April 5, 20196 yr Hello My Love Westlife sold 8,567 downloads and 1,667 CDs, the rest from streaming (10,441). Friday to Thursday. We charted higher in downloads this time, technically hello my love was #5 in downloads 7k streams equivalent isn't bad Edited April 5, 20196 yr by myxxd
April 5, 20196 yr Fans fighting over streaming on twitter. If you guys can see this, you can stream a song in all platforms even at work, just put it on a lower volume or on an earphone and put in repeat mode everywhere like Spotify and refresh if you have time in youtube Edited April 5, 20196 yr by myxxd
April 5, 20196 yr Sick of all these streaming, streaming, streaming importance. Just decided to upload two videos from one legend in this game, maybe you're interested in listening to what he'd said and then judge yourself about Top 40 or whatever crap that represent music in today's market. Of course many will disagree (but hey, at least enjoy some good music in between!): Not comparing Westlife to Oasis because it is just insane and Oasis were in the league of their own but there are facts which Noel Talked about them in these clips. And ... Better Man (No.26, 15,224 sales) is the second single from Westlife’s upcoming reunion album, following Hello My Love, which reached No.13 in January, and their 29th chart hit in all. It debuts at No.1 on the physical singles chart (1,247 CD sales), and at No.3 on the paid-for download chart (7,424 sales), but is let down by streaming, in which list it fails to make the Top 100. Wished all those 25 songs above Westlife were better or at least in same level of quality but most of them are not listenable even for 1 minute.
April 5, 20196 yr Of all those copies that Liam Gallagher's solo album sold in first week, almost 87% were physical. So he did'n need streaming to help him grab no.1. The same here could applied to Westlife. When you see there is no genuine love from public to streaming Better Man go and buy this single. You don't need anything else. I think Westlife have those 64k devoted fans to buying the single and sending it to no.1 but they don't doing their homework. So from another continent I should stream, stream and stream in whatever platform to somehow helping the lads. But I think it is just wasting time. So from now on releasing more HML kinda songs, not for yourself but for joy of non-Westlifer. I really can't understand how on earth fans here expect their favorite band doing something for other people but not for themselves. As I said even if Westlife release a duet with Dr.Dre there will be no respect from public or critics. In other word: SSDD (by media).
April 6, 20196 yr I thought it was enough and no more explanation was needed. Anyway I know albums are different than singles but by uploading those two videos I just wanted to show how someone as great as Noel Gallagher thinking about top 40 and how internet ruining music... About albums, their last album, the farewell one debuted at no.4 by the way. It was their last album, the last. Where We Are debuted at no.2 and Gravity debuted at no.3, no difference. I explained if fans deciding to buy physical copies of singles or albums from old school acts even streaming can't stop them. Liam Gallagher was just one example and it was released in this climate. If there was not something like "Ticket bundle" I think Westlife's new record would probably ended up at no.3 to 5.
April 6, 20196 yr I thought it was enough and no more explanation was needed. Anyway I know albums are different than singles but by uploading those two videos I just wanted to show how someone as great as Noel Gallagher thinking about top 40 and how internet ruining music... About albums, their last album, the farewell one debuted at no.4 by the way. It was their last album, the last. Where We Are debuted at no.2 and Gravity debuted at no.3, no difference. I explained if fans deciding to buy physical copies of singles or albums from old school acts even streaming can't stop them. Liam Gallagher was just one example and it was released in this climate. If there was not something like "Ticket bundle" I think Westlife's new record would probably ended up at no.3 to 5.
April 6, 20196 yr Author I think what myxxd was trying to say that its impossible to compare the success of singles and albums today. Old acts can still have success with the albums but singles are a whole different matter so you won’t see the likes of Sting or Celine Dion topping singles chart and I mention them just because they also have devoted fans who go to their concerts, I’m sure they also have 64 000 fans who could buy their singles but they are still not no. 1 every time. We could say that about any act who sells out successful tours around the world. I mean, even Take That are a perfect example, even as a trio they have successful albums but their singles aren’t. We all know Westlife will have a successful album, no one is even questioning that. But comparing albums and singles with the streaming era is like mixing apples and oranges. I mean, albums are still bought while even seeing a physical copy of the single is a rare sight nowadays. Streaming can certainly stop you from having a succesful single, no doubt about that. Edited April 6, 20196 yr by zeze88
April 6, 20196 yr I don't get how two top 30 singles in a row by act established in the 1990s can be seen as a disappointment in 2019 but that's Westlife fans for you I guess..
April 6, 20196 yr So it's their problem and there is no room for any bitter words about their chart position from fans. If you want to see them in best possible chart position and you know the current climate and music market you should act and not pretending to be a die-hard fan. When you know that there is no chance to be in top positions with this stupid rules and when you know many people streaming songs without knowing who is the act (based on self-made playlist by Spotify and other streaming services) you should take responsibility and counter it. That's my opinion which could be completely wrong but even Hello My Love just debuted at no.13 and at best would be no.8 (in case of releasing on Friday instead of Thursday) and never was in top 50 in streaming charts for one week. So you should do counter it. One user said Lady Gaga has the same dedicated fans. I think it's just joke. Westlife had the power to beating all those boy bands based on the vote of the fans and in final (I think) BSB lost against them in their homeland, with all their dedicated fans and it was the contest held by MTV US. So you can not comparing the fans of Lady Gaga and Westlife, sure Gaga has more fans but not 1/100 as devoted as Westlife, that was my point back then and because of that I'm surprised that why Just 9000 people bought Better Man and many of them not even bother themselves to stream it. By the way the last three albums of Take That (combined) sold north of 1 million copies and we're talking about the band that after reforming sold three 2+m albums. It is a complete disaster and as a fan of this band from early days their last three albums were just desperate attempts to showing Take That as modern act and THEY LOST THEIR IDENTITY. Their singles and other tracks in last three albums are heavily influenced by electronic music and I'm fearing that by recording more songs like Hello My Love Westlife falling in this trap as well. Once again I should stress that if you want radical changes doing it like BSB did with Never Gone album with great edgy tunes or recording some country-inspired songs. Even Bon Jovi did it with Lost Highway album and it was successful. I really wished that Westlife had a chance to record a duet with Kelly Clarkson because she is just amazing. Kelly is very popular in UK and along with Pink she is one of two female acts that still set the bar high. I think doing more electronic-influenced tracks would result in losing their identity like Take That. TT's last two records were dreadful. About Album be sure that with this approach (no promotion at all) there will be quick fade away from top 40 but that "Ticket Bundle' will save them with huge first week sales and after that it is all about promotion because non-Westlifers neither buy this record nor stream it even if it is happened to be a masterpiece. So we will see the albums fate from second week untill Xmas.
April 6, 20196 yr The thing is... singles being purchased is quite a niche area of the music industry these days. Better Man is #1 in the physical chart with 1,247 sales, #3 in the download chart with 7,424, and #2 in the sales chart with 8,671. This week it required just 9,986 sales to be #1 in the download chart & sales chart (Lewis Capaldi). The overwhelming majority of the general public are no longer motivated to buy singles, and that extends to Westlife fans. Only the most ardent of fans will loyally buy each of their singles as a CD and/or download. The fans of 15-20 years ago who went to the likes of Woolworths to pick up CD1 & CD2 and cared deeply about the singles chart, have mostly moved past that now, even if they're still fans today. It's very nice that Westlife are still providing a CD single for old time's sake, but it's a niche product. The legion of Westlife fans who aren't buying the singles are clearly buying concert tickets, and a lot of them will likely buy the forthcoming album. These are the areas that the fan loyalty will be shown. It's just not realistic to expect that these concert ticket buyers should all be buying the singles too. These fans will mostly be people who haven't bought singles in so many years that it doesn't even register with them any more that it's a thing they could still do, and even if they do know, they probably don't see the point of doing so in 2019. Also they likely don't care about the charts any more. When you consider that so many of their fans are probably 30+ year old women, many with busy family/working lives, they've probably moved beyond worrying about Westlife being #26 in the chart. I don't mean that disrespectfully to those who do still care - because charts is something that I'm passionate about. It just needs to be considered that many fans won't buy singles any more, and that in this day & age that doesn't make them any less of a fan. The fact that Westlife have actually managed #13 & #26 peaks in 2019, in a streaming dominated chart, is pretty remarkable and shows that they actually have retained a loyal fan base. There's numerous artists from Westlife's hey day who aren't even managing Top 100 singles chart positions any more. Even modern day acts are considered to be doing well if they manage Top 40. So I really think that Westlife fans should try and consider singles chart peaks in 2019 as being a nice bonus. I can appreciate that it takes some adjustment, given that the singles peaks they achieved in the 90s/00s were consistently #1s or Top 10s. But it's not the 90s/00s any more! It's a fact of life that most people access music via streaming now & it also a fact that Westlife aren't going to command the same streaming audience numbers as modern successful artists do. If you think about it, it's really quite similar to Westlife dominating in the 2000s with physicals, while artists popular in 1980s weren't realistically going to be able to compete with them. It's a generational thing. It's likely that Ariana Grande won't be dominating the charts in 20 years time. By the way, Better Man achieved 678,757 audio streams last week, so it's not like Westlife don't have a fairly large audience streaming it. However, it required 900k streams to be #100 in the streaming chart, and 1.5m for Top 50, 1.7m for Top 40, 2.4m Top 20 & 3.2m Top 10. Lewis Capaldi at #1 achieved over 6m streams. The music industry is generally geared towards the exposure of modern artists, they attain the best playlist exposure & achieve the number of streams required to be getting big hits. To close this essay... Westlife are experiencing a successful comeback & nothing about it is a disaster. Yes, #26 would have been considered as a disaster for them in the 2000s, but it's honestly inconsequential in 2019! Fans should enjoy the new singles, look forward to the tour & album and just appreciate them being together after 8 years away. After all, one day they'll part ways again. Enjoy the moment!
April 6, 20196 yr Maybe if they released a good song then they would have better chart success. Even Jay says so!
April 6, 20196 yr While I agree it's a bad song, I think we know by now that success on streaming doesn't even remotely correlate with quality.
April 6, 20196 yr Maybe if they released a good song then they would have better chart success. Even Jay says so! ! I don't mind the new song, I think Hello My Love is much better though. :cool:
April 6, 20196 yr Jay, I'm with you for 90% of what you've said and even those 10% are self-questions. I'm really into charts and analyse them week after week and not staying in early 2000's. But there are some questions: by presuming that all of your statements are correct (about fans are still loyal and just not caring about charts anymore and want to enjoy the music) there are some questions: why don't they (at least) constantly streaming the song like Hello My Love which as it stands is modern and different? reaching 1.5 m with all those different platforms isn't that difficult, is it? I said it was the brilliant chance wasted because it was a comeback single and had the most chance to be in top, lets say, 3. Why Take That's pretty average at best single called These Days went to no.1 with all these rules? you know that many of their singles not working anymore but hey, at least they get one no.1 in current market. Maybe I have big expectations but as I said once if Westlife were the likes of Little Mix or One Direction any chart position for me was normal but they'are just three singles behind The Beatles and that makes it feel so sad to see they're releasing singles without promotion and all the chances going astray. They don't have three or four no.1 to saying ok, don't care even if it isn't debuts in top 50 or whatever. My main stress in all these posts is about the situation which they're into and I'm sure many die-hard fans think like me but it seems those who thinks like me are become less and less. I think when you have 14 no.1 you should help your beloved act to create history, maybe I'm wrong but history won't repeat itself for Westlife and as you said they will be disbanded again. And the most important thing is the paradoxical nature of all of our talks: If old-fashioned songs don't work anymore why Lewis Capaldi is at no.1 for 6 straight weeks? Someone You Loved is ballad, many called it boring and keel saying they can't tolerate this one. I know Ed Sheeran and Adele are not be considered here but Perfect was the ballad and it spent weeks after weeks at top and even the duet of this song (featuring Beyonce) kept ruling. I remember that the Guardian music journalist called it Westlife-ish and one of the most boring song by Ed. But I don't have any issue with those writers and critics. My point here is this: those who kept streaming this song remaining at no.1 was this generation who by your definition should hate these kind of songs (same as Westlife). So why Someone Like You and Perfect got the most numbers of sales from their streams? Please solve this problem for me. Because it is so paradoxical and I don't talking about 20 years ago. I'm talking about 54004 points of streaming for the song called Someone You Loved which spends its sixth straight week atop the singles chart (streamed 3,216,997 last week just in Spotify UK).
April 7, 20196 yr Streaming in 2014 wasn't anywhere near as dominant in the charts as it is nowadays, download sales were still relatively quite strong, and held back releases were still commonplace - so I wouldn't really consider 2014 as being comparable to the current market. It was a relatively easier climate for Take That to release in & achieve a big hit! Take That were able to build up their pre-orders over a number of weeks (their song premiered on radio 7 weeks before commercial release) and promotion occurred in advance of release. These Days sold 60,626 downloads, 1,236 physicals and 2,136 streaming units in its first week on sale. It was big on radio airplay, achieving a run of 56-29-12-5-4-4-5 prior to the single being released to buy, and it went on to peak at #2 on radio - only behind Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud. Considering These Days as being an average song is certainly subjective, but it evidently connected with the public! Maybe there was some heightened interest in These Days because it was Take That's first release as a 3 piece, and it was also their first lead single in four years. Overall I'd say everything just came together for them with that particular release. The effects of streaming becoming dominant, and single releases now occurring immediately, is evident when you look at how the more recent Take That singles have performed. Their following lead single Giants managed #13 in 2017 but only spent three weeks Top 100. Then their most recent lead single Out of Our Heads didn't even manage to chart, which demonstrates that they've not adapted well to the streaming era (it didn't even do that well on downloads tbh, which probably indicates that it didn't connect in general). So I think if you were to compare the above to Westlife's two recent singles, then it actually puts into perspective just how well Hello My Love & Better Man have done. Also I don't think that Westlife's songs being modern or old-fashioned is really the issue here, it's more the fact that they are a 20 year old act making a comeback. That's the stumbling block they have. By definition they're not a current artist & won't be afforded the same opportunity for exposure as popular modern artists. Ed Sheeran is a 2010s artist, and with the huge success he's achieved with his 3 albums, he can still be deemed as being a currently relevant artist. No doubt if he'd released Hello My Love or Better Man they'd have performed a whole lot better in the charts, because he'd have received way more support. It's similar with Lewis Capaldi, he's a newly successful artist and his #1 song is his breakthrough. If Westlife released that song it wouldn't have done as well.
April 7, 20196 yr I thought it was enough and no more explanation was needed. Anyway I know albums are different than singles but by uploading those two videos I just wanted to show how someone as great as Noel Gallagher thinking about top 40 and how internet ruining music... About albums, their last album, the farewell one debuted at no.4 by the way. It was their last album, the last. Where We Are debuted at no.2 and Gravity debuted at no.3, no difference. I explained if fans deciding to buy physical copies of singles or albums from old school acts even streaming can't stop them. Liam Gallagher was just one example and it was released in this climate. If there was not something like "Ticket bundle" I think Westlife's new record would probably ended up at no.3 to 5. Liam Gallagher's As You Were is a terrible comparison because he did really well on streaming as well :P All of his tracks were in the Top 130 on Spotify when the album was released - most of them in the top 100 and they held up well. Edited April 7, 20196 yr by WhoOdyssey
April 7, 20196 yr I find it shamefull that the no1 in physical sales and the no2 in sales song, charted at no26... i find it even more that a song is no1 for 6 weeks already just because its stuck on peoples playlist... 6 weeks at no1 only out of the ordinary singles could and should have made it.... charts are not interesting any more. OCC and world wide charts should bring back what they destroyed otherwise let them enjoy the comedy they are maintaining.. Edited April 7, 20196 yr by Charis
Create an account or sign in to comment