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There was no doubt that the last No. 1 on the Billboard album chart would go to Drake. But the music industry still looked forward to seeing how a recent rule change would affect rankings.
Last week, Billboard and Nielsen, who provided the data for the magazine's graphics, did a subtle but important review of their formula. determine card positions, one focused on the relative value of a single stream. Since the streaming was included in the rankings four years ago, the ratio was strictly from 1,500 to 1 – it took 1,500 streams to reach the equivalent of a sale of money. unique album, a figure derived from the average incomes of record companies.
Billboard will use two different ratios to reflect the disparity in value between a song played by a paying subscriber to a service like Apple Music or Spotify, and that played by a "free" user – one who pays nothing but their attention to advertising. The new ratios, established after months of lobbying the industry, are 1,250 for paid feeds and 3,750 for free feeds. In other words, it will take three times more free clicks to match the paid one.
The change comes as streaming now takes the most dominant place in music consumption, largely determining – for better or for worse – what becomes a hit. Last week, Nielsen reported that for the first half of the year, US listeners have released 268 billion titles, an increase of 45% over the same period the year before
As the majority of Drake's streams come from Apple Music – which does not have a free level – he was slightly helped by the new rule; "Scorpion" was credited this week with about 50,000 more sales than before.
The total streaming has surpassed Drake's previous version, "More Life" (which he called a "playlist", not an album), which debuted by 385 million courses of water. Even with such large numbers, however, Drake had a lower total equivalent sales for "Scorpion" than for his latest full album, "Views," in 2016. "Views" opened with 245 million streams – a record for the time – and 852,000 sales as a complete album, which corresponds to 1,039,000 sales for the week.
But who was hurt? In theory, the new policy penalizes albums that work better on free platforms. At least until now, however, the effects are minor. On the basis of numbers reported by Nielsen, the new rule has only caused two small changes in the Top 10 – and the industry will have to wait another week to see an impact on the number 1 spot, the most important.
"?" XXXTentacion – a big streaming success since his death three weeks ago – arrives at No. 5 with the equivalent of 62,000 album sales; He was beaten by "The Now Now" of Gorillaz by a difference of only 1,000 copies. According to the old rules, these two positions would be reversed: "?" Would have landed at No. 4, and "The Now Now" would have opened No. 5.
Bottom of the map, Beyoncé and Jay-Z "All is love" is No. 8, slightly ahead on the panic! at Disco "Pray for the wicked." According to the old rules, panic! at the disco, No. 1 last week, would have come out a little ahead.
Still on the table this week, Florence and the Machine "High as Hope" opens at number 2, and Post Malone's "Beerbongs & Bentleys" is at number 3. A reissue of Guns' debut album N & # 39; roses & # 39; 1986, "Appetite for Destruction", with bonus tracks of archives that have been eagerly awaited by fans, opened at No. 10.
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