Billboard under fire for chart manipulation

[Scarlet Witch 1,067]

1 hour ago, bionic said:

Then encourage biodegradable packaging and CDs. Your album will decompose just in time for a new variant to be released! Its about protecting the planet  

Your mind… 

[ALGAYDO 29,940]

Taylor Swift is writing a new song about this as we speak, expect it on rePUTAtion (Traitor’s Version) 

[CyanDante 5,848]

1 hour ago, ALGAYDO said:

Taylor Swift is writing a new song about this as we speak, expect it on rePUTAtion (Traitor’s Version) 

Lol , you just know its already written 

[Economy 47,016]

Tbh i have an issue with too many variants even if it includes different tracks and not just art works.

 

Ok you can have a 2nd deluxe version to standard album... im ok with that

 

But anymore than that is just desperate tbh and i dont respect it 

[Economy 47,016]

7 hours ago, bionic said:

At the end of the day a sale is a sale and is a more accurate measure of active consumption than streaming which is 75% passive consumption

Haters are just mad they don't have enough fans buying 1 copy of the album let alone 100 variants

I dont entirely agree that its more accurate.

 

Yes a sale should be counted and 1 sale should be worth a lot more points than a stream because money was directly spent on it.

 

However what sales cant tell you is whether ppl get tired of that single or album after a week or are still bopping to it 2 months later. Streaming measures ongoing activity in real time... Sales on the otherhand condense all of a buyers activity into a single week and cant measure anything beyond that

 

So I dont agree with the assertion that streaming is inferior. I actually think its superior.

 

Streams from payed services already count more than free streams from youtube for example anyway.

 

Sure to be fair, u dont need to LOVE a song a lot to stream it, thats the one major weakness streaming has over sales. But thats how music is consumed predominantly with todays technology so it is what it is. At least u can measure HOW MUCH and for HOW LONG ppl are listening to music, with sales you cant.

 

In any case, a song that isnt liked a lot probabably still wont get streamed a bunch of times by the same person anyway. So I think measuring streams isnt as broken as some ppl think.

 

At the end of the day BOTH sales and streams have strengths and weaknesses for charts in what they can tell you. ATM including both makes the charts as accurate as they are ever gonna be. Once sales completely die, we wont have tbe benefit of including both tbh.

Edited September 7 by Economy

[nATAH 42,261]

6 hours ago, Jack3257 said:

I feel like there should be a rule that there has to be a certain amount of original material for the variant sale to count.

agreed, one bonus track (or phone demo) per variant is just scummy

[Economy 47,016]

"It's ironic that the institution which is allowing the problem to exist is reaching out for a quote".

 

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Honestly i think its a little more complicated than that. Billboard may be aware of this recent trend and have concerns about it and ethical debates if its cheating or not but they cant arbitrarily just filter out real album sales at random.

 

Theyd have to come up with a standard and specifics on how many variants is too much, and how they would be filtered etc first. And theyd have to come to a consensus among themselves before any changes can be made. Considering variants are still real albums and real sales, I can see a lot of differences of opinions on this even internally.

 

Also if a change were to be made on this it would be pretty major. Totally fair to publicly bring up the issue publicly even if atm they havent made a hard decision on anything. It at least shows an acknowledgement of the issue and contenplation on it. I actually respect billboard didnt make such major changes on a quick whim. It needs to be thought out and debated.

 

So i see no issue with Billboard talking about it even if as of now they did not yet commit to or announce a new system to filter out any sales. I swear some people are way too quick to criticize without thinking issues thru and all their nuances and complexities. Not everything is as simple as it seems on the surface

[Economy 47,016]

"It's ironic that the institution which is allowing the problem to exist is reaching out for a quote". - A reply from manager when asked about releasing many variants to boost chart sales according to Chart Data tweet

 

Referencing this thread: 

 

 

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Honestly i think its a little more complicated than that. Billboard may be aware of this recent trend and have concerns about it and ethical debates if its cheating or not but they cant arbitrarily just filter out real album sales at random.

 

Theyd have to come up with a standard and specifics on how many variants is too much, and how they would be filtered etc first. And theyd have to come to a consensus among themselves before any changes can be made. Considering variants are still real albums and real sales, I can see a lot of differences of opinions on this even internally.

 

Also if a change were to be made on this it would be pretty major. Totally fair to publicly bring up the issue publicly even if atm they havent made a hard decision on anything. It at least shows an acknowledgement of the issue and contenplation on it. I actually respect billboard didnt make such major changes on a quick whim. It needs to be thought out and debated.

 

So i see no issue with Billboard talking about it even if as of now they did not yet commit to or announce a new system to filter out any sales. I swear some people are way too quick to criticize without thinking issues thru and all their nuances and complexities. Not everything is as simple as it seems on the surface.

 

And for the manager criticizing billboard, to me thats gaslighting. Its the labels that exploted an already set chart system and started manipulating it for gains and started inflating it, not the other way around

Edited September 7 by Economy

[liamgaga 465]

It is absolutely chart manipulation and I’m so glad Gaga and Bruno haven’t released another version of DWAS. I wouldn’t be mad if they did but it shows you can get an organic hit without them, the material just has to be good in the first place 

[bionic 41,897]

I assume the journalism side of Billboard is not the exact same arm as the data compilation side, so its probably a case of the left hand not talking to the right.

That said, its literally Billboard's job. They've identified a problem and even if a different part of the business, they need to fix it or at least say "we're going to fix this". If any other business revealed a known issue in such a high profile way they'd do so in the context of letting consumers know they're working on it.

[MOT 2,651]

I don't think it makes sense to lump the numbers for each variant into one grand total. They are all different products, so they should all have their own totals.

[TortureMeOnReplay 5,791]

8 hours ago, bionic said:

At the end of the day a sale is a sale and is a more accurate measure of active consumption than streaming which is 75% passive consumption

Haters are just mad they don't have enough fans buying 1 copy of the album let alone 100 variants

So if 20,000 people each buy 3 copies that's 60,000 album sales.

 

The streaming equivalent, for a 13 track album, if every single person listened 3 times, would be 2.3 million people streaming.  If 20,000 people wanted to generate 60,000 streaming equivalent sales for said album, it would take each person streaming the album 346 times.

 

I don't see how buying multiple copies is indicative of consumption whatsoever. My examples might be extreme but still show how the charts can be manipulated. There's no reason for multiple copies to even count in the first place. 

[eddyjeddy 1,295]

11 hours ago, southpaw773 said:

Some of these charts do sometimes appear sus 

Looking at Taylor and Nicki

it cringes me when Nicki reposts her songs charting but when you check it ain’t there lmao 

[Jack3257 638]

6 hours ago, liamgaga said:

It is absolutely chart manipulation and I’m so glad Gaga and Bruno haven’t released another version of DWAS. I wouldn’t be mad if they did but it shows you can get an organic hit without them, the material just has to be good in the first place 

I completely agree with that, although I would love an acoustic version.

[Hydrangea 5,073]

Dark day for fans of that mayonnaise