either, but she seems to know what she's doing.
That is so true.
Here in the UK i stopped listing to the charts as i think it now sucks. One direction is always on it with the songs that sound the same! Also my favirote band Alt-j (worth a listen) was on the charts for one week! Everyone I spoke to about that band all listen to the album and liked it! it! But they werent after comerial - they were all after fans. it seems to me the ones who want the money will end up on top!
No, digital single sales. Digital album sales were already being counted.
Who cares about Taylor Swift anyway. Just today's current flash in the pan.
I don't understand the deal with streaming at all! I love my iTunes Library, and it grows all the time.
Why they hell would I pay to stream the same stuff I already own?
My iPhone 6 Plus is with me at all times, So.... My iTunes Music Library with me at all times! No Problem!
First, Taylor Swift has been around for a bit over six years, so she's clearly not a here-then-gone fad, although she's only recently exploded in to pop fame. Her latest album has been out for less than a month and already sold more than any other one released this year, so clearly a lot of people care.
But for my real point: you don't have to pay for Spotify. They have a free tier on the desktop with ads, which on mobile basically lets you shuffle playlists or artists (so unlike the desktop you can't really play things on demand). It is also not incompatible with iTunes. Spotify will find local music and play that instead of stream it, and you can add it to your Spotify playlists even if Spotify doesn't have it in their (extensive) catalog. I buy some things but don't care enough about other songs to buy them, and streaming is fine for them if I don't mind not being able to play them offline or on-demand on my phone. But even then, both of those problems can be solved for $9.99 a month, so if you're the kind of person who would ordinarily buy more than about 7-10 songs on iTunes per month (about the price for a month of Spotify Premium) and don't mind non-ownership, it may be worth it.
But regardless, you can use both and do what works best for you for any given music.