Hot - And Bothered...

We all know that the singles charts have become a complete joke in recent years – especially the US one. I completely stopped following the US single chart in the late 90s when Billboard decided that somewhere around 85-90% of data used to compile the charts would come from radio play – with what little was left coming from actual sales. This meant, in many cases that the biggest selling single in the country was barely charting on the Hot 100 – because it was a song that either „didn‘t fit in“ to the radio playlists, or because the artist/s was considered „over the hill“.

Now, with all the bloody digital things, Billboard are using, of all things, YouTube hits to count towards their charts! So, if I were to check out a song on YouTube, finding it awful and never, ever wanting to hear it again, I have just contributed to the songs chart success!

Of course this opens up several cans of worms. Example:

Lady Gaga has been criticised by Billboard boss Bill Werde for promoting the inflation of views for her new music video.

The US Hot 100 recently adjusted their chart-placing formula to include online streams, which include the number of clicks an online lyrics video, audio stream or music video gets on YouTube and VEVO.

Gaga urged her fans to watch the clip for her new single "Applause" and then retweet it to urge other fans to dramatically inflate the number of streams. "We count multiple views per person. Go to VEVO and keep watching a video on your own and we count it," Werde explained.

"An artist tweeting out and facebooking a link that enables a fan to hit play and leave their computer is not in the spirit of what we chart. Tweeting that other artists game the system is like telling a cop other people were speeding. When we catch it we stop it." He continued: "Please keep this in context. Streaming is only a portion of Hot100 and surely overwhelming percent of views have been well-earned. I just hate to see anyone try to game the charts, be it fans or artists. It's not in the spirit of what we do, celebrating success."

Gaga's fans were accused of creating YouTube playlists that would contain the same "Applause" video 150 times, clicking play and letting the streams accumulate through the night.

Of course manipulating the charts isn't a new thing. Who can forget the Mariah Carey thing in the late 90s, when her record company gave away her singles to the record stores. In return the stores promoted them heavily and sold them for less then 50 cents - which in return made people buy them since they were much, much cheaper then singles by other artists. But with this latest decision Billboard have once again made sure that their singles chart does not in the slightest reflect what people in the States are actually buying. Now excuse me while I go and create a couple of playlists for the new Cher single - I'll just push play, mute and go to sleep while the diva ranks up a massive hit...