Taylor Swift is one of the most unlucky artist with

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by FaithMonkey, Aug 14, 2019.

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  1. lc1995

    lc1995 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    They do matter, as they're a direct indicator of who's getting the most streams. The top 20 right now shows you a pretty good idea of who's hot.
     
  2. dmiller458

    dmiller458 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Midland, Michigan
    As chervokas already pointed out, the charts are same thing that they've always been; a finger on the pulse of the general pop audience.
     
  3. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    They matter, but they aren’t getting it right a lot of the time. That much is clear from the incredible popularity of a group like BTS, which dominates Twitter, YouTube and Instagram and sells out stadiums around the world. Hottest pop act in the world, but hasn’t been able to generate much action on the Billboard singles charts. I recall a few months ago someone mentioned that Billie Eilish was topping them on the singles charts, but while Eilish was playing the Aragon Ballroom, the same weekend BTS was playing two nights at Soldier Field. Pretty obvious Billboard doesn’t quite have it figured out yet.
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2019
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  4. RedRoseSpeedway

    RedRoseSpeedway Music Lover

    Location:
    Michigan
    :hurl:

    Distasteful comment, not surprising now that I see who’s posting it.
     
  5. Colocally

    Colocally One Of The New Wave Boys

    Location:
    Surrey BC.
    ok let me rephrase the question, do kids and teens actively talk about who’s number one and listen to the run downs?
     
  6. Stephen J

    Stephen J Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin, TX
    Well, two of their albums have been #1 in Billboard since early 2018, so Billboard did capture that, and four of their songs have made the Top 40 in that time.

    But the thing is, the Billboard Hot 100 and Albums 200 charts just capture record 'sales' (as it is now accounted for with streaming and video, etc.) in the USA, not globally, and BTS has sold a lot more records globally.

    Also, they only deal with the music sales aspect of popularity. A band can be huge as a touring act and not sell many records. E.g., from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, the Grateful Dead routinely toured the USA and drew enormous crowds, selling out arenas and football stadiums regularly. But they were huge as a touring act not in terms of selling records, so didn't make much of an impression on the Billboard charts during that time, and that wasn't a failure on Billboard's part. Similarly, BTS may be able to draw enormous crowds to USA concerts because of their overall "influencer" and global celebrity status in youth pop culture, but if they aren't streaming as many songs as Drake or Beyonce in the USA, we shouldn't expect to see them dominating USA Billboard charts.

    Finally, FWIW, Billboard does have a USA "World Music" chart, and BTS has ruled that the past seven years, with 22 top 10 singles, including 13 that have reached #1. So they are capturing their global popularity in that way.
     
  7. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I’m not talking globally. I’m talking about a group that sold out two arena shows and three stadium shows in New York in the past year. That’s more than Drake, Beyoncé, or even Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift. It feels very different from the Grateful Dead situation. I haven’t thought it through, but it seems like the game is changing.
     
  8. Stephen J

    Stephen J Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin, TX
    We all know the game is changing. In the 1960s - 1990s, music artist popularity was reflected in purchases of physical singles and albums, attendance at concerts, and merchandise sales. Today, while the latter two are still very relevant, the emergence of digital and online consumption of music has radically changed how consumers express, and therefore those interested in it measure, their consumption of new music.

    But, if your contention is that the enormous attendance at the BTS tour dates in the USA means that Billboard is missing a large amount of the effective "sales" of their music in the USA, I'm not convinced - because history has shown that you can have huge attendance at concerts while not be selling many records (heck, forget the Dead in the 1990s, the Rolling Stones right now is a good example), and because Billboard charts have in fact recorded significant numbers for BTS music - the two #1 albums i mentioned and the domination of the WM charts.

    I agree that Billboard nor anyone else has come up with the perfect formula for combing physical sales (which still exist) with digital sales and streaming and Youtube views, etc. Maybe that formula is impossible to derive.

    Just my 2.5 cents.
     
  9. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I wasn’t talking about accuracy of the singles charts in measuring sales. If you go back to my original post, I was replying to a post questioning the “relevance” of the singles charts. Someone said they remain relevant because they reflect which acts are “hot”. I agreed that the charts remain relevant, but said that I’m not sure they get it quite right anymore, given the way that music is accessed and consumed today (YouTube views being the obvious example). I cited BTS as an example.

    Sorry for the confusion.
     
    Stephen J likes this.
  10. Stephen J

    Stephen J Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin, TX
    I'm not sure I was confused. Beyond the efficacy of the Billboard charts, at a deeper level your post prompted me to think of BTS in relationship to artists in the past, including before the digital era, that were extremely popular in other parts of the world but had not penetrated the USA market to the same extent - e.g., Robbie Williams, Menudo, ABBA, Julio Iglesias, I'm sure we can think of others. There are differences - e.g., Williams was IMO genuinely never popular in the USA and hasn't been to this date, whereas an artist like Iglesias was perhaps different, in 1983 at a time he was hugely popular in Latin America and Asia, he had a successful tour of big USA arenas despite having basically no pop airplay or record sales. Perhaps the Billboard charts of that time were missing how he had become popular among significant USA populations like BTS clearly has.

    But maybe not, there are complexities here.

    So I thank you for prompting me to think about this, I should have acknowledged that by 'liking' your posts earlier.
     
  11. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Well, one thing that I find fascinating is that prior to the internet, there was this assumption that American fans (for whatever reason) would not listen to popular music that wasn't in English. So, record companies, retailers and radio programmers filtered the music that was out there so in America, we were never really exposed to foreign language music. That might have impacted Abba, Iglesias and Menudo, whose first languages were not English. The internet took away all of those filters and surprisingly, the language doesn't seem to matter.

    This reaction video is amazing. Four African-American middle schoolers, watching a BTS video sung entirely in the Korean language, but there is no resistance whatsoever. It's never mentioned, it doesn't even seem to be an issue for them.

     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2019
  12. cquiller1

    cquiller1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Atlanta
    I imagine they're relevant to people who follow today's music closely.
     
  13. Eleanora's Alchemy

    Eleanora's Alchemy Forum Cryptid

    Location:
    Oceania
    Taylor Swift.... one of the most unlucky artists in the charts? Exsqueeze me? She's worth (roughly) US $360 Million ; one of the most successful & highest paid celebrities in America right now. The entire premise of this thread in false, IMO.
     
  14. FaithMonkey

    FaithMonkey Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    India
    ^was refering about her chart performance.

    Also her two recent songs "You need to calm down" peaked at no.2 and "Lover" peaked at no.10. So two of her new songs from her new album just peaked at no.2. :D
     
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