This thread is brought to you by the numbers 403K, 1.28M and 3.1M.
Billboard reports that “Despacito” retains the top rung of the Hot 100 chart for a second week as it makes its bid to be “The Song of the Summer”. The rest of the top 10 pretty much holds steady with two sons swapping spaces and Miley Cyrus’s “Malibu” climbing into the top 10.
1 (1) “Despacito” Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber 115K [#1] (+11%), 59.4M streams [#1] (+9%), 72M AI (+27%)
2 (2) “That’s What I Like” Bruno Mars 173M AI [#!] (-1%)
3 (3) “I’m the One” DJ Khaled featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper and Lil Wayne 77K (-4%), 45.7M AI (0%) 69M AI (+28%)
4 (4) “Shape of You” Ed Sheeran
5 (5) “Humble” Kendrick Lamar
6 (7) “Something Just Like This” The Chainsmokers featuring Coldplay
7 (6) “Mask Off” Future
8 (8) “XO TOUR Llif3” Lil Uzi Vert
9 (9) “Stay” Alessia Cara and Zedd
10 (64) “Malibu” Miley Cyrus 77K, 21.5M streams, 13.5M AI
Merchandising is where you can make a lot of money. Music merchandising retail sales earned $3.1B in 2016 (up 9.4% from the previous year).
Irving Azoff weighs in on the value of YouTube for artists: “My report about the ‘Value of YouTube to the Music Industry’ would be really brief because I can summarize the benefit of YouTube to artists in a word: none”. I don’t know Irving – I find a lot of music on YouTube that I later buy. He’s wonderfully grumpy in the article.
HDD reports that the number of singles being pushed to Pop radio is up 25% this year. There are a number of big singles released just recently. As the article notes “This has become more pervasive lately at certain labels, where songs are traded out of rotation at radio for other, “more important” ones, thus killing the artists whose spins are traded away.”
The article goes on to talk about One Direction and notes that Harry Styles “Sign of the Times” had an SPS of 403K+ last week. It also notes that the song’s 6 minute length is creating issues for airplay and streaming. Zayn’s “PILLOWTALK” remains the group’s biggest solo hit with 3.1M SPS while his Taylor Swift collaboration sits at 2.3M SPS. His current single is at 684K SPS. His reluctance to perform is said to be hurting his reputation in the biz. For Nial, his debut, “This Town”, earned 1.28M SPS.
The article also states that the boys were wise to sign with different labels to avoid cannibalizing each other for spins (as noted above). Simon still isn’t happy about it.
