Quote:
Originally posted by PurrKaty
It's not irrelevant, Demi just debuted at #12 with her sales this week, and barely any airplay & streaming. To top the Hot 100 you need a combination of sales, streaming, and airplay. The only reason why Harlem Shake is an exception to the rule is because every 30 second parody counts as a view towards streaming, but the songs decreasing like crazy and probably only has 1 week left at #1 on the Hot 100. After that Thrift Shop may get a couple more weeks but then When I Was Your Man or Stay will be the next to top the chart. Harlem Shake is no threat really because its streaming has dropped about 50% just over last week alone. There's not gonna be a parody anytime so that people may thousands of 30 second clips anytime soon, so airplay and digital are still a driving force in toping the chart. Also there have been examples were airplay was overpowering(Mariah Carey - We Belong Together was #1 basically on airplay alone) and digital (Flo Rida - Right Round & Taylor Swift - WRNEGBT both had the #1 on lock with sales alone). These are just a few examples. The charts fair in my opinion, some songs just dominate certain aspects while others need the balance of all 3 to dominate.  |
Good post. Especially the bold bit. A normal "viral" song would've never had even half a quarter of the streams Harlem Shake got (even the biggest one, Gangnam Style, peaked at 30 million US streams per week). People are over-reacting to it imo. The goat video of I Knew You Were Trouble went viral a couple of weeks ago and it only boosted the song one place.
Candle in the Wind by Elton John is a good example (since We Belong Together still had good sales and WANEGBT had good airplay on the first week it got #1). Candle in the Wind sold like 3.5 million in one week I think (and obviously debuted at #1), so that's kind of like the sales version of Harlem Shake, and if it it was released today it would've got #1 without any airplay or streaming. Harlem Shake and Candle in the Wind are exceptions. Situations like that almost never happen.
and it's selling so good.
