Member Since: 4/9/2012
Posts: 1,916
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Triggerman joined the discussion.
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The Long Term Effects of Billboard’s Country Chart Changes
If Billboard’s rules stay in place,the effects could be somewhere between dramatic and historic. The first and most obvious effect will be the new Billboard charts drastically favoring “crossover” country stars and other country stars with pop appeal. Taylor Swift is the beneficiary at the moment, but bands like Sugerland and Lady Antebellum could be next with new releases.
A&R personnel at record labels big and small decide what singles get released to radio, what songs to promote, what artists to sign based on very close attention to charts such as Billboard. If “crossover” artists and songs are given a new advantage on the Billboard charts, its only a matter of time before labels and artists begin to produce more songs that will attain the crossover appeal to gain more chart traction. In other words, expect even more pop-oriented country songs, more pop songs that call themselves country, and more non-country artists attempting to join the country format in an attempt to gain advantage by the new Billboard rules.
In the long run, this will erode the autonomy the country format has enjoyed since the beginning of Billboard’s charts and the inauguration of the genre, even more than what is already happening naturally with the inclusion of rap, pop, and rock in country. Billboards new rules are almost like a de-facto christening of the mono-genre.
What Billboard Got Right, and What They Got Wrong
Billboard is the most-respected and most universally-recognized publisher of music charts in the world. The reason they have stayed on top for so long and preserved their integrity is because they don’t sway to the industry, and because they strive for accuracy and fairness. In fairness to their new rules, the majority of them probably do make the country song charts a more accurate portrayal of the popularity of country singles. Spotify, Rhapsody, and digital downloads are growing in importance while radio is slowly loosing relevancy.
The spurious element of the new rules is the crossover radio play rule, and this plays out in the anomaly of having one artist’s performance do such a 360 as Taylor Swift’s did under the new format.
A rumor that has swirled around Taylor Swift for years is that her first album’s sales were unfairly bloated when a bulk purchase of albums was made, by either her family, management, or label. This has never been proven, but Billboard’s charts are not effected by such things, making them a more reliable pulse of popularity than sales numbers. Madonna ‘s last album saw bloated first week numbers that were then revised. But now that Billboard will be considering a sales element in digital downloads, this could lead to manipulations from artists, management teams, or labels that can buy downloads and effect chart performance.
Don’t Blame Taylor Swift, Blame…
Trust me when I say that Taylor Swift had nothing to do with this herself. She’s too busy picking out her favorite purple glitter eye shadow, trying to stay in tune, and counting the money she has already made. She is the huge benefactor to the new rules, but in no way was she a part of the decision. The fact that she benefits may beg the question of who truly may be either behind, or persuading the direction of the new rules. But up to this point, that has yet to be determined, and jumping to conclusions would be unfair to all parties.
Billboard is to blame, but since they got some of the new rules right, the blame is partial. People should be asking if any of the new rules came about from lobbying from labels, which ones, and why.
What Can Be Done?
I believe the reformatting of the Billboard chats could turn out to be the biggest story in country music in 2012, and could have massive reverberations on the business and sonic level. People who are against the new rules should first give Billboard credit for getting right what they did, for taking the power over the charts out of the hands of radio formatters, many who’ve been consolidated into massive corporations like Clear Channel who could unfairly dominate the charts while the general country population’s tastes reflected something completely different.
People who are concerned about the integrity of the country format should speak up and voice their concern for including crossover data in the country charts. This new format is still fresh, and Billboard is not stupid. They want their charts to be fair more than anyone else, because it is vital to their legitimacy.
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http://www.savingcountrymusic.com/bi...rossover-songs
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think about long long it'll take WANEGBT to fall off top 20 on both itunes/radio .. thats how long its gonna stay on top!! 
its gonna be so much fun! 
who knows RED might slay the souls by then too.. 
