BILLBOARD: Viral 'First Kiss' Video Sends Soko To No. 1 Debut On Streaming Songs, Top 10 Start On Hot 100

 

March 19, 2014 2:39 PM EDT

 

"We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow," a single by atmospheric alt singer/songwriter Soko, debuts at No. 1 on Billboard's Streaming Songs chart with 11.5 million U.S. streams, according to Nielsen BDS. The quickly-building viral hit concurrently launches at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 (which measures streaming, airplay and sales).

 

Of the song's streaming sum (in the week ending March 16), 99% are from YouTube, the majority of which stem from users who viewed the viral video "First Kiss," which hit the Internet on March 10.

 

"Tomorrow" bows on the Hot 100 with 96 percent of its points from streaming. It also sold 10,000 downloads in the week ending March 16, up, like its parent album, from a minuscule amount the prior week.

 

Soko nets the year's first top 10 Hot 100 debut and the first top 10 launch for an act's first entry since Ariana Grande began at No. 10 with "The Way" (April 13, 2013). It's the highest arrival for a new act since Baauer's "Harlem Shake" bowed at No. 1 to begin its five-week command. Like "Tomorrow," "Shake" surged to its success via viral means, as fans famously created masses of clips featuring the song and its feverish dance.

 

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/...ut-on-streaming

 

 

 

And here's the campaign video in question:

 

 

 

:drama: Things like this really make a mockery of the Hot 100, high first week sales are rarely enough for a top 20 debut (Shakira and Coldplay both missed out) but viral videos are very often enough despite the fact people don't even view them primarily for the song.

 

By the way anyone who wants to retain faith in humanity, don't read the YouTube comments on that video...

Uh oh... probably should have guessed 'Harlem Shake 2.0' would happen right about now :lol: Chances of #1?

Uh oh... probably should have guessed 'Harlem Shake 2.0' would happen right about now :lol: Chances of #1?

All you need is hundreds of parody videos :lol:

 

 

 

Uh oh... probably should have guessed 'Harlem Shake 2.0' would happen right about now :lol: Chances of #1?

 

If it was going to get anywhere near #1 it'd probably have done so this week - although I'm not sure how the chart dates align with the popularity of the video etc. so maybe not.

Well the article said it's "quickly building" so it may not yet have peaked...

 

When Harlem Shake was #1, its US streams were:

• 103 million
• 98 million
• 54 million
• 48 million
• 28 million

And in that last week where it at 28m streams, it also had nearly 150k downloads.

 

So I don't see Soko getting to #1.

 

 

I'll give it one week before I write it off :lol:

To be fair, we do currently have Don't You Want Me in the top 10 on UK iTunes. :lol:

Oh my God that it utter madness :wacko:.

 

:drama: Things like this really make a mockery of the Hot 100, high first week sales are rarely enough for a top 20 debut (Shakira and Coldplay both missed out) but viral videos are very often enough despite the fact people don't even view them primarily for the song.

 

Even that's an understatement in this case. The song is almost completely irrelevant to the video and its viral success. It's background music that could easily be substituted by countless other songs. Even if there was no music at all, it's fair to say the video would still be a massive viral hit because of its content. Basically the video should have nothing to do with the Hot 100, other than the relatively small resulting sales boost to the song. The chart success of 'Harlem Shake' was bad enough but at least the track had a much more central focus to the thousands of viral videos (which were ultimately copying the original music video AFAIK). This is an absolute joke though!

Edited March 19, 201411 yr by Noahspike

:lol: the Hot 100 is becoming a parody of itself at the moment.

They should change the rules so only songs from official acounts will count towards the Hot100 as this is pretty ridiculous!

so a song that almost nobody is motivated enough about to buy is Top 10 (in the Uk that would be about 2,000 equivalent downloads and going Top 10 over tracks selling 5 or 10 times that)? I think that pretty much undermines the case for streaming in the UK. Hype. Why not include theme tunes to TV shows, they get millions of "hits" each week online and also sell hardly anything on download. If that sounds flippant, well, both are mostly getting hits for the visual content, not the music...

 

If it's good enough, it'll sell a la Gangnam Style, and streaming data not needed.

 

The Human League: is entirely different because it's still based on sales, and people presumably play it after buying at least ONCE....maybe even twice! shock horror!

 

 

I'm just fascinated that Soko is peaking in relevance in 2014, I didn't even know she had done anything in the last 5 years! :lol:

To be honest, they can't stick with just "official" videos since there's lots of unofficial videos (e.g. the home-made lyric videos) which can get lots of streams on Youtube, and it's unfair not to count them imo, since people are obviously listening to those for the songs.

 

Honestly, it's a ridiculous amount of work to have to go through every video on Youtube and then decide if people would be watching them for the video or the audio. Plus people say Crazy Frog and Eamon and Frankee, and so on make a mokery of the UK charts, but we all lived through that fine. :lol:

difference being people actually parted with cash to get them in the charts (and they even allowed dvd's with video attached to chart). Youtube is free. You can purchase views of videos in pubs and lots of people see them - that's far more of a basis to chart something than free. Free downloads, we should all recall, are not chart eligible. Why not count them then? a free download is no different in any way whatseover to a youtube view - except to you get to keep the download and play it again, and you don't get to keep the youtube video.

 

It's all mad...as in insane, illogical and double-standards. One rule for all-powerful Youtube another for individual artists who might choose to reward fans that the big companies get nothing from.

It all goes back to the perennial defense of the Hot 100 -- that it's not a sales chart but a popularity chart.

 

I think Billboard is trying to figure out how to deal with rapidly changing trends in how songs are heard and shared and enjoyed. I agree that this current calculation is resulting in some silly things. I don't have nearly as much of a problem with Soko's top 10 debut than Gaga's Dope last year since that was the result of a single streamed event that happened to feature the song vs an intentionally repeated/shared/replayed viral video.

 

I've always defended the Youtube rule because it's still a better gauge of popularity than radio airplay, in my opinion, which places 100% of the control in the hands of corporations who control all the pop radio stations in the country. And I maintain there was something kind of wonderful about Harlem Shake reaching #1 because it was at the peak of a huge popular phenomenon centered around that song. It really was the most popular song in the country. But to be fair it also had good sales and decent airplay at its peak (neither of which does the Soko song have).

 

The only good thing about this kind of streaming is that it makes the chart interesting.

 

If it wasn't for Soko, the only new entry in the Top 50 would be a track from the Frozen soundtrack.