Article: Drake breaks Beatles record with 7 of the Top 10 songs on Billboard Hot 100 chart*

Anyways, we're in a bit of a transitional situation right now. Many of the popular artists have almost zero sales, I think there have been a few with 100,000+ album equivalents but only a couple thousand album sales, with the overwhelming majority of equivalents coming from streaming, but you still have artists that get most of their numbers from album sales like Adele, Taylor Swift, and generally most indie acts and older contemporary acts like Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Gorillaz, Foo Fighters, and of course legacy acts.

That's a bit of a problem because the consumption patterns for an album like Drake's are probably very similar to a new album from Taylor Swift. You're measuring the excitement from their fans as they listen to their album from start to finish several times in its first days of release, and the fans might not even have decided if they like the new music yet, there's just a lot of them and they're curious. However, there's no way to track listens from purchased copies so artists whose fans purchase albums are at a disadvantage on the Hot 100.

However, Best Buy is discontinuing CD sales, and iTunes is rumored to plan on shutting down their digital store in a year or two, so it looks like albums sales will soon become a fully niche market. At that point, Taylor Swift, Adele and Eminem will be on a more equal footing with Drake, Post Malone and Migos.

Still, I think airplay should be given more weight. Streaming, at least on Spotify is very much playlist driven. The older hits are generally removed from the "Latest Top Hits" type playlists and only have a playlist reach of 1-10 million while the latest hits have 80-150 million in playlist reach and consequently have about 20 times more streams. Billboard acts like people choose to listen to songs on Spotify whereas when they listen to radio, that's more passive and they're just listening to whatever the DJs pick.

That may be true for some of the older songs and lesser known songs that aren't charting, but I don't think it's very true for songs charting thanks to their streaming performance. Those are mostly driven by people putting Spotify created (not user created) playlists on shuffle, and the only choice is whether to listen to Spotify playlists and which one, just like with radio people choose whether to turn it on and what station. Spotify does take into consideration what songs their users seem to prefer, which songs on their playlists get skipped by users, and which ones get saved, but radio does the same by using call-out polls to see what songs people request or have as their favourites, and which songs make them change the station.

Billboard hasn't shared how much a radio listen counts for compared to a stream, but attempts to reverse engineer their formulas suggest that prior to the rule change last week, it was roughly 1 stream = 5 radio listens. I think a radio listen should count at least as much as a stream for the Hot 100. I also think free streams and paid streams should count the same for the Hot 100 but differently for the Billboard 200.

 

Excellent!

 

Now, to pull these loose concepts together:

In the Sixties, Hostess Cupcakes sold millions of baked items, in retail grocery stores.

In 2018, millions of Drakes CoffeeCakes were downloaded via smart devices on demand.

Are these numbers comparable...?

 

Now that Drake has been scientifically proven to be superior to The Beatles, it means that any and all joy derived by their fans over the years is fraudulent.

 

Another difference between the present and past is longevity. Even 15-20 years ago, Billboard Hot 100 hits had pretty consistent longevity. However, recently songs could become hits just because they're from a very popular artist and people will buy/stream their song to check it out before deciding if they like it, and chart for only 1-3 weeks.

In the iTunes digital peak around 2006-2013, Taylor Swift was able to do that a lot, these are some examples of songs that charted for just a couple weeks upon release from digital sales before exiting the charts.

#6 Red (3 weeks) - 2012
#6 Back To December (2 weeks) - 2010
#7 Begin Again (4 weeks) - 2012
#8 Speak Now (3 weeks) - 2010
#9 Fearless (4 weeks) - 2008
#10 Jump Then Fall (3 weeks) - 2009
#10 Change (3 weeks) - 2008
#10 If This Was A Movie (2 weeks) - 2011
#11 You're Not Sorry (5 weeks) - 2008
#11 Mean (1 week) - 2010
#13 State of Grace (1 week) - 2012
#13 Gorgeous (4 weeks) - 2017
#16 Ronan (2 weeks) - 2012
#17 Sparks Fly (2 weeks) - 2010
#18 Out of the Woods (2 weeks) - 2014
#19 Untouchable (2 weeks) - 2009

Some of these later re-entered the charts after being made singles, but did not peak as high. Taylor also has plenty of singles that peaked in their first week from digital sales, then dropped on the charts after her fans all had the song, then rose back up to a lower peak thanks to radio play (and members of the general public - rather than hardcore fans - buying it after hearing it on the radio).

So this is the chart run for Ours, which had strong sales in its first week when Taylor included it on the re-release of Speak Now, giving it a #13 peak, then dropped to #83 before it was made an official single with a music video and started getting airplay, eventually rising up to a secondary peak of #39 after 18 weeks.
13-56-81-83-65-47-45-43-43-47-44-46-42-47-46-45-48-39-41-42

Now in 2015-2018, iTunes sales have less of an impact, and has been replaced by streaming in making short lived Hot 100 hits. So you have Post Malone, Drake, Cardi B, etc that get a dozen or more songs charting when they release a new album, but most of those songs fall out of the charts after a few weeks, even some of the songs that charted quite high (Top 20).

At the same time as you have these very short lived hits, you also have very long lived hits. In the past hits lasted for a more consistent amount of time, the typical #1 Billboard hit from The Beatles charted for about 12 weeks and their smaller #10-#30 hits lasted only about 8 weeks, with peaks in the middle of their chart runs. Their longest charting hits were

26 weeks - Twist and Shout
19 weeks - Hey Jude
16 weeks - Come Together
16 weeks - Got To Get You Into My Life

Meanwhile, today's big artists have hits that chart 2-3 times longer

Taylor Swift

50 weeks - You Belong With Me
50 weeks - Shake It Off
49 weeks - Teardrops On My Guitar
48 weeks - Love Story

Ed Sheeran

59 weeks - Shape of You
58 weeks - Thinking Out Loud
45 weeks - Perfect

Drake
36 weeks - Work
36 weeks - One Dance
36 weeks - Hotline Bling

So it seems like it's actually more difficult to land a true hit these days, not one that reaches top 20 for a week, but one that actually sticks around, because streaming audiences and radio seem to gravitate towards a few select songs and are less likely to move on to the next new song.

I think long term, the Year End charts should be given more weight, since a song's Hot 100 peak these days is much more weakly correlated to the length of its chart run than in the past, and is a much poorer measure of how popular it was that year. State of Grace and Teardrops on My Guitar both peaked at #13 but they were not even remotely comparable, one of them was on the charts for 1 week and the other was on the charts for 48 weeks.

 

Upon further reflection, I take back all my snarky comments. I mean, the guy looks harmless enough.

 

Beat me to it.

Who the F is Drake and why should I care? I googled him. I got thru 13 seconds of one song, only because Olivia 13 from House was on it.

A perfect example of why I detest most of what qualifies as the Top 40 now.

Oh well. I still got my Bollywood and Bellydance 'lectronica!!!

 

Lot of "Frank Sinatras circa 1957" commenting on this thread.

Side note: Don't talk to anyone 20 years old about Drake & The Beatles unless you want to feel a million years old.

 

I think it’s harder to reach a #1 these days. Perhaps, not harder, but it isn’t easier either. I mean, I was surprised to discover Ariana Grande has never reached #1 and she has like 7 or 10 hits, a good number of well-known songs, yet she hasn’t reached the top.
But at the same time, there a lot of songs on the top ten that I have never ever listened to in my whole life. I have never listened to a XXXTentacion or Post Malone song yet they are HUGE and popular and both have reached the top once or twice.

Back in 2010 this week:

Hot 100's top 10 this week in 2010
1. California Gurls
2. Love the Way You Lie
3. OMG
4. Airplanes
5. Billionaire
6. Find Your Love
7. Cooler Than Me
8. Your Love Is My Drug
9. Alejandro
10. Ridin' Solo

I mean, I know at least 8 songs of that list, now I don’t think I know any of those that are on the top ten.

 

The two aren't comparable but Kendrick undoubtedly has greater prestige in the hip hop community based on the quality of his work. Three out of his releases so far have very highly regarded 'instant classics' both among hip hop fans and critics; he's been slowly building himself legacy-wise with each subsequent release. He's already in the 'greatest of all time' conversation up there with the likes of Jay Z, Nas, Biggie, Tupac, etc.

Erm, I'm in my 30s and wouldn't consider myself a 'kid' but it's pretty much a pop tune to me and is just an example of one of his songs that was very present in the mainstream a few years ago and has around 1.5 billion views on YT.

 

I like how there is automatically "fault" assigned to this.

Records [no pun intended] are made to be broken, are they not?

 

Was this the guy that played the Superbowl last year?

Becasue that guy sucked.

 

I'm enjoying the irony of a guy with the Bay City Rollers as his avatar telling someone else to go back to their 60's/70's bubble .

I wish Drake well.

Sports records are broken all the time. It's not surprising that chart success records are broken .
The only thing that surprises me is that it took so long.

And, I'm guessing Drake doesn't care what we think , just like I didn't care what my parents thought about what music I listened to.

 

And not one of them do I know!

 

That's because he'd recently been told to "Lighten up."

 

...and if the Beatles didn't have several flop singles released over the previous year on several different independent labels in the States (with the continuing rights to re-release those tracks - and others under their licensing control after the Beatles took off), then they wouldn't have had as many songs qualified to enter the Billboard chart in 1964 as they did. Sure the current weird Billboard system gives Drake an unfair advantage, but you can't make that claim and ignore the bizarre situation/unfair advantage the Beatles had in following up/extending their early breakthrough of I Want To Hold Your Hand/Ed Sullivan.

Vee Jay
Tollie
Swan
MGM
Atco

I seem to remember The Beatles didnt even benefit from the sales of singles from one of those first three labels, as that label went out of business not very long after (though the early 1964 US Beatles success did allow that label to stay in business a bit longer than it would have otherwise, though conveniently not long enough for them to issue The Beatles with a royalty statement/payment).

Plus there were a couple of singles that charted in the US as Canadian imports, that had exclusive pairings.

Without The Beatles earlier US failures and subsequent cash-in by those labels (plus the "import" success of some Canadian singles) the only tracks that would have been eligible for chart placement in early 1964 would have been:

I Want To Hold Your Hand/I Saw Her Standing There (US Capitol Single) (#1/#14)
Can't But Me Love/You Can't Do That (US Capitol Single) (#1/#48)

That's it! - 2 singles/4 songs. But like I said, if they hadn't failed in the US prior to 1964, they wouldn't have ended up having these additional singles on release (lets just go with the reissues from 1964 and ignore the original 1963 US issue flops) Release dates from 45cat and Billboard chart placements from wikipedia:

1964-01-25 - She Loves You/I'll Get You (Swan) (#1/-)
1964-01-27 - My Bonnie/The Saints (MGM) (#26/-)
1964-01-30 - Please Please Me/From Me To You (Vee Jay) (#3/#41)
1964-03-01 - Twist & Shout/There's A Place (Tollie) (#2/#74)
1964-03-23 - Do You Want To Know A Secret/Thank You Girl (Vee Jay) (#2/#35)
1964-04-27 - Love Me Do/PS I Love You (Tollie) (#1/#10)
1964-05-21 - Sie Liebt Dich/I'll Get You (Swan) (#97/-)
1964-07-06 - Ain't She Sweet/Nobody's Child (Atco) (#19/-)

That's all the American issues (unless I missed any)

Also these charted in the US as Capitol Canada imports:

All My Loving/This Boy (#45/-)
Roll Over Beethoven/Please Mr Postman (#68/-)

If Drake's situation is unfair to the Beatles, then the Beatles situation was unfair to anyone else you may want to mention who shared the singles chart with them back in 1964. Seven (!) record companies all releasing singles simultaneously (without consultation with/approval of EMI - the band's real record company) and flooding the market with Beatles product.

It certainly puts that one week in 1964 of having all five of the Top five being Beatles songs into a more proper perspective, doesn't it?

No-one else had ever done it (nor could ever do it again) until this century (for a different reason) In late 1998 when Billboard finally dispensed with their rule that for a single to chart in needs to be available physically which the labels had been gaming for a few years previously anyway, making that rule pretty useless. Push a song to radio, wait til its airplay justifies a fairly high chart position, then release it as a single (in very small quantities since physical singles were barely selling by this time) and suddenly it debuts artificially high since the week of the single's physical release is the first week in which the single is eligible to chart. That's one game the labels played before Billboard removed the physical single requirement to chart. There were others.

 

I put no stock in any popularity charts. They are inconsistent. Streaming does not equal sales. Movie numbers are inflated by regional pricing. Movies used to be ranked by weekly ticket numbers, and still should be. The DJIA cheats through relegation. Lastly, I didn't get a JD Power survey when I bought my brand-new vehicle.

 

He was a criminally overlooked singer/songwriter from the late Sixties/early Seventies. Looked remarkably like the guy in your profile picture, in fact.

 

No. But he's not alone.

Don't feel bad, I have no clue who Drake is either........

 

male duck isn't it?

 

i don't know the guy, nor am i bothered by that. i've heard the name and i'm pleased for him.
I'll just say what i said in the Ed thread ...
if you stream a song, no matter how many times, it should count as 1.
i never bought singles, so the whole thing is beyond me, but i didn't buy an album and then smash it to go buy another one.

 

Drake shouldn't be dismissed. I did wonder about 4 months ago why Lamar was getting more attention than him. It used to be apples to oranges as far as their styles. Not saying he's as good as the Beatles or what he has done equals what the Beatles did. But clearly he's doing something right.

 

The level of frustration and anger in threads like this is absolutely one of my favorite things about this forum, and JeatlePyle's current incarnation hasn't even shown up yet! *chef kiss*

 

I don't think it's more difficult now than in 2010. Love Story was #4, Umbrella was #2, You Belong With Me was #2, Hot N Cold was #3, Disturbia was #6, We Found Love was #2, I Knew You Were Trouble was #2, Paparazzi was #6, Telephone was #3, Bad Romance was #2... all huge singles from the 4 biggest pop stars of that generation.

If you're the biggest artist of the year, you can hit #1 on your first 1-2 weeks because you'll have enough fans ready to jump at the opportunity to check out your new music, regardless of whether it's good. But even if you're a pop star rather than a superstar it's already difficult, like with Ariana. I think several of Ariana's songs could've gone #1 if this was the 80s, but these days you're more likely to have megahits like Shape of You, Despacito, or God's Plan hog the #1 spot for weeks on end and block out the competition, as well more short-lived #1s blocking you out (like Nonstop from Drake which almost went #1 and will likely fall quite quickly).

Part of what did change since 2010 was genre though. In 2010 the Hot 100 was much more driven by pop radio. Although songs could chart high in their first week from just sales, once airplay kicked into high gear 5-15 weeks after release, that counted for a lot of Hot 100 points and also drove high digital sales that counted for more sales.

Now you can't count on digital sales much since those are way down, and streaming is a big part of the equation. Most songs peak on streaming in their first 1-2 weeks and then gradually drop, and usually start dropping quite fast around the 5-10 week mark. Reaching #1 from streaming alone is really hard though, so what you need is for radio to pick up your song quickly to get those airplay points before losing much momentum on streaming. And for whatever reason, rap/hip-hop radio tends to pick up songs faster than pop radio which takes longer. Pop radio is only fast to move with songs that have also had proven success on other formats (ie already well past peaked on streaming) like with I Like It, Better Now, Mine, Love Lies or Psycho, or with the biggest lead singles but even then No Tears Left To Cry is at 80 days and still hasn't hit #1 on Pop. Adult Pop even slower moving, NTLTC is at #8 on HAC and #31 on AC.

I think people here are more likely to listen to pop radio than rap dominated streaming, so you'll recognize more Hot 100 hits from pop dominated time periods than in today's rap dominated era. Personally I only recognize #1, #2, #4, #7 and #9 on the 2010 list. I don't recognize as much on this week's Drake dominated list but recognize #1, #4, #5, #6, #8, #9 and #10 from last week's list.

 

You got me.