Billboard to address ARTPOP sales today

[GagaSlayedYou 2]

Bill Verde is very professional :clap:

[BornSimon 4,740]

Just so everyone knows, Bill Werde called PDLM a troll.

OMG that tweet was amazing, just saw it.

[Bt1 5,213]

Is Lady Gaga's ARTPOP App Just More Magna Carta? Billboard Weighs In

Billboard editorial director sets the record straight on how ARTPOP's app will affect sales.

 

Last month, Lady Gaga made it very clear that ARTPOP would be so much more than an album  we believe the phrase she used was "a reverse Warholian expedition"  a multi-screen experience powered by an official app that "combines music, art, fashion and technology with a new interactive worldwide community."

Said app would, presumably, also include a link to purchase the ARTPOP album  or specific tracks  and here is where the conspiracy begins.

 

It seems several Gaga detractors have started speculating that the app is nothing more than an elaborate way for Mother Monster to goose sales of her album, suggesting that, each time a fan downloads a single track through the app, Billboard would count it as an album sold ... thus guaranteeing ARTPOP "the biggest debut in history." They also floated the notion that sales figures wouldn't be able to be tracked by SoundScan, but rather would be reported by Gaga's own camp, in yet another attempt to inflate her first-week numbers.

 

To be fair, Gaga has engaged in some rather, uh, creative first-week sales promotions in the past, though the ARTPOP idea seemed a bit far-fetched ... though that didn't stop Perez Hilton from re-tweeting a blog post that suggested the Mother Monster was planning to "fraudulently boost album sales" with her new app.

 

So on Wednesday (July 31), Billboard editorial director Bill Werde waded into the fray, taking to Twitter to set the record straight on how the ARTPOP app will affect sales.

 

"As we understand, Gaga fans will get [the] ARTPOP app for free and can buy the album in app. Albums purchases this way would count on Billboard charts," Werde wrote. "One downloaded song via the ... app will no more count as an album on our charts than it would if bought at iTunes."

 

Werde added that "concerns about self-reported data by Gaga seem unfounded," saying that sales will be fulfilled and reported by existing digital retailers.

 

There were, of course, questions from Gaga's fans (and haters) about just how the ARTPOP app differs from Jay Z's much-discussed Magna Carta Holy Grail, the fiTrst million copies of which were given away for free  via an app  to users of Samsung Galaxy phones. SoundScan famously didn't count those first million copies towards the album's sales figures, and neither did Billboard, citing a long-standing policy against bulk sales.

 

So why will they count copies of ARTPOP sold through the app? Because fans will actually have to pay for them, that's why."For those who may ask: this is obviously different from Jay Z's Magna Carta/Samsung [deal] which gave app for free but had no option for fans to buy," Werde wrote.

 

ARTPOP is due on November 11. In a Twitter spree on Wednesday, Gaga revealed that an "app placeholder" will be available for download on August 19, the same day the album's first single (and video), "Applause" are released.

Source : http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1711616/lady-gaga-ARTPOP-app.jhtml

 

And this is how The Paws down blog is featured on mtv and on some other sites.

[croboy 1,212]

OMG haters got owwwwwwwwwwned big time.

 

Seriously they must be sh***tting their pants about this album.

 

It's sad they even had to explain it....all those things were logical.....for sane normal people only I guess.

[Blank Space 0]

I would sacrifice paws down owner to lucifer that pressed *donna,*ney fans making me nervous i would stab them literally..

[SEANGT 4,709]

Guys... can't we discuss things without censorship, please?

What happened here is quite important: Billboard's editorial director had to take a stand to protect Gaga's integrity, and I think it is definitely worth mentioning / discussing. Plus, closing every thread dealing with Gaga haters won't make them disappear.

Just because Billboard's editorial director fell for some trolls doesn't mean we have to. 

[Dangerous Man 9,245]

I just hope there mouth will shut when ARTPOP sold a million on its first week without any cheap tactics.

[HausOfMark 4,104]

im glad they addressed this because dip **** cause a storm with fan bases thinking that if u buy 1 song, its an album sale and lots of fan bases r not happy because of his lies