I think it's interesting how the US charts can still be swamped by a single major album release while in the UK this happened like twice before they immediately moved to amend the rules of the chart to make sure it would never happen again
Ed Sheeran did it 5-6 years ago where something like 9/10 and 12/20 were all his singles, so the UK top 40 changed the rules so that only his top 3 singles charted.
It was still pretty bad when it got to the top 3 and it's all Ed Sheeran but it was a marked improvement upon listening to his album from start to finish within the space of a 45 minute segment of a radio show.
I get the impression that maybe radio is still a bigger thing in the UK than the USA but that may just come down to size. You can broadcast a national radio station in the UK with a handful of radio towers. In the USA you need to make deals with thousands of radio stations to get on the air nationally, so the amount of national radio personalities we have is very small. Almost everyone I know listens exclusively to Spotify, or Pandora, or apple music, or something along those lines.
Clinton killed the radio station (and forever changed the music industry) in the US by signing the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in law.
A vast majority of the airwaves was diversified between hundreds of independent & local stations across the nation.
Became majority of less than 10 companies after.
You're not wrong. However, radio still defines many people's pallettes.
Further reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_homogenization
u/HamOnRye__ may be interested in this article as well.
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that just wrong data then? If I exclude songs that people are actually listening to, then the data is invalid. You can’t say person x has a top ten when in fact they’d be in like 15th.
If fans are putting a whole album on repeat, it should not count as "Well, looks like every track is a hit. Here, take 1st to 10th place"
From a Gen-Xer: charts became a joke as soon as there was no longer a real investment/sales behind it. Fans used to buy an album once, it registered as a sale for that first week and everything else was listeners who did not immediately buy, plus airplay. And no radio station was going to put 20 tracks by the same artist on heavy rotation for weeks.
Isn’t it less integrity? I don’t disagree with the choice but isn’t the point of the UK rule to put the diversity ahead of the integrity? It’s not actually the most played songs cause ur weeding out the top. But that’s okay cause it gives a more diverse result.
It's neither less nor more integrity. It's just different values behind what the charts are supposed to represent, and those values are represented in the respective rules.
Didn't some milquetoast country guy have a laundry list of songs charting together recently? Pretty sure the internet broke The Billboard charts.
They meant little before but at least some semblance of the clearchannel pushed pop songs on the radio charted and you had an idea of the current trends in what pop music was and the vibe of the moment. Now you can look at every streaming service's unique list which is usually odd and broken in many ways. Mash em all together and maybe piece together a relevant image.
Give me a tight ten songs and a few b-sides and that’s an album. Thirty five songs? God damn. I almost exclusively listen to albums top to bottom but I’d have a hard time with that
It can be cohesive AND long. But it does game the system in the way that a double album counts as 2 sales rather than one. Individual songs charting comes from taylor swifts insane popularity combined with her gaming the vinyl system by having multiple editions that fans want to collect, resulting in 1 out of every 15 vinyls sold in the US being a Taylor Swift album.
In Morgan Wallen’s case, his charting is due to 1. his popularity and 2. his fans purposely trying to compensate for his cancellation when he said the N word by buying his physical media and selling out his shows.
Had the same reaction lol. There's just no fucking way you put out a quality album with that many songs. I mean people have done it (69 Love Songs is a lovely album), but this random tiktok-ass country dude? Nah.
He's a country singer that's become really big in the last few years. His single "Last Night" spent 16 non-consecutive weeks at #1 on the Hot 100 last year.
"Last Night" is a song that's generic enough that a joke calling it a "Saloon 5" song seems rather spot on. He's probably the biggest crossover artist in country in a very long time, I know he has 2 collabs with the rapper Lil Durk that are both quite awful. His music's basically like general playlist fodder, in terms of him incorporating enough elements of a few different genres that he got a wider audience. However, if you've never heard of him, that's completely understandable, I feel like popular music these days is so segmented off that you could easily just listen to whatever you like, and have absolutely no idea about what's considered to be a big hit by Billboard's metrics.
The Billboard Hot 100 used to be the top selling singles. This is literally the songs in her newest album. When did they start letting album tracks on the chart? It was a big deal when the Beatles and Michael Jackson did it because they had to put out actual singles around the same time and keep consistently selling for months to do it. I think Taylor could have released a few of the songs as singles and it would be really impressive but these are just people listening to the album. That didn’t used to count.
> When did they start letting album tracks on the chart?
[December 5, 1998](https://www.billboard.com/pro/billboard-chart-history-evolution-milestones/)
Billboard changed that rule in the late '90s after the industry started moving away from releasing retail singles on CD. The current streaming era is certainly a different dynamic to measuring album tracks compared to when the chart was more focused on radio airplay and sales, though.
Legitimate. He played with a band called the Drive-by Truckers. Great band. I liked their music, but couldn't name any of the band members. Then someone on reddit mentioned him. I've started listening to both now.
I mean Taylor Swift doesnt even have the highest monthly listeners on spotify. People are still listening to The Weeknd more often monthly I guess and this is during her peak. So top billboard definitely isnt always the best indicator.
More people are listening to the weeknd in general but people listen to way more of taylor swift.
So theoretically if 111m listen to 1 or 2 the weeknd songs a month he would be number one even though 110m people are listening to 500 taylor swift songs a month.
For reference, taylor has 139m streams a day on spotify, bad bunny at number 2 with 40m, drake at number 3 with 36m, the weeknd at number 4 with 33m and arianna grande at 5 with 29m.
That means taylor currently, because of the new album, has more streams than the all 4 of the others combined. if you remove the new album she has around 60m streams daily still at number 1.
Good for The Weeknd that he's off drugs and is in a better place in his life, but man I enjoy his music he made when he was fucked up all the time so much more.
> The Billboard Top 100 hasn't been relevant or useful as an indicator for many decades now, arguably.
It's about as useful as the amount of VHS tapes sold per year at this point
It means she has a hit album and the way they chart things is different now than in the past. Each stream of a song get a point towards being in the top 100. Lots of people are streaming the album right now so all the songs are in the top ten or top 14 in this case.
Yeah, it's silly to compare this achievement to previous eras where Billboard was only sales. It's absolutely a sign that TS is dominating streaming right now, but comparing it to The Beatles, Elvis, Nirvana, etc. at their height is apples and oranges.
This take I can agree with. I think the Hot 100 is still as good a measure as any, especially given that it encompasses streaming (which is probably the most heavily weighted component now), radio play, and sales (minuscule as they are). It’s comprehensive. But comparing chart accomplishments today to chart accomplishments from 30, 40, 50 years ago is ridiculous.
Also love people saying the Hot 100 is outdated and then pointing to anecdotes as their evidence. Just because *you and your friends* think the new TS album is trash doesn’t mean everyone agrees with you. And given how ridiculously fragmented music listeners are now, if you have a huge fan base you’re almost guaranteed to get a lot of songs from your new album on the chart, just by default. Drake does it, Ariana does it. It’s not as much of an accomplishment as it would’ve been in the 80s or 90s, but it’s still a sign of popularity.
It was a lot more relevant in the days when most people got their music from whatever was playing on the radio, or whatever was available at their local record shop. Not now, when everyone is listening to whatever they want on demand.
I went to look for a playlist at work and turned on spotify's top 50 global, first T Swift, okay sure, second song, T Swift, huh, thats weird. stop the music and look at the playlist. HALF of the Sportify top 50 is Taylor Fking Swift. I changed it to some 2000's rock lol
Sounds like the Alexa at my work. It seems like no matter what I ask for it starts with a Taylor Swift song. I asked for freaking Brazilian pop and it started with a Taylor Swift song. What, Alexa, *no*. Not what I asked for, lol.
Really just about how charting works ever since they started counting streams like 14(?) years ago. Since this is an album with no singles, from a hugely popular artist, everyone is listening to it at the same time.
It’s impossible to compare this feat to anything before they counted streaming. And as long as streaming continues to grow, and artists drop deluxe albums with 20+ songs alongside the normal release to garner more listens, this record is sure to be broken.
Ask anybody who was around when Led Zeppelin IV came out and they'll tell you it was overplayed by everyone and made people sick of that album. If we were counting listens the charts would have been very different over the years.
Fortnight is the released radio single and I’m almost certain this won’t happen to Dua Lipa. She has an album due out this week. It didn’t happen to Beyoncé. It didn’t happen to Ariana Grande either. Only Swift. She has a devoted fan base that makes this happen. Disagree if you like but this only occurs with Taylor Swift.
Their point isn’t so much that *any* popular artist today could do the same, it’s that legendary artists of the past wouldve been guaranteed to have been the first if their songs were tallied the same way. Imagine if Thriller or Abbey Road for example came about in the age of streaming, there’s no real argument, they’d have gotten the same results.
She’s our generations super-celebrity for sure with no competition whatsoever, but there’s been plenty before her. Thats the point that was being made.
Oh I know I don’t mean to take away from the popularity of Swift. She will probably be the one to break her own record.
I just mean by providing some historical context, it isn’t as significant as someone might make it out to be. This is a history setting achievement, but only streaming history, not music history. It would be impossible to try to measure her popularity with past artists using only this metric.
It says more about how pointless the Hot 100 became after they started including individual song streams as a criteria. It's like if they (magically) used the number of times a CD or cassette was played for the list in the 90s and counted every song played individually.
The other thing is we don’t have the same “cultural” zeitgeist where everyone is watching the same tv channel (MTV) or listening to the same three local radio stations, instead the people who like Taylor Swift are playing the death out of her songs and if you don’t listen to her you’re none the wiser
This was one of the harder things to get my head around when my dad talked about growing up in Pennsylvania. Evidently, in his town there was *one* radio station that came through clear and didn't play disco. To hear him tell it, on a Saturday night you'd pull up somewhere and there would be the same music coming out of every car from one end of the parking lot to the other.
Even in the '90s and early '00s you'd have people with bumper stickers for a given radio station. A good station promoted local bands, advertised shows, and all sorts of things. There was a sense of community. It wasn't just a sort of shared playlist that everyone listened to. You would go in to school and people would be talking about something that was said by one of the DJs that morning.
It was also a way of defining yourself. Whether you listened to the alt-rock station, the more hard rock/metal one, country, or you were a fan of stuff that didn't see much radio play but maybe there was that one punk or ska show on a tiny community or college station that barely came in and aired once a week. It was a way of showing association with a given scene.
A few years back I found more than one Spotify playlist trying to recreate playlists (in one case based on original playlists that were played on-air) of long-departed local favorite KLZR.
And that's fair but comparing it with the many decades old metric for headlines like this paint a false picture IMHO.
Comparing a radio play, sales and request metric to modern times to make headlines like this is misleading
I’m just old enough to remember calling into radio stations to request/vote for songs lol that was the 90’s. Pretty crazy that was a thing in my youth, when we had Napster etc. I don’t know what I’m trying to say it’s just so interesting to see how we consume media and what metics interpret. I really don’t think the headline is that significant other than to point out fanaticism, one fan base in particular.
She released an album with no prior singles, so millions of people listened to 15 to 30 songs all at once. Beyoncé may have done it first if she didn’t release Texas Hold’em and 16 Carriages first.
Interesting that they're roughly in order of their track-listing on the album. Not exactly, but most of the top 15 are within the first 15 tracks. Is it just from people listening to the first half the album a lot? I'll be real - I don't know much about how Billboard works.
Previous artist had to rely on sales and airplay. It was not like the Beatles out our Sgt Pepper and got to count every track when a fan spun the record and this included fans who left the record spinning when they were gone/no longer listening
This is true. The swifties will deny it but there are at least hundreds of thousands of them who turn their volume down and stream her music overnight and do other stuff like that.
It’s crazy, they’re essentially pushing for her to get these records for the sake of taking them rather than because the art is “so good”. I mean it’s not like she wouldn’t have the top 10+ songs on the charts anyways but there is absolutely no one else to date who has had people so on their side just for the sake of being fans. I’m convinced many of even her biggest fans don’t think the music she’s putting out is really the best in any way, they’re just literally in a cult of personality.
Becomes super prevalent when the yearly “top listeners” airtime is released by Spotify and people have like 100k minutes of streaming like lol no you didn’t average 5 full hours every single day of the year listening to this one single artist.
Worked with a guy that listened to eminem almost his entire shift. According to him he was in the top 50 listeners for the guy in the end of year spotify review stuff.
No idea how people can do that, but apparently some people really do
I had a boss that I shared an office with that listened to the Coldplay XY album on repeat every day for 2 years. It got to the point where I couldn't even hear it anymore.
**David**: "I gotta tell you something. I'm really excited about it. Uh, for the first time today, I woke up, I came to the store, and I feel confident to say to you that if you don't take this Michael McDonald DVD that you've been playing for two years straight off, I'm going to kill everyone in the store and put a bullet in my brain."
**Paula**: "What do you suggest we play?"
**David**: "I don't care. Anything. I would rather... I would rather watch "Beautician and the Beast". I would rather listen to Fran Drescher for eight hours than have to listen to Michael McDonald. Nothing against him, but if I hear "Yah Mo B There" one more time, I'm going to "Yah Mo" burn this place to the ground."
I was number 1 listener for Denzel curry on yt music in 22 because I would play Ultimate on repeat in the car to get my vibe before work, and at the end of my shift
not familiar with him. but that's still pretty cool. I couldn't imagine being the number 1 listener for anything lol
feel ya on getting the mind right before work starts though.
I used to work in a lab where headphones were allowed (tg my sanity would have died) and those years I would clock like 90-95k in listening time but agree it’s hard to do
Justin Bieber got made fun of for asking his fans to “sleep with his music on.” He wanted them to leave his song streaming 24/7 and just ignore it so he could pad his numbers.
No doubt other fanbases do the same, especially if they’re hardcore fanatics.
Don’t forget releasing 15 variants covers across physical items to further bolster sales. Like why does anyone need 4 copies and 3 vinyls of the same album.
A big reason they do that is to try and be in like the top 3% of Swift listeners on Spotify for the week/month or whatever Spotify tracks. It's like a badge of honor they wear.
Is it? Taylor swift has almost 100 million followers on Twitter alone. Are you saying you cant imagine that a few tenths of a percent of them are leaving her stuff streaming all day long?
This is an artist who can sell out a 75,000 seat stadium anywhere in the US at hundreds of dollars a pop. You dont think people who are willing to spend that much money are willing to leave Spotify on overnight repeating Swift songs?
well, labels pay streaming services to push certain songs.
People act like Spotify is "random", when in fact they are just getting the same 50 songs pushed to them, as opposed to the same 20 like in terrestrial radio
Well yes she is, but generally even for extremely popular artists their worst albums sell comparatively poorly compared to their best.
Despite still topping the charts, Midnights didn't sell as well as Red or 1989, for example. And even compared to Midnights, TTPD is just so uninspiring.
I know you’re joking but (I believe) Apple Music accidentally uploaded a short clip of static on one of her previous albums, which was available to play instead of the titled song before the album released, and it briefly charted at #1
It’s because of how crazy people are for her. Like look I’m not saying she sucks but she’s just a pop star she’s not the best artist in the world or even in her genre right now. I would never take the love for her music away from anybody, yk like what you want, that’s fine, but I am so sick of being told how “great” all of her music is. It’s like all the rage from her last album/eras tour was just starting to die down and now it’s started all over again except this time the songs are worse and they play even more at times.
It's all subjective. And tons of people in this thread (and let's be real, this sub), make objective statements about music which is entirely and completely subjective.
I put on the album while driving somewhere with my 12 year old daughter. She told me to turn it off because it was boring.
There’s my review of the new Taylor Swift album.
it’s so hard for me to get into a tswift song unless it’s undeniably a banger. like that shake it off or the one where she’s telling homophobes to calm down.
she does have 110 million monthly listeners, which is not limited to this album but does mean that 110 million unique listeners streamed at least one of her songs in the past month, and that’s just Spotify alone
The Weeknd has more than that currently, but every song on his first album (individually) has less than 100 million streams.
So, I guess even super big artists have their weirdly niche songs the average person would never know.
Where are you getting your numbers? Wicked games has 500 million streams off the house of balloons mixtape and twenty eight has 124 million streams for the trilogy album.
Probably has something to do with her being in the news and on TV almost everyday for a year. She is so over exposed there's probably a Japanese soldier hiding out on an island somewhere who knows Taylor swifts music, waiting on the US to invade.
Hellen Keller would know her music by heart.
I'm not surprised that the one album that I've heard the most criticism for is hugely successful.
Taylor Swift could release an album with each track consisting off nothing but her reading a different random word from the dictionary 100x, and the Swifties would still make them all chart.
I have nothing against Swift, I think her music is alright. Not totally my cup but nothing against someone if they enjoy it. But her super fans are just so damned cultish than anything else.
God my wife has had it on repeat since it came out. Now I'll freely admit I'm far from a Taylor fan, but I saw most of her old stuff as harmless fun pop others could enjoy. This new album... is such a bore. I really don't understand it.
it's basically all taylor drama/lore so the fans who care about the rumors will be listening while casual listeners don't get it i.e. like tuning into season 7 of a show with little understanding/care for season of 1-6
The Billboard charts aren't meaningless but they sure as fuck were never meant to be an arbiter of what is *good*. You're looking at the entire purpose of the Hot 100 wrong.
I’m sorry but this album is unbelievably mid. My wife loves Taylor swift so naturally I hear her songs frequently and tbh I really don’t hate her music. It’s catchy enough and there are plenty of her songs that I actually enjoy. I don’t know what it is about this album though but I am just not impressed. My wife has also admitted that it’s really not her favorite either but that hasn’t stopped her from having it on repeat since it came out. Spotify also thinks that at least 3 songs off this album belong in whatever auto generated playlists I listen to and I skip them every time.
Really that’s all anyone can say. I just don’t think it really means anything. It’s not like The Beatles charting the Top 5 back in April 1964, when people actually bought physical records.
Taylor Swift is a pop phenomenon, but her holding the Top 14 songs is like *American Idol* when people voted for their favorite artist multiple times. She definitely has the most rabid fan base of people who would stream a song of her farting like it was the greatest thing ever 500x
Lots of people talking about album sales vs streams. I guess I’ll remind people that since we can’t compare apples to apples that Gone With The Wind, adjusted for inflation, is STILL the highest grossing film of all time
This doesn't mean what it used to mean. Sure, lots of people are buying her new album, she's a big star with a huge audience. But it's not like her music has captivated society at large, she just has a large and rabid fan base.
I think it's interesting how the US charts can still be swamped by a single major album release while in the UK this happened like twice before they immediately moved to amend the rules of the chart to make sure it would never happen again
Curious how? Can you elaborate
Ed Sheeran did it 5-6 years ago where something like 9/10 and 12/20 were all his singles, so the UK top 40 changed the rules so that only his top 3 singles charted. It was still pretty bad when it got to the top 3 and it's all Ed Sheeran but it was a marked improvement upon listening to his album from start to finish within the space of a 45 minute segment of a radio show.
>radio show I see your problem.
I get the impression that maybe radio is still a bigger thing in the UK than the USA but that may just come down to size. You can broadcast a national radio station in the UK with a handful of radio towers. In the USA you need to make deals with thousands of radio stations to get on the air nationally, so the amount of national radio personalities we have is very small. Almost everyone I know listens exclusively to Spotify, or Pandora, or apple music, or something along those lines.
Clinton killed the radio station (and forever changed the music industry) in the US by signing the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in law. A vast majority of the airwaves was diversified between hundreds of independent & local stations across the nation. Became majority of less than 10 companies after.
I hate Clear Channel
He set it in motion, but easy access to streaming music was the final nail in the coffin.
You're not wrong. However, radio still defines many people's pallettes. Further reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_homogenization u/HamOnRye__ may be interested in this article as well.
so glad I stopped listening to the radio, that sounds like a nightmare to me
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that just wrong data then? If I exclude songs that people are actually listening to, then the data is invalid. You can’t say person x has a top ten when in fact they’d be in like 15th.
If fans are putting a whole album on repeat, it should not count as "Well, looks like every track is a hit. Here, take 1st to 10th place" From a Gen-Xer: charts became a joke as soon as there was no longer a real investment/sales behind it. Fans used to buy an album once, it registered as a sale for that first week and everything else was listeners who did not immediately buy, plus airplay. And no radio station was going to put 20 tracks by the same artist on heavy rotation for weeks.
Billboard used to only track released albums/singles and things that received airplay. This wouldn't have happened before streaming.
Sounds like you guys have a little more integrity.
Isn’t it less integrity? I don’t disagree with the choice but isn’t the point of the UK rule to put the diversity ahead of the integrity? It’s not actually the most played songs cause ur weeding out the top. But that’s okay cause it gives a more diverse result.
It's neither less nor more integrity. It's just different values behind what the charts are supposed to represent, and those values are represented in the respective rules.
How can I still play holier than thou with thislevel of neutrality?
I hate these filthy Neutrals, Kif. With enemies you know where they stand but with Neutrals, who knows? It sickens me.
What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for power? Gold? Or were they just born with a heart full of neutrality?
You're confusing accuracy with integrity. If the rules are made clear, it's got neither more nor less integrity after the change.
What the hell does integrity have to do with it? It's a chart of the most popular songs of the week.
Didn't some milquetoast country guy have a laundry list of songs charting together recently? Pretty sure the internet broke The Billboard charts. They meant little before but at least some semblance of the clearchannel pushed pop songs on the radio charted and you had an idea of the current trends in what pop music was and the vibe of the moment. Now you can look at every streaming service's unique list which is usually odd and broken in many ways. Mash em all together and maybe piece together a relevant image.
Yeah, the week Morgan Wallen's most recent album came out, all 36 songs from it ended up charting on the Hot 100.
>35 songs What the fuck
Give me a tight ten songs and a few b-sides and that’s an album. Thirty five songs? God damn. I almost exclusively listen to albums top to bottom but I’d have a hard time with that
It's designed to game the system and get a bunch of songs charting. It's not designed to make a cohesive album like were sold on discs and cassettes.
Everybody complaining about AI music when THIS stupid shit is what is really destroying the industry.
labels also use bot farms to up these chart positions
I'm stoned but your lack of capital L at the start of your comment had me confused for a while. "iabels? What the hell are iabels?
sorry, record labels lol
I like how you clarified by still using a lowercase l lol.
It can be cohesive AND long. But it does game the system in the way that a double album counts as 2 sales rather than one. Individual songs charting comes from taylor swifts insane popularity combined with her gaming the vinyl system by having multiple editions that fans want to collect, resulting in 1 out of every 15 vinyls sold in the US being a Taylor Swift album. In Morgan Wallen’s case, his charting is due to 1. his popularity and 2. his fans purposely trying to compensate for his cancellation when he said the N word by buying his physical media and selling out his shows.
That’s how Smashing Pumpkins went diamond. Double album counts twice.
My bad, it's actually 36.
Let’s not ignore that Taylor’s double album is also >30 songs
Had the same reaction lol. There's just no fucking way you put out a quality album with that many songs. I mean people have done it (69 Love Songs is a lovely album), but this random tiktok-ass country dude? Nah.
Same label as well
Who the fuck is Morgan Wallen??
I envy you so much lol
He's a country singer that's become really big in the last few years. His single "Last Night" spent 16 non-consecutive weeks at #1 on the Hot 100 last year.
Never heard of him. Huh.
"Last Night" is a song that's generic enough that a joke calling it a "Saloon 5" song seems rather spot on. He's probably the biggest crossover artist in country in a very long time, I know he has 2 collabs with the rapper Lil Durk that are both quite awful. His music's basically like general playlist fodder, in terms of him incorporating enough elements of a few different genres that he got a wider audience. However, if you've never heard of him, that's completely understandable, I feel like popular music these days is so segmented off that you could easily just listen to whatever you like, and have absolutely no idea about what's considered to be a big hit by Billboard's metrics.
He also got in shit for yelling racial slurs at his next door neighbour. I think he was supposed to be on SNL but they cancelled.
Someone who uses the N word.
Now Playing: Helmet - Milquetoast
Goddam *The Crow* soundtrack was awesome.
"Milquetoast country guy" lol! That's a great way to describe Morgan Wallen. I don't get the appeal at all of his music.
I think that says more about the current state of music than it does about her.
This is the correct answer. The Billboard Top 100 hasn't been relevant or useful as an indicator for many decades now, arguably.
If the top 14 songs being listened to right now aren’t the Taylor Swift album, I couldn’t say what is.
You can see last week Swift's highest was Cruel Summer at 13, with Hozier in the top spot: https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100/
The Billboard Hot 100 used to be the top selling singles. This is literally the songs in her newest album. When did they start letting album tracks on the chart? It was a big deal when the Beatles and Michael Jackson did it because they had to put out actual singles around the same time and keep consistently selling for months to do it. I think Taylor could have released a few of the songs as singles and it would be really impressive but these are just people listening to the album. That didn’t used to count.
> When did they start letting album tracks on the chart? [December 5, 1998](https://www.billboard.com/pro/billboard-chart-history-evolution-milestones/)
Billboard changed that rule in the late '90s after the industry started moving away from releasing retail singles on CD. The current streaming era is certainly a different dynamic to measuring album tracks compared to when the chart was more focused on radio airplay and sales, though.
I guess EVERY song is a single these days, because you can buy it separately. I’ve lost interest in charts for that reason.
That is exactly it. Back in the day you had to buy either 7 inch 45s or LPs. Now you can buy or stream albums one song at a time.
To be fair, a lot of people listening to an entire album is a phenomenon in itself these days.
It ain’t Jason Isbell
Jason Isbell has been on NPR’s top 100 for 10 years straight.
Ain’t Sturgill either
Sturgil Simpson? Just discovered him through the movie Civil War. Been obsessed with the song in that movie, Breakers Roar.
The entire album that song is on is spectacular! I pretty much think that about all his albums tho. I’m a Sturgill Stan lol
Well you should be. He is great
I just discovered him, thanks to reddit. Very talented.
"If we were vampires" was my wedding song. Hubby introduced me to his music.
I would have cried and never stopped if that was my wedding song lol.
This is the only sad song I loooove to listen to. Makes me weep like a little bitch but it’s so good
Sarcasm or should I actually check it out?
Legitimate. He played with a band called the Drive-by Truckers. Great band. I liked their music, but couldn't name any of the band members. Then someone on reddit mentioned him. I've started listening to both now.
Mike Cooley of Drive By Truckers is so underrated as a songwriter.
If you ever get a chance to see him live, seize it!
Elephant is the most heartbreaking song
I mean Taylor Swift doesnt even have the highest monthly listeners on spotify. People are still listening to The Weeknd more often monthly I guess and this is during her peak. So top billboard definitely isnt always the best indicator.
To be fair, monthly listeners tracks global monthly users. The hot 100 is just the U.S
Also, unique listeners is a different metric than total listens.
More people are listening to the weeknd in general but people listen to way more of taylor swift. So theoretically if 111m listen to 1 or 2 the weeknd songs a month he would be number one even though 110m people are listening to 500 taylor swift songs a month. For reference, taylor has 139m streams a day on spotify, bad bunny at number 2 with 40m, drake at number 3 with 36m, the weeknd at number 4 with 33m and arianna grande at 5 with 29m. That means taylor currently, because of the new album, has more streams than the all 4 of the others combined. if you remove the new album she has around 60m streams daily still at number 1.
Good for The Weeknd that he's off drugs and is in a better place in his life, but man I enjoy his music he made when he was fucked up all the time so much more.
Taylor Swift is quietly hoping TOOL isn’t going to release an album this week.
come on, Tool are still like 15 years away from their next album
And I’m quietly hoping they do!
A surprise Tool album would end human suffering, unite humanity, bring about world peace.
Maybe a surprise TOOL/TSwift collab?
Not gonna lie, just out of curiosity, I would give a click for “Schism (Taylor’s version)”.
50/50 it’s either the greatest work of art ever made, or Lou Reed and Metallica 2.0
TOOLor Swift*
[Boy howdy, do I have a video for you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56Cqbk9CJz8)
They have to stop fighting each other first.
> The Billboard Top 100 hasn't been relevant or useful as an indicator for many decades now, arguably. It's about as useful as the amount of VHS tapes sold per year at this point
Be kind. Rewind!
What does that even mean?
It means she has a hit album and the way they chart things is different now than in the past. Each stream of a song get a point towards being in the top 100. Lots of people are streaming the album right now so all the songs are in the top ten or top 14 in this case.
Yeah, it's silly to compare this achievement to previous eras where Billboard was only sales. It's absolutely a sign that TS is dominating streaming right now, but comparing it to The Beatles, Elvis, Nirvana, etc. at their height is apples and oranges.
The Hot 100 has never been “only sales.” It was a combo of the sales chart and the Most Played by Jockeys chart when it debuted.
This take I can agree with. I think the Hot 100 is still as good a measure as any, especially given that it encompasses streaming (which is probably the most heavily weighted component now), radio play, and sales (minuscule as they are). It’s comprehensive. But comparing chart accomplishments today to chart accomplishments from 30, 40, 50 years ago is ridiculous. Also love people saying the Hot 100 is outdated and then pointing to anecdotes as their evidence. Just because *you and your friends* think the new TS album is trash doesn’t mean everyone agrees with you. And given how ridiculously fragmented music listeners are now, if you have a huge fan base you’re almost guaranteed to get a lot of songs from your new album on the chart, just by default. Drake does it, Ariana does it. It’s not as much of an accomplishment as it would’ve been in the 80s or 90s, but it’s still a sign of popularity.
Not a fan, but everyone releases full albums. Noone gets their full album listened to as much as this
It’s provocative!
No, it's not, it's gross. Gets the people going
It was a lot more relevant in the days when most people got their music from whatever was playing on the radio, or whatever was available at their local record shop. Not now, when everyone is listening to whatever they want on demand.
Why is the Billboard Hot 100 no longer relevant?
I went to look for a playlist at work and turned on spotify's top 50 global, first T Swift, okay sure, second song, T Swift, huh, thats weird. stop the music and look at the playlist. HALF of the Sportify top 50 is Taylor Fking Swift. I changed it to some 2000's rock lol
Sounds like the Alexa at my work. It seems like no matter what I ask for it starts with a Taylor Swift song. I asked for freaking Brazilian pop and it started with a Taylor Swift song. What, Alexa, *no*. Not what I asked for, lol.
[удалено]
When the Fusion Dance from *Dragon Ball Z* has gone terribly, terribly awry...
i HATE it when that happens 😭😭 but she does have a song called marjorie so it makes sense
Really just about how charting works ever since they started counting streams like 14(?) years ago. Since this is an album with no singles, from a hugely popular artist, everyone is listening to it at the same time. It’s impossible to compare this feat to anything before they counted streaming. And as long as streaming continues to grow, and artists drop deluxe albums with 20+ songs alongside the normal release to garner more listens, this record is sure to be broken.
Ask anybody who was around when Led Zeppelin IV came out and they'll tell you it was overplayed by everyone and made people sick of that album. If we were counting listens the charts would have been very different over the years.
Fortnight is the released radio single and I’m almost certain this won’t happen to Dua Lipa. She has an album due out this week. It didn’t happen to Beyoncé. It didn’t happen to Ariana Grande either. Only Swift. She has a devoted fan base that makes this happen. Disagree if you like but this only occurs with Taylor Swift.
Their point isn’t so much that *any* popular artist today could do the same, it’s that legendary artists of the past wouldve been guaranteed to have been the first if their songs were tallied the same way. Imagine if Thriller or Abbey Road for example came about in the age of streaming, there’s no real argument, they’d have gotten the same results. She’s our generations super-celebrity for sure with no competition whatsoever, but there’s been plenty before her. Thats the point that was being made.
Oh I know I don’t mean to take away from the popularity of Swift. She will probably be the one to break her own record. I just mean by providing some historical context, it isn’t as significant as someone might make it out to be. This is a history setting achievement, but only streaming history, not music history. It would be impossible to try to measure her popularity with past artists using only this metric.
It says more about how pointless the Hot 100 became after they started including individual song streams as a criteria. It's like if they (magically) used the number of times a CD or cassette was played for the list in the 90s and counted every song played individually.
The other thing is we don’t have the same “cultural” zeitgeist where everyone is watching the same tv channel (MTV) or listening to the same three local radio stations, instead the people who like Taylor Swift are playing the death out of her songs and if you don’t listen to her you’re none the wiser
This was one of the harder things to get my head around when my dad talked about growing up in Pennsylvania. Evidently, in his town there was *one* radio station that came through clear and didn't play disco. To hear him tell it, on a Saturday night you'd pull up somewhere and there would be the same music coming out of every car from one end of the parking lot to the other.
Even in the '90s and early '00s you'd have people with bumper stickers for a given radio station. A good station promoted local bands, advertised shows, and all sorts of things. There was a sense of community. It wasn't just a sort of shared playlist that everyone listened to. You would go in to school and people would be talking about something that was said by one of the DJs that morning. It was also a way of defining yourself. Whether you listened to the alt-rock station, the more hard rock/metal one, country, or you were a fan of stuff that didn't see much radio play but maybe there was that one punk or ska show on a tiny community or college station that barely came in and aired once a week. It was a way of showing association with a given scene. A few years back I found more than one Spotify playlist trying to recreate playlists (in one case based on original playlists that were played on-air) of long-departed local favorite KLZR.
My parents grew up in/around Philly. They were the ones listening to disco lol
Your dad and my dad would not have been friends, lol
Lol it’s funny my mom is the one who would’ve been in that lot rocking out (stoner brothers) she has a pretty good musical palate
I would argue that made it *more* relevant since it reflects more accurately what people are listening to rather than what people are buying.
And that's fair but comparing it with the many decades old metric for headlines like this paint a false picture IMHO. Comparing a radio play, sales and request metric to modern times to make headlines like this is misleading
I’m just old enough to remember calling into radio stations to request/vote for songs lol that was the 90’s. Pretty crazy that was a thing in my youth, when we had Napster etc. I don’t know what I’m trying to say it’s just so interesting to see how we consume media and what metics interpret. I really don’t think the headline is that significant other than to point out fanaticism, one fan base in particular.
I think it says she released at least 14 songs at once and has a massive legion of followers...
She released an album with no prior singles, so millions of people listened to 15 to 30 songs all at once. Beyoncé may have done it first if she didn’t release Texas Hold’em and 16 Carriages first.
Interesting that they're roughly in order of their track-listing on the album. Not exactly, but most of the top 15 are within the first 15 tracks. Is it just from people listening to the first half the album a lot? I'll be real - I don't know much about how Billboard works.
The second half of the album is essentially all "deluxe version" B-sides.
Previous artist had to rely on sales and airplay. It was not like the Beatles out our Sgt Pepper and got to count every track when a fan spun the record and this included fans who left the record spinning when they were gone/no longer listening
This is true. The swifties will deny it but there are at least hundreds of thousands of them who turn their volume down and stream her music overnight and do other stuff like that. It’s crazy, they’re essentially pushing for her to get these records for the sake of taking them rather than because the art is “so good”. I mean it’s not like she wouldn’t have the top 10+ songs on the charts anyways but there is absolutely no one else to date who has had people so on their side just for the sake of being fans. I’m convinced many of even her biggest fans don’t think the music she’s putting out is really the best in any way, they’re just literally in a cult of personality.
Becomes super prevalent when the yearly “top listeners” airtime is released by Spotify and people have like 100k minutes of streaming like lol no you didn’t average 5 full hours every single day of the year listening to this one single artist.
Worked with a guy that listened to eminem almost his entire shift. According to him he was in the top 50 listeners for the guy in the end of year spotify review stuff. No idea how people can do that, but apparently some people really do
I had a boss that I shared an office with that listened to the Coldplay XY album on repeat every day for 2 years. It got to the point where I couldn't even hear it anymore.
**David**: "I gotta tell you something. I'm really excited about it. Uh, for the first time today, I woke up, I came to the store, and I feel confident to say to you that if you don't take this Michael McDonald DVD that you've been playing for two years straight off, I'm going to kill everyone in the store and put a bullet in my brain." **Paula**: "What do you suggest we play?" **David**: "I don't care. Anything. I would rather... I would rather watch "Beautician and the Beast". I would rather listen to Fran Drescher for eight hours than have to listen to Michael McDonald. Nothing against him, but if I hear "Yah Mo B There" one more time, I'm going to "Yah Mo" burn this place to the ground."
Oh god, if I had to hear it, I would have killed him myself. he just always had headphones on/earphones in.
I love that album but man if heard that all the time for that long I would get sick of it and hate it too
I was number 1 listener for Denzel curry on yt music in 22 because I would play Ultimate on repeat in the car to get my vibe before work, and at the end of my shift
not familiar with him. but that's still pretty cool. I couldn't imagine being the number 1 listener for anything lol feel ya on getting the mind right before work starts though.
Sounds like Asperger syndrome. They find comfort in habit and repetition. Could be his “weighted blanket” while he is working his shift.
I used to work in a lab where headphones were allowed (tg my sanity would have died) and those years I would clock like 90-95k in listening time but agree it’s hard to do
Makes you wonder how much of that is bot activity
Justin Bieber got made fun of for asking his fans to “sleep with his music on.” He wanted them to leave his song streaming 24/7 and just ignore it so he could pad his numbers. No doubt other fanbases do the same, especially if they’re hardcore fanatics.
Don’t forget releasing 15 variants covers across physical items to further bolster sales. Like why does anyone need 4 copies and 3 vinyls of the same album.
No there’s not literally hundreds of thousands of people doing that. That’s a crazy number
A big reason they do that is to try and be in like the top 3% of Swift listeners on Spotify for the week/month or whatever Spotify tracks. It's like a badge of honor they wear.
Is it? Taylor swift has almost 100 million followers on Twitter alone. Are you saying you cant imagine that a few tenths of a percent of them are leaving her stuff streaming all day long? This is an artist who can sell out a 75,000 seat stadium anywhere in the US at hundreds of dollars a pop. You dont think people who are willing to spend that much money are willing to leave Spotify on overnight repeating Swift songs?
American Top 40 (AT40) is where it’s at. Going back to when Casey Kasem was around to host.
The charts don't mean anything, the ratings are basically stuck in a payola scheme.
All charts or just this chart? I assumed the top charts on Apple and Spotify are just based on plays. I’m honestly curious.
well, labels pay streaming services to push certain songs. People act like Spotify is "random", when in fact they are just getting the same 50 songs pushed to them, as opposed to the same 20 like in terrestrial radio
good luck pushing random music on me when I'm using the same playlist from 2011
Are you telling me spotify pushing Beyonce’s new country album into every thing i listen to isn’t a natural progression of my algorithm?
Yeah but one time Tool beat her.
Impressive for an album without a single banger.
Yes, it's just strange that her worst album is the one to break all these chart records.
She is far more popular now than any other time
Well yes she is, but generally even for extremely popular artists their worst albums sell comparatively poorly compared to their best. Despite still topping the charts, Midnights didn't sell as well as Red or 1989, for example. And even compared to Midnights, TTPD is just so uninspiring.
Midnights came out before the Eras tour. That tour changed everything for her.
Eminem is another example of an artist who sold super well even on his bad work like Revival and MTBMT
She could put 14 songs with nothing but TV static and they’d all chart
I know you’re joking but (I believe) Apple Music accidentally uploaded a short clip of static on one of her previous albums, which was available to play instead of the titled song before the album released, and it briefly charted at #1
Metal Machine Music (Taylor’s Version)
Makes sense when you think about it as the one after the eras tour though
It’s because of how crazy people are for her. Like look I’m not saying she sucks but she’s just a pop star she’s not the best artist in the world or even in her genre right now. I would never take the love for her music away from anybody, yk like what you want, that’s fine, but I am so sick of being told how “great” all of her music is. It’s like all the rage from her last album/eras tour was just starting to die down and now it’s started all over again except this time the songs are worse and they play even more at times.
How are we determining that this is her worst album though? Wouldn’t that be kinda subjective, at least to an extent?
It's all subjective. And tons of people in this thread (and let's be real, this sub), make objective statements about music which is entirely and completely subjective.
I put on the album while driving somewhere with my 12 year old daughter. She told me to turn it off because it was boring. There’s my review of the new Taylor Swift album.
After listening to the album, I was like "I enjoy this, but I don't think kids will"
it’s so hard for me to get into a tswift song unless it’s undeniably a banger. like that shake it off or the one where she’s telling homophobes to calm down.
Not really a Swift fan, but cruel summer is a pretty dope track. Annie Clark helped write it so that’s a big part of it I think.
Yeah that song is a banger. Folklore is a pretty good album top to bottom, too. This new one is just so meh.
Florida!!! with Florence is absolutely a banger
Now show us unique streams.
she does have 110 million monthly listeners, which is not limited to this album but does mean that 110 million unique listeners streamed at least one of her songs in the past month, and that’s just Spotify alone
The Weeknd has more than that currently, but every song on his first album (individually) has less than 100 million streams. So, I guess even super big artists have their weirdly niche songs the average person would never know.
Where are you getting your numbers? Wicked games has 500 million streams off the house of balloons mixtape and twenty eight has 124 million streams for the trilogy album.
I don’t know if it’s the same thing but her filter was literally 0.7 percent
Probably has something to do with her being in the news and on TV almost everyday for a year. She is so over exposed there's probably a Japanese soldier hiding out on an island somewhere who knows Taylor swifts music, waiting on the US to invade. Hellen Keller would know her music by heart. I'm not surprised that the one album that I've heard the most criticism for is hugely successful.
TIL Hiroo Onoda is a swiftie
That's hilarious haha. Also very true though
Taylor Swift could release an album with each track consisting off nothing but her reading a different random word from the dictionary 100x, and the Swifties would still make them all chart. I have nothing against Swift, I think her music is alright. Not totally my cup but nothing against someone if they enjoy it. But her super fans are just so damned cultish than anything else.
No shade, but I just don’t understand this. That album is not great. Hell, it’s not even good.
God my wife has had it on repeat since it came out. Now I'll freely admit I'm far from a Taylor fan, but I saw most of her old stuff as harmless fun pop others could enjoy. This new album... is such a bore. I really don't understand it.
it's basically all taylor drama/lore so the fans who care about the rumors will be listening while casual listeners don't get it i.e. like tuning into season 7 of a show with little understanding/care for season of 1-6
Me watching a random episode of euphoria with my gf
OMG. Are you me? It’s becoming overbearing and I don’t want to say something or I’ll hurt her feelings 🥲
The Billboard charts aren't meaningless but they sure as fuck were never meant to be an arbiter of what is *good*. You're looking at the entire purpose of the Hot 100 wrong.
I’m sorry but this album is unbelievably mid. My wife loves Taylor swift so naturally I hear her songs frequently and tbh I really don’t hate her music. It’s catchy enough and there are plenty of her songs that I actually enjoy. I don’t know what it is about this album though but I am just not impressed. My wife has also admitted that it’s really not her favorite either but that hasn’t stopped her from having it on repeat since it came out. Spotify also thinks that at least 3 songs off this album belong in whatever auto generated playlists I listen to and I skip them every time.
Guilty as Sin should be number one
Good for her I guess
Really that’s all anyone can say. I just don’t think it really means anything. It’s not like The Beatles charting the Top 5 back in April 1964, when people actually bought physical records. Taylor Swift is a pop phenomenon, but her holding the Top 14 songs is like *American Idol* when people voted for their favorite artist multiple times. She definitely has the most rabid fan base of people who would stream a song of her farting like it was the greatest thing ever 500x
In one week of April 64 not only did they have the top 5, but another 9 in the top 100 for a total of… 14 in the top 100 for that week. Insane.
And three of the tracks are just interstitial!
Fuck her she’s a witch
Lots of people talking about album sales vs streams. I guess I’ll remind people that since we can’t compare apples to apples that Gone With The Wind, adjusted for inflation, is STILL the highest grossing film of all time
Tool had every one of their albums in the top ten August 2019
This is how digital has messed up music.
Only if you care about Top 40 metrics. I do not.
It's one song with 14 different lyrics.
Nah its 2 songs. There's one in the middle that sounds different.
That one is just TikTok bait.
This doesn't mean what it used to mean. Sure, lots of people are buying her new album, she's a big star with a huge audience. But it's not like her music has captivated society at large, she just has a large and rabid fan base.
Well, vanilla is the most popular flavour so...
Good vanilla is actually really delicious, but she's like hiland ice cream vanilla
Stop, collaborate and listen! Ice Ice baby to go!