Music News: Billboard revises Hot 100 criteria

Dust2

http://www.billboard.com/news/whitne...06203562.story

Quote:

Whitney Houston returns to the Billboard Hot 100 top 10 this week as her signature hit from 1992 -- it reigned for 14 weeks -- "I Will Always Love You" re-enters at No. 7, fueled by an enormous resurgence in digital sales (195,000, up 6723%, according to Nielsen SoundScan) and radio airplay (18 million audience impressions, up 915%, according to Nielsen BDS).

Houston places two other former No. 1s on the chart: "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)" (from 1987) at No. 35 and "Greatest Love of All" (1986) at No. 41.

While historically, catalog or recurrent songs have not been eligible for inclusion on the Hot 100, this is not the first time Billboard has charted such activity. As recently as 2001, following the attacks of Sept. 11, the Hot 100 welcomed Lee Greenwood's 1984 country hit "God Bless the USA" and Houston's spine-tingling rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner," the latter of which had reached the chart's top 20 a decade earlier. At the time, the inclusion of these songs properly captured the musical mood as the nation reacted to that tragic day.

"As the digital age has progressed," says Billboard director of charts Silvio Pietroluongo, "with the immediacy it provides, the line has blurred between the relevancy of new and older recordings, which are for the most part equally accessible from one's home computer."

"Going forward we feel that it is the proper move to allow older titles posting enough activity to return to the Hot 100 if ranking in the chart's upper half." (Billboard's policy of removing descending songs from the Hot 100 after 20 weeks if ranking below No. 50 remains unchanged).

What do you think of this new rule change?

To me, the Hot 100 measures a song popularity of a given week (ending on Sunday). And sales is the BEST judge of popularity. So I am glad that Billboard is doing this.

Яeo.

I think its fair enough.

Bliss

Don't like this new rule.

Br0ckk

Well, we can look forward to "All I Want For Christmas" hitting the top 10 every year.

Doc

Quote:

Originally posted by Br0ckk

Well, we can look forward to "All I Want For Christmas" hitting the top 10 every year.

Mariah, YES!

I'm here for this. The chart should accurately represent what's popular, not just what's popular and new.

Rico Shameless v2

I like it. Anticipating the change to a sales-only chart in some years.

Dust2

Quote:

Originally posted by Br0ckk

Well, we can look forward to "All I Want For Christmas" hitting the top 10 every year.

If it is among the 10 most popular songs that week, I don't see why it can't chart.

Also, does that song do well enough with sales and airplay to be among the top 10? If I remember correctly, it peaked at around 15-20 on Itunes.

Crazy Lights

Quote:

Originally posted by Doc

Mariah, YES!

I'm here for this. The chart should accurately represent what's popular, not just what's popular and new.

+1

jomarr

Fair enough.

B2R4D

I like this criteria. It's a more accurate representation of what people are buying.

Porygon2z

Quote:

Originally posted by Dust2

If it is among the 10 most popular songs that week, I don't see why it can't chart.

Also, does that song do well enough with sales and airplay to be among the top 10? If I remember correctly, it peaked at around 15-20 on Itunes.

In the past Billboard had a rule against Holiday songs...

watch them apply it again against Mariah

KitKat

I'm chart-clueless. Is this because I Will Always Love You will most likely make a comeback? Or is that unrelated?

jomarr

Quote:

Originally posted by Porygon2z

In the past Billboard had a rule against Holiday songs...

watch them apply it again against Mariah

This. Mariah probably wont rechart since its a holiday song. It is applicable to this rule but is conflicted by another one.

BeamMeUp

A Michael Jackson download day mess.

The stans will go IN & Katy will no longer tie the record.

Guero

I think they should get rid of that "remove any songs that fall under 50 after 20 weeks charting" rule too.

MonsterNavy

YAS. Marry The Night might still enter the top 10 ten years from now.

NOW

Wait so are they making an exception just for Whitney? I'm not complaining about that specifically, but it's like they're being biased towards the new acts in favor of the legends. Also that doesn't seem fair, if they're gonna do this, they should open it up to any song that has enough points to chart, regardless of how old the song is.

GoodMusicLover

Quote:

Going forward we feel that it is the proper move to allow older titles posting enough activity to return to the Hot 100 if ranking in the chart's upper half." (Billboard's policy of removing descending songs from the Hot 100 after 20 weeks if ranking below No. 50 remains unchanged.

Most people have no problem with it now because most of us love Whitney. But what if a few older songs chart in the upper half and push a descending song out of the top 50? That descending song won't be able to come back even if all those older songs were to fall out of the top 50 the next week.

Can you imagine if the older Madonna and Whitney songs had pushed Adele's RITD out of the top 50 the week before the Grammys? RITD's massive sales and huge comeback would have been voided (in terms of charting of course).

I love Whitney, but I don't like this decision at all.

Rico Shameless v2

These occurrences won't happen often, that's why they are going ahead and just making it a less strict rule. Old songs aren't just going to spur up 500%+ every week.

HandsOn

Quote:

Originally posted by GoodMusicLover

Most people have no problem with it now because most of us love Whitney. But what if a few older songs chart in the upper half and push a descending song out of the top 50? That descending song won't be able to come back even if all those older songs were to fall out of the top 50 the next week.

Can you imagine if the older Madonna and Whitney songs had pushed Adele's RITD out of the top 50 the week before the Grammys? RITD's massive sales and huge comeback would have been voided (in terms of charting of course).

I love Whitney, but I don't like this decision at all.

No. It's only if the song remains below #50 for more than 20 weeks.