Why? And Billboard not counting them is even more confusing, nevermind public opinion.

• I can understand not counting multi copies digital or physical being bought by one person (even tho i dont think thats a big deal either within reason, like maybe 3 to 5 max is reasonable per head imo) to stop manipulation. Especially if the label themselves buys a s***load or whatever.

But bundles I dont get. Bundles are more expensive than the CD alone. Bundles are merch related to said artist & album. People buying the bundle are still obviously fans, theyre paying for the CD to get 5 to 10 percent off or whatever on a shirt etc. It also helps the consumer with not as much money.

🚨 Bundles are allowed & counted in any other entertainment medium. There are movie bundles, video game title/console bundles, even books. Lets not even talk about collectors/group editions that exist in all 4 mediums.

I dont get why the fan getting a slight bonus is bad. If anything it adds mostly to their merch sales since the merch is always more expensive. Also physical & digital album purchases arent even that popular anymore. I dont see an issue to "award" those that still like to own their music. Again, like modern movies & video games in the last few years do.

• Should discounted albums not count during their on sale period then? I bought Take Care in 2011 while in HS during Black Friday for $7 (first album I bought with my own money as a young broke Sophmore teen). Should my purchase not have counted towards its plat & week status since it wasnt full MSRP? Thus i might have not bought it ever otherwise if it was "fairly" full priced?

I dont get it, & I think it f***s up artists a lot. Billboard (and streaming services) have been doing a lot of anti artist things lately since the bundle ban imo, things thats been around for decades theyre now taking out & adding new restrictions still to this day. Especially for smaller artists, bundles are very important & it plus other new restrictions/rules f*** them over big time with sales, exposure, engagement, hype & charting.

🚨 And yes, I know the artist/label still gets paid off the bundle purchase, they just wont have it count as a number for the actual charts & milestone data. But that makes labels less likely to give the greenlight to do it now since there isnt anything for them, & still, bundles should still be counted as a legit buy-in anyways.

Non-fans are not buying these bundles because the bundles are always releated to the artist/album/label in shirt or poster form. Its literally fan geared.

Idk. Just seems like a way to hurt artists & in turn hurt fans.

Mainly in Rap bundles are only looked down upon too (twitter & ktt speaking), while every other genre from my experience, fans enjoy & support it.

In reality only redacted stans cared about bundles. At least on ktt2. I never saw the issue with them. Its not like you're forced to buy them

It’s cause they typically bundle every piece of Merch with them so if you buy Merch it’s equivalent to buying the album. A lot of ppl will get double counted cause they’re only gonna listen on streaming and not the copy they got

artists/labels were bundling for the sole purpose of chart manipulation and we know that because when the rule changed a lot of their approaches changed

The billboard charts are meant to represent the most consumed forms of music in any given week. Its trying to be as objective as possible in regards to total units. Its also the measure for the industry so there’s a lot of benefit that comes a long to better #s for an artist/label

nothing is wrong with bundled items though tbh it’s just when artists are overt in using their music solely for the titles and accolades, it’s really disingenuous and s***ty

It’s also how Travis was able to artificially inflate his star power but that’s another discussion

Thats still stupid because its your money, you bought the music you should be able to do what you want with it. If I wanna listen on streaming and keep the cd for myself for display or whatever then thats my business. Its my money. How is that any different from fans buying multiple copies back in the day

billboard is trying to measure impact overall, 1 fan buying 4 versions is not the same impact as 4 fans buying 1 version

1 impression per track isn’t the same as 4 impressions per track. it’s important to cleanse and contextualize the data. Music should speak for itself, sales isn’t a measure of quality to an extent. Numbers don’t lie but the people recording them do

yeah nothing wrong w it and if a fan supports their favorite artist by buying multiple copies that’s good on them, more money to their favorite artist, but it’s gonna skew the data and link act expectations for the rest of the industry if that makes sense

Because we want the charts to have a more accurate reflection of consumer choices. Bundles were always used to manipulate sales.

How is it skewing the data if the product is till being bought? The data is how much music is being bought. They show you the splits between Steams and physicals. So im still not seeing how the data us being muddied

Because Billboard wants to silence the BTS Army...

I get what you’re saying, the thing is that billboard isn’t just about how many units have been moved, but what is the most popular album. that’s subjective in its own right and can be interpreted by total sales, but it has to be regulated to a degree so people can’t abuse it to take #1

it’s not a perfect system they have by no means but the hottest singles and albums gotta factor in unique impressions

the argument I’ve heard is that its an inaccurate representation of music consumption. Basically no different that stans on twitter with brain worms who buy 10 copies of their artists album

It’s just number manipulation one way or another.

Prevent bundles, legitimate fans will only stream or just buy merchandise and become the 1/1300 person on the album stream, reducing the #s

Allow bundles, stans and fans inflate album #s buy technically buying merchandise even tho the album tags along.

The issue is the past and records of the past. In the new era there have been so many schemes to try and get s*** that is not organically the most popular into the top spot. Not saying the past was all perfect but was generally a reflection of how things were at the time and what people were f***ing with.

Now bundles and other tactics (encouraging via social media exact instructions on how to purchase multiple times) are ways to skew numbers that used to be relatively pure and were closer reflections to the truth.

It’s the same tactic with singles, we are in an era where songs fall from a top 10 to off billboard in a week and it’s unprecedented for the same reason.

If the rules arnt adjusted to keep up with the times one way or another you’ll never have the full picture scope of how popular these things actually are.

Will we ever see another artist sell a mil in a week legitimately? Doubtful. But what’s the right way to show that someone whose close is Eminem/Wayne peak status?

I learned that on KTT make it their identity when they believe something to be true

But in reality bundles are how stuff is sold

90% of the time u buy a playstation bundled with something that's not a BAD thing for the product or anything

But it's KTT

But the fact that billboard counts free streams on YouTube and Spotify less tells you they also care about how much is being spent.

Adele had like 800k sales and over 600k of that was vinyls, box sets and CDs. You think most of those vinyl buyers are listening to the vinyl daily or are they using it as a decoration/collectors item? No issue with it because people bought it but how is the dynamic that much different than someone including a T shirt or a hoodie with their cd or vinyl?

because the sales are supposed to be about how much music you can sell, not how much merch

simple

I think it f***s up artists a lot

you know what else f***s up artists a lot

chart chasing lol

Ironically bundles show choice more than streaming does lol

It’s not like you’re forced to buy bundles, people went out of their way to buy them and the sales reflected that.

Official videogame bundles with consoles don’t count also in any serious videogame sales chart , this is just the same the reason why you buy the bundled product is the product not the album, the album is just an add-on it makes no sense to count if for charts

People really act like streaming farms dont exist. I knew a 1D fan aswell who was part of the 1D UK community. They would all keep their laptop on in the background all day when one of them dropped a single. As they went to work etc

No different to bundles imo, other than the actual artists being screwed from making more money ironically lol

I loved bundles

It was the only time mainstream artists put out interesting merch, now it's back to mid

Like some people care more about numbers that are quite literally meaningless than getting cool s*** that reps an artist you like and I think it's hilarious

Kylie actually

Most the time it’s not even a cd it’s a digital copy so it’s just. Way to count Merch as sales

Look how much sales went down without bundles, it’s more reflective of how much an album actually being heard