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Music Charts No Longer Make Sense (qz.com)

Posted by msmash on from the math-of-music dept.

American rapper Future's back to back new albums have created a stir among music enthusiasts and the studios alike. Billboard today refreshed its weekly US Top 200 chart, and the American rapper officially became the first artist to ever knock his own album out of the #1 spot with another one of his albums. Future released the self-titled FUTURE on Feb. 17. One week later, the artist then dropped a second album HNDRXX which is the new champion. What does it mean, though? Confusion, some say. From a report on Quartz: Up till December 2014, Billboard's Top 200 chart -- which pulls its numbers from data juggernaut Nielsen -- measured new music in the US only by album sales. As music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, came into the mainstream, Nielsen and Billboard revamped their system to be based off "units." How does is work? One "unit" is equivalent to either one album sale, 10 track sales, or 1,500 song streams. In other words, listeners on a streaming platform would need to stream a Future song 1,500 times for it to count the same way a single album purchase does. While that number may seem high, consider that it costs (more or less) $9.99 a month to stream tens of thousands of songs, as opposed to dropping $10-15 on a single album to own it, either physically or digitally. That means people who subscribe to online streaming services aren't taking out an additional cost to listen to every new Future song or album or the same ones over and over again -- it's essentially free. It becomes an odd, if necessary, way of calculating charts, because it means people who pay the most for an artist's music count for the least when sales are tallied.

26 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Music makes no sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Rap is fucking garbage. People talk over a 8 second music loop and win Best Artist because they look good and dance around. There's no music being created anymore, it's all a sad performance for poor black people.

    1. Re:Music makes no sense by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree that rap is fucking garbage. On the other hand, you also have to agree that western and country music are also fucking garbage.

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    2. Re:Music makes no sense by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, I would like to comment that not all country is horrible. The really old stuff, and related genres like bluegrass, had musical value I think: these were authentic artists, not corporate-created caricatures. But you're looking at stuff from the 40s-70s or so. Johnny Cash, for instance, I think is a good example of an authentic country music artist. It's not my preferred style of music by any stretch, but I can recognize the value. But all the stuff that's sold as country these days is utter trash, and a lot of it seems to basically be "redneck rock".

    3. Re:Music makes no sense by painandgreed · · Score: 2

      I agree that rap is fucking garbage. On the other hand, you also have to agree that western and country music are also fucking garbage.

      I'd go so far as to say 90% of everything is garbage.

    4. Re:Music makes no sense by lgw · · Score: 2

      Bluegrass is still around, and includes some very sharp artists, both technical players and composers (but then, I guess you could say the same about medieval-style folk music). It has almost no overlap with modern country music (which is just pop music with a southern accent, these days).

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  2. Streaming = Radio by Luthair · · Score: 3, Interesting

    People just 'paid' for radio plays by listening to advertising. So why does streaming need to be considered but radio play does not?

    1. Re:Streaming = Radio by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      Radio plays are paid for by the record companies.

      In the 1950s they made it illegal to pay DJs to play music. A day later the job of 'program director' was invented. It has never been illegal to pay a program director to play music.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:Streaming = Radio by Luthair · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I can't claim to be an expert but as far as i know payola is only used for promotion (e.g. new music), your local radio station isn't being paid to play the Beatles.

  3. Headline by hipp5 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nothing in TFS explains to me why, "Music Charts No Longer Make Sense". Is it because an artist overtook himself on the charts? Is it because they've had to change their chart system to keep up with technology?

    Maybe charts don't make sense anymore, maybe they still do, but I have no idea whether they do or not from reading TFS.

    1. Re:Headline by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If bloody rap albums occupy the #1 and #2 spots, the one thing that makes no sense is humanity.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    2. Re:Headline by SeaFox · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Nothing in TFS explains to me why, "Music Charts No Longer Make Sense". Is it because an artist overtook himself on the charts? Is it because they've had to change their chart system to keep up with technology?

      No, it's because the chart system is not made to deal with this marketing gimmick. The artists clearly had both albums recorded and mastered at the same time, there is no reason they couldn't have been released as single double-length album. He set this up specifically to take the title of "first artist to displace himself at the top of the chart" and get all this free publicity.

    3. Re:Headline by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      Rap should be classified as poetry. In the chart, it would go right below Vogon poetry.

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    4. Re:Headline by David_Hart · · Score: 2

      Rap should be classified as poetry. In the chart, it would go right below Vogon poetry.

      No... Vogon poetry, according to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, has a good chance of killing the listener. Rap has never killed anyone. The Rapper might have, but that's a different story....

  4. Re:Nothing of value left to measure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    self obsessed and arrogant millenials

    Coming from the guy who is telling everybody else what they should like. I trust the irony isn't lost on you?

  5. Less/better slang please! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Funny

    I know in the US the slang is to "drop an album" but I would much prefer if slashdot would use the more widely understood "pooped out an album". ;)

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    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  6. As if they ever meant anything by grasshoppa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given the pay to play nature of radio, charts only ever really showed who paid the most money for airtime.

    They've been meaningless for a long time now.

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  7. Re:Nothing of value left to measure by bulled · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Get off my lawn!

    Seriously though, I am sorry you feel that way but I disagree. There is still a lot of interesting music being produced if you know where to look. I agree that most everything listed on the Billboard top 200 will fit your description, but that list only covers music which a small group of record labels have defined to be appealing to the largest groups of people. It sounds like your tastes do not fit with that assumption (mine do not either) but all that means is that you have to work a little harder to find stuff you like.

  8. Why 1500:1? by hawguy · · Score: 2

    One “unit” is equivalent to either one album sale, 10 track sales, or 1,500 song streams ...

    It becomes an odd, if necessary, way of calculating charts, because it means people who pay the most for an artist's music count for the least when sales are tallied.

    But consumers don't really care which songs earn the artist the most money, they care which ones are the most popular songs. When I buy an album I rarely listen to it more than a few times after the purchase (but I'll come back to it later). I don't understand the 1500:1 ratio for streams to albums when computing rank. It seems like 10:1 or 100:1 would be a more fair representation of how much people like it. Even for songs that I really like, if they come up too many times in rotation in my playlists, I'll vote it down because I get tired of the same song over and over.

    And if I buy a track, it's because I really like that track and didn't want the album, so why does it take 10 track sales to equal one album sale?

    I guess the answer is that the Billboard Charts aren't meant to reflect popularity, but just revenue, which certainly has value to the industry, but not so much to individual listeners.

  9. Of course not. by JustNiz · · Score: 2

    It stopped being anything to do with actual musical talent and started being all about marketing to gullible teenagers like 50+ years ago.

  10. Movie awards no longer make sense either by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Mediocre black movie gets awards the year after the event is boycotted for not having enough black nominees. Affirmitive action for the win, at the cost of actual talent.

  11. Ain't just "rap", either... by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

    Autotuned voices, corporate-created-idols (usually some pretty teenaged kid with a previous 'career' as a Disney 'talent employee'), new stars with a pre-baked 'image' (naturally built/provided by the studio), lyrics that are focus-group-tested and written by someone else, a catchy tune usually ripped-off from some unknown who got paid a pittance for it...

    Most *music* these days is fucking garbage. Okay, some of that may be the 'get off my lawn' syndrome on my part, but honestly, in the past the musician and/or band usually had to come up with everything themselves: lyrics, chords, composition, image, vision, etc. Even as late as the 1990s or so, there were still artists who did it themselves, and the quality tended to show through more readily. Yes there were pre-baked 'stars' in the past as well, but their appeal tended to die off pretty quickly, or their star faded long before their second album... much like, well, today. It's just that the signal-to-noise ratio went to hell of late.

    Nowadays, it all seems, I don't know... not crafted, so much as assembled. Disposable talent would be a good way to put it, I think. Nowadays, to find the good stuff, you have to cast a really wide net, to local up-and-coming independent artists (pre-contract), obscure bands in Europe, Asia, etc.

    Don't get me wrong entirely, though - some of it, intentionally assembled (e.g. Electronica) can be pretty damned good; but then, underneath it, you find independent artists who carefully crafted what they themselves produced.

    I can't be the only one who thinks this...

    --
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    1. Re:Ain't just "rap", either... by clodney · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Autotuned voices, corporate-created-idols (usually some pretty teenaged kid with a previous 'career' as a Disney 'talent employee'), new stars with a pre-baked 'image' (naturally built/provided by the studio), lyrics that are focus-group-tested and written by someone else, a catchy tune usually ripped-off from some unknown who got paid a pittance for it...

      Most *music* these days is fucking garbage. Okay, some of that may be the 'get off my lawn' syndrome on my part, but honestly, in the past the musician and/or band usually had to come up with everything themselves: lyrics, chords, composition, image, vision, etc. Even as late as the 1990s or so, there were still artists who did it themselves, and the quality tended to show through more readily. Yes there were pre-baked 'stars' in the past as well, but their appeal tended to die off pretty quickly, or their star faded long before their second album... much like, well, today. It's just that the signal-to-noise ratio went to hell of late.

      Appreciation of music is inherently subjective, so I won't argue with whatever makes something garbage to you, but some of the elements you list just don't matter to me. I don't care if the performer wrote the song or not, or if a producer packaged them to be more appealing to an audience. If I like the song I like the song, and I don't have to be a purist about it.

      Do you feel the same way about a car or a computer? Would Photoshop have more value to you if it was produced by a single person? Does a car have more authenticity if the body and the engine come from the same team?

    2. Re:Ain't just "rap", either... by swb · · Score: 2

      Hasn't pop music long been dominated by corporate interests?

      There's this cyclic quality where you have a phase of monochromatic, interchangeable artists who are mostly tools of their agents and publishers. Then a handful of artists or some region comes up with some unique twist which gains traction but doesn't always become mainstream.

      This "new sound" is then taken up by lots of artists, some of which build on it and others which merely imitate it, the music industry notices it and then heavily promotes it. Some of the early artists "make it" but mostly it becomes another monochromatic trend of corporate driven artists.

      Lather, rinse, repeat.

      It happened in the 1950s -- a few artists mixed up R&B with Country/Swing and more or less created rock and roll. The corporate types got ahold of it, and it became pretty predictable, then you had the Beatles (who were widely cloned and imitated), and then the scene shifted into more hippie blues-oriented music and then that became a corporate product, too.

      Then came punk which really tried hard not to even be commercialized -- rude attitudes, hard-core left wing politics, a completely abrasive sound in contrast to mellow 1970s rock, but even that achieved some kind of popularity and simmered through the late 1980s when it finally became a commercialized sound under the label of "alternative rock".

      At the radio airplay level it's almost always been a corporate product, it's just that when you're in a trend phase change that good artists manage to sneak into the radio.

    3. Re:Ain't just "rap", either... by Pseudonym · · Score: 2

      I scan up and down the dial on the radio and 98% of what I hear is autotuned SHIT.

      I remember scanning up and down the dial on the radio in the 80s, and most of it was interchangeable big-hair bands and bubblegum synth-euro-pop. I can't remember the names of most of them because I've forgotten. I only remember the good stuff and the not-so-good-but-iconic stuff.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  12. Re:Nothing of value left to measure by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's other music out there besides that produced by "the music industry". There's a big cottage industry of indie artists out there, producing their own recordings in their garages or maybe renting studio time, and doing everything themselves. Of course, none of these people are getting rich, and it's not that easy to find this stuff (and find stuff among it that you really like), but it is out there thanks to the Internet.

  13. I love rap music by _xanthus_47 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is not ironic. This is not a joke. It is very disturbing to see grown people have such strong feelings over something that is subjective art. I grew up on rap music. I enjoy rap when it is about drugs and guns and violence. I enjoy it when it about social issues and the voice of a disenfranchised people. Yes there is a certain degree of misogyny and glorification of violence but that is the same as assuming that all metal is about devil worshipping. There are negative stereotypes associated with everything but you have to look beyond that. All art that connects with people has merit. Whether it be sonically or lyrically or for whatever reason (here I include the modern mumble rap too, much to the chagrin of rap purists who insist mumble rap isn't "real hip-hop") that connects with the listener. The top comments remind me of the 15 year old high school kids who decide who to make friends with based on their taste of music. There is a certain kind of elitism and definitely passive racism associated with the disparaging of an entire genre that has replaced rock and rock as the mainstream genre for more than two decades now. Stay classy, Slashdot.