Billboard changing its main album chart, will count streaming services

[Redstreak 6,653]

But before itunes, a lot of people would buy albums on the basis on 1 or 2 songs. You want Britney's hit singles, you gotta get a whole fillerfest album.

There's no way of knowing that though. With streaming you know without a doubt that people only care about 2-3 songs and nothing about the rest of the album.

[Yanko 9,860]

gr8 streaming is the future  

[Guest]

I can imagine BB and Soundscan working together to force artists to make their albums available on streaming services (such as Spotify) *cough* Taylor *cough*. I hope she blocks everyone with her sales. Sick music industry :MANiCURE:

[Pain of fame1 228]

Watch Cheek to Cheek fall off the top 200 next week.

True...

[bumblebee 2,528]

Streaming could potentially bring down from 50% to 75% of the total album sales in the next couple of years. It's simply hard to explain a music fan why she/he should pay $12 per album when she/he could pay a $10 membership and get access to as much music as he wants to.

 

Therefore, the concept of including the counting streaming into the chart system sounds very reasonable. It's the implementation where things could become a little bit messy. An album is an album, it is a piece of music which is meant to be heard in its entirety (at least for the first time, before you pick favouritee tracks and the ones you will skip). Streaming the lead single for thousand times in no way equates to listening to the whole record.

 

Billboard 200 has been nothing but an album chart which measured record sales. Why don't they just create another chart, something like "Billboard Hot Albums" which would only include album streaming? I do acknowledge that streaming is the service which probably will gain widespread appeal in the future, but before the album sales drop to the very bottom, there's nothing wrong with having a chart with pure sales statistics.

[MonsterSK 0]

Streaming could potentially bring down from 50% to 75% of the total album sales in the next couple of years. It's simply hard to explain a music fan why she/he should pay $12 per album when she/he could pay a $10 membership and get access to as much music as he wants to.

 

Therefore, the concept of including the counting streaming into the chart system sounds very reasonable. It's the implementation where things could become a little bit messy. An album is an album, it is a piece of music which is meant to be heard in its entirety (at least for the first time, before you pick favouritee tracks and the ones you will skip). Streaming the lead single for thousand times in no way equates to listening to the whole record.

 

Billboard 200 has been nothing but an album chart which measured record sales. Why don't they just create another chart, something like "Billboard Hot Albums" which would only include album streaming? I do acknowledge that streaming is the service which probably will gain widespread appeal in the future, but before the album sales drop to the very bottom, there's nothing wrong with having a chart with pure sales statistics.

I know what you mean but the sales for music were already dropped because of the internet (illegal downloading).

[GagaMyBlood95 9,904]

A mess if you ask me, sales are going to be the least important thing in like 10 years lol

[craig 680]

I can imagine BB and Soundscan working together to force artists to make their albums available on streaming services (such as Spotify) *cough* Taylor *cough*. I hope she blocks everyone with her sales. Sick music industry

 

Long as 1 album sale or 10 itune sales = 1250 streams, she'll be fine.

A mess if you ask me, sales are going to be the least important thing in like 10 years lol

I bet live performing will outearn streaming, and a lot of people will stick with physicals.

Streaming will destroy itunes though.

[bumblebee 2,528]

I know what you mean but the sales for music were already dropped because of the internet (illegal downloading).

 

Illegal downloading should not be brought into discussion at all. First of all, it is almost impossible for SoundScan or any other organization to track illegal downloads in order to measure them in a chart form. Secondly, people who are using streaming actually pay for music, while illegal downloads are mostly free in case we don't count the price people pay for their Internet connection. 

 

I will try to explain in another way. Let us take the HOT 100 chart. Before the introduction of streaming to the formula, HOT 100 was mainly based on Hot Digital Songs and Radio Songs charts (we are speaking of age where physical single sales are a phenomenon). After the introduction of streaming HOT 100 is based on Digital Songs, Radio Songs and Streaming Songs charts.

 

Billboard 200 does not have component charts, it stands alone on its own, it's like Hot Digital Songs for the HOT 100 formula. Introducing streaming there seems really odd. Why don't they create a "Streaming Albums" chart, keep Billboard 200 and introduce a new "HOT ALBUMS' chart which would use a formula to calculate popularity of albums based on Billboard 200 and Streaming Albums? 

[ctherainbow 3,162]

So for TEAs, will they count track sales of singles off the albums towards album sales, or just non-single album tracks?  Seems highly unfair to weight the success of a hit single selling 10 copies the same as an album track selling ten copies.  

[TimisaMonster 31,073]

This seems sort of fair and also not...

 

Fair because people can't listen to radio 24/7 but when they deliberately sit down to watch a video...it should definitely count towards the charts.

 

Not fair, because this seems like an even more reason to do controversial/overly s-xual videos JUST to get views that therefore give them a higher chart even tho the SONG may be absolutely horrible 

[Merier Care 27]

Ooooh interesting I guess this will cushion the freefall of most front-loaded albums I wonder how much this will affect artists that don't allow access to their music via streaming sites like Spotify

Watch taylor making like 30952935 deals with spotify []

[Mariano 958]

 

"SoundScan and Billboard will count 1,500 song streams [...] as equivalent to an album sale."

Unless they listened to it 1500 times. Buying an album also doesn't mean you're gonna like it.

my point was that listening to the same song over and over again is not the same as listening to a whole album even if its 1500 plays.

[Pure Adrenaline 1,518]

idk it's just so much degrading the artist like they aren't the important things here .... u do realize that after the rule come in power artists will start to focus even harder on their singles rather albums. We will have strong lead singles as Rihanna's and album full of fillers to go with the single, the space btw each album cycle will get shorter and shorter  (like Ariana - 2013 YT, 2014 ME, and she said to be prepairing for new 2015 release) artists will start releasing albums every other year. It's not that it will be a bad thing but the whole music in terms of quality will degrade even more ..... in other words in 10 years or some the albums will be released as addition to the single.

 

IDK about u but the music scene is pretty bad right now idk what will be in few years, I'm just not happy with it instead BB supporting the artist they are supporting the business and the company and it just doesn't sound right at least to me

[Didymus 34,379]

I don't get the negative responses. This will indeed make it easier to observe people's musical habits.

 

Good decision tbh