Music Sales & Label Tactics

This is gonna be split into two parts. First is an objective look at how the charts work. What counts towards sales and chart position of albums and singles and what doesn’t. The second part is going to be a look at how labels work the rules to ‘manipulate’ the charts in their favor. While the second part is also evidence-based, it is worth noting that explicit proof of label tactics is hard to come by – it’s often legally a grey area and as a result you won’t see labels admitting to it.

The Hot 100

In terms of singles, this thread is only going to focus on the Billboard Hot 100. This is far and away the industry standard chart for singles – if you hear about an artist getting a #1 song, they will always be referring to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Hot 100 is released weekly on Tuesday US time. The modern Hot 100 is made up of three metrics for a song’s success – Streams, Sales and Airplay. The Hot 100 tracks streams from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music as well as services like YouTube. It tracks sales from platforms such as iTunes and from sales via other sources such as the artist’s website. Airplay refers to radio impressions – the number of people hearing the song via radio. The chart tracks streams and sales from Thursday midnight each week. This is why you see songs release on Thursdays at midnight – it allows them to get a full week of streams and sales giving it a higher chart position. Airplay is measured from Monday to Sunday. For the most part the difference in weeks has no difference however recently Toosie Slide charted on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 because of the three days of airplay it received for the Billboard week prior to its release week.

Formula

The formula for the Hot 100 is not public knowledge and changes at least once per year. Currently streams are split into three categories – paid, programmed and ad supported. Paid are weighted at 1, ad supported at 2/3 and programmed at ½. This reduces the impact of streams on platforms like YouTube. Streaming has the largest relative impact on the charts at the moment followed by Airplay and then sales. Specifically, to calculate generally on a weekly basis a commonly used formula for projections is
Sales/5 + Paid streams/1250 + Free streams/1875 + Programmed Streams/2500 + Airplay/6000

For a #1 song this will usually be in the high 30,000s to low 40,000s. There are several places that do chart projections during the week – two to watch for are @talkofthecharts and @simonfalk on Twitter.

Notable Rules

50/20 – if a song has charted on the Hot 100 for 20 weeks or more and charts below #50 for any week after the 20th, it will be removed from the chart.

25/52 – if a song has charted on the hot 100 for 52 weeks or more and charts below #25 for any week after the 52nd, it will be removed from the chart.

For both 50/20 and 25/52 the song can re-enter the chart if it has a significant gain in points for an identifiable reason. This is reviewed on a case-by-case basis by Billboard so there’s not really any objectivity to re-entering. Things that can typically cause re-entry are artist deaths, Christmas or major events relating to an artist or a song.

Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas re-enters in the weeks leading up to Christmas every year

Remixes – any remixes of a song count towards the song’s chart position. However, the version with the largest proportion is the version that gets credited. For example: The Hills was #1 and a version with Eminem released. This remix helped keep The Hills at #1 but because the remix did not make up a larger proportion of points than the original song, the remix is not credited on the chart. Similarly Say So remix with Nicki Minaj was released. This remix did make up a larger proportion of points so as a result for the Hot 100 following the remixes release Say So was changed to Say So (remix) and Nicki Minaj was credited.

Sales – only four copies of a song sold per credit card are counted towards a chart position.

Chart Trends

There are a few classic trends you’ll see on the Hot 100 that are useful to know about – I’ll try run you through some briefly.

Pop tends to get more airplay and sales. Pop music is typically more suited to being played on the radio and pop audiences tend to be people who listen to more radio. Most sales happen on iTunes and most people who use iTunes tend to be older and more of a pop demographic.

Rap/Hip-Hop tends to get more streams. The genre has a younger audience and younger audiences tend to stream their music rather than purchasing it or listening to the radio.

Genre share by format. As you can see rap dominates streams

Songs with strong airplay tend to stick around for a long time. Radio take a very long time to move on from songs so songs that appeal for Airplay tend to get a boost from strong numbers for a lengthy period – much longer than sales and usually notably longer than streams.

Songs get a boost when the album they’re on releases. You have a lot more people buying the album and streaming the song when an album drops even if the song has already been available so when an album releases, you’ll usually see songs from it that are already charting move up.

Case Study

To see all this applied in real terms let’s look at the upcoming Hot 100 releasing on Tuesday.

These are the projections from one account. Rockstar by DaBaby with Roddy Rich is projected to move to #1. We can see that the top 3 are very close on points. Rockstar is driven largely by streaming – 82% of its points come from streams. Sales are a low percentage for all three songs – they don’t count for much points wise and sales tend to slide massively after the first week or two of release as people who want to buy the song have already bought it. Blinding Lights is being driven largely by radio – what you’d expect for a song that’s fairly universally appealing pop music and not explicit. Savage has more of a mix – streams are right in the middle of the two as is airplay. In this situation we may see labels try and push for the #1 for the next week – less likely given that Savage and Blinding Lights have already gone #1. While I’ll expand on ways they do this later some things you might see are remixes, music videos, discounts, promotions or bundles in order to increase points and get #1.

Rain on me is falling 4 places – it released last week with a video which gives it a strong debut. However often songs with a strong debut fail to hold on well. This held better than recent #1 debuts (Stuck with u & The Scotts) largely because the album released last week.

Toosie Slide is holding well in the top 10 based on strong streaming numbers and above average airplay for Hip-Hop. The Box and Circles are starting to move out of the top 10 after a very long stay for both.

There are no real threats for songs moving into the top 10 – most of the teens have been out for a while and are staying fairly constant. If a song is gonna move into the top 10 next week it will likely be a debut rather than a song rising.

Billboard 200

The Billboard 200 is the album sales chart. Like the Hot 100 this is the industry standard chart for albums.

Like the Hot 100, the Billboard 200 is released every Tuesday. It tracks only sales and streams. Sales can come in digital form – iTunes etc. – or physical – CDs & Vinyl. As of January 2020, both streams from conventional streaming services like Apple Music and streams from official music videos on YouTube count towards weekly sales. Paid streams are weighted with 1,250 streams being equivalent to one album sale or 3,750 free streams – think Spotify free or YouTube. These numbers are used as they largely represent the number of streams required to generate $10 – the price of an album.

Projections for album sales tend to come fairly exclusively from a site called HitsDailyDouble and have a range associated with them. Listed below are some ranges for sales and the type of artists you’ll find in each to give an idea but sales are dependent on the artist.

25k – pretty small niche artists like Jay Electronica or very new artists without an established fanbase

25k-75k – older more niche artists like Pusha T and new up & coming artists who usually have a hit.

75k-150k – artists selling this much first week will usually debut at #1. Established artists who are reasonably popular – think Nav, Thug, Gunna

150-250k – older superstars on the decline popularity wise like Katy Perry or Jay-Z or artists on the brink of supeom like Uzi or Lil Baby

250k-500k – these are your big hitters. Artists who are relevant and popular and usually have a hit that era. Kanye, Cole, Weeknd etc.

500k+ - these are your sales megastars. There are about 5-6 artists who can sell this much, and it usually involves a long rollout. Think Ed Sheeran, Drake, Taylor, Kendrick.

Chart Trends

Pure sales are dying. Very few people buy albums outright now and pure sales have fallen off a cliff as a result. Artists who sell a lot pure tend to have several of the following things true: using bundles, older fanbase, pop and/or a very committed fanbase.

Drake’s last four project sales show the rapid death of pure sales

Holding – the advent of streaming has led to artists managing to return to #1 multiple times. Most recently Roddy Rich had extremely strong sales holds (dropping only a small amount week to week) and returned to #1 multiple times. Strong holds is often because of a massive hit (The Box) or because the album has multiple popular songs or is very well received (My Turn by Lil Baby).

Part II: Label Tactics

That was a lot longer than I expected so I’m gonna be a little briefer here. As I mentioned at the start a lot of this stuff is questionable in terms of legality so there’s not a lot of talk about it from labels.

Overt Tactics

Music Videos

Music videos count for both the Billboard 200 and Hot 100, but they’re mainly used as a Hot 100 tool. I see video usage in two boats – to push for a strong debut or to bump a song back up. A video will add a fair amount to a song’s points (maybe around 10-15%) so releasing a song with a video first week can help be the edge in it debuting #1 – Rain on Me is a recent example. Music Videos are also used to push a charting song further – Rockstar will likely have a video soon either to push it to #1 or to try and keep it at #1. The timing of video release is strategic to benefit the song as much as possible.

Remixes

Remixes are mainly used for Hot 100 position. They are almost always used to push a song further – they don’t release with a debut because it cannibalizes streams from the original too much. Because remixes count towards points regardless of whether it earns credit, they can help to keep a song charting high or to push it into the next echelon – The Weeknd released an In Your Eyes remix with Doja Cat to try and push the song towards the top 20 and aim to keep it there.

Lil Nas X achieved the longest running #1 song ever largely thanks to the release of multiple remixes

Deluxe Versions

Originally deluxe version involved a few additional songs being added. This helped boost streams and sales.
The new deluxe version was popularized by Uzi. It involves releasing a deluxe version of the album with an entire new B side of songs either later in the week or weeks later. By doing this they gain a significant number of new streams and/or purchases in order to hear the new songs thus boosting their sales. This only helps with album sales.

Many Songs, Short Songs

As streams are counted on an individual song basis another common tactic is to have lengthy tracklists. More tracks in an album means more streams needed for one playthrough and thus more streams and more sales. Short songs are also common – for a stream to count it needs to be 30 seconds or longer. By releasing short songs, they get played more times (in 4 minutes I can listen a 4-minute song once or a 1-minute song 4 times). This gives more streams and more sales. Short songs are a tactic on both charts.

Bundles

Artists sell merchandise or tour tickets on their website and that merchandise is bundled with a copy of the album. When a consumer buys a piece of merch it counts as an album sale. The vast majority of artists do this to varying extents – Travis is a particularly bad offender. Billboard updated their chart rules last year to alleviate the issue. To qualify now bundles must be available without the album as well and at least $3.50 cheaper than with the album. The albums also must now be redeemed by the purchaser – if the purchaser does nothing with the attached album they do not count as a sale.

Some of the bundles available for Astroworld by Travis Scott. New bundles released daily

Discounts

Super simple – sell the album or song for less. Lower price = higher sales. Usually happens when it’s a close race for #1 see Kenny Chesney v Drake.

More Subtle Tactics

There’s a few of these so I’m gonna be pretty vague – if you want more info ask.

Paid Playlists

Labels pay Spotify for playlist placements like Rap Caviar – essentially guarantees streams. Usually done for singles and to push a song from an album as the single.

Drake came under fire in 2018 for appearing on the cover of every Spotify curated playlist upon the release of Scorpion

Influencers

Labels pay large accounts – influencers like Kylie Jenner, meme pages or similar – to post songs. People hear the songs and go and listen on their own. Kylie Jenner did this with Location by Khalid.

Kylie Jenner playing Location by Khalid on her Snapchat let to a 2000%+ boost in streams

Tik Tok

The perfect storm of music marketing. Labels pay people to make trends and for big creators on the platform to do them. Millions of people hear the catchiest parts of songs over and over again. For an example of this look at Savage by Megan Thee Stallion.

One of many sites that operate as an intermediary between labels and influencers on platforms like Tik Tok

Payola

Been an issue since the 50s. Labels pay radio to play songs. Technically illegal so labels use third-parties called promoters to do this. As radio counts for the Hot 100 this directly impacts charts.

Fake Streams

Probably not that big of an issue for big artists. It costs a few hundred dollars to buy 100,000 streams and at that price it’s not that worth it for labels and they run the big risk of being caught and severely reprimanded.

A site offering fake Spotify streams

Fake Data

Again, not a massive issue but it happens. 6ix9ine accused Bieber and Ariana of this a few weeks ago. It tangibly happened with Tidal in 2016 who allegedly lied about hundreds of millions of streams.

Sponsored Songs

Some streaming services including Youtube run ads that are 30 seconds long and are just a clip of a song. This counts as a stream – essentially buying streams.

Inb4 @RosettaStone @Realfam2007 and all the pop stans

I know it's true

in

who?

dot

Bro you put way too much effort into these threads. You’re wasting it on ktt users man they won’t read s***

lol this one I already wrote an essay on hegemonic control in the industry for a class so it wasn't much work

but eh as long as a few people read it or even read some im happy

also sorry this one was so long and I went quick through the label tactics - if you know any more things lmk or if you want clarification on anything

Shout out to Kenny Chesney

this is insane

Thanks I appreciate the effort 👍

yeah this p much explains it. imo while tiktok is still a force to mess with it's still not good for already established artists. its really only good for artists who wanna get their music "out there" and even then tiktok is shootihg themselves in the foot by messing around with the algorithm. I remember freddie dread, savage ga$p and david shawty getting big off of tiktok but now unless you're already a huge ass artist, you're not gonna get any plays. it does f*** all for already established artists since they already have the label backing them up anyways.

I do see a lot more songs that are tiktok bait though, that one s***ty country rap song about trucks was one of them, tootsie slide was huge tiktok bait as well. imo for the next little while we're gonna see more songs that are essentially tiktok bait and it's gonna be a trend for a while till it dies out.

Rockstar popped on TikTok first and then streams went up, now it’s poised for #1. Established artists can get use out of TikTok.

That’s a good point about established artists - I’ve seen a lot of popular artists try to get a trend and very few have succeeded

I think it’s not useful for keeping a song charting but if you’re a small artist and you get a trend for a few weeks that can push your song into the charts where it can pick up steam - Roses, Savage, Say So etc

I didn’t know they’d changed the algorithm either but yea it’s a dumb decision considering that they could be finding a way to make bank from labels

And yea I’m sure we’ll continue to see that the question will be how many actually succeed

Yeah they changed the alghorithim a lot. They censored blacklivesmatter for a bit (after saying it was a """""bug""""") and basically made it to where if you're not conventionally attractive you're not gonna be on the for you page due to """""bullying problems"""", which sucks cause a lot of the "ugly" creators was what made it have some charm since it was essentially vine 2, and they were the ones driving the unconventional music around.

I'd give tiktok another couple of years till it's gone, but on the bright side soundcloud is having a resurgance. Don't wanna derail the thread here and i'll probably wait till you make one but there's a scene brewing underground wise. S***s crazy

@fbi this guy knows too much

Might have to look into it

Tf

that drake s***