new Rule 1

Billboard is changing ticket bundling rules for album charts. "Forced" album + ticket bundles will NO LONGER COUNT. "Opt in" bundles WILL count (users can request to add the album to a ticket purchase).

 

Details expected Tuesday. Effective for all tours from October 2, 2020 on.

 

new Rule 2

Billboard will no longer count single-price album + merch bundles. Users can "opt in" to add an album to their merch order for an additional cost.

 

Physical products will be counted when they are shipped to the consumer.

 

Finally!!!!!!!!!!!

and they are also changing the rules for Bundles in singles, in regards to those CD singles that are promised to arrive in 6 months time :)

 

Billboard will no longer count digital single downloads offered in place of physical products to be mailed at a later date.

 

 

about time really, well actually it’s well overdue. even before 6ix9ine playing the system it was ridiculous.

the tour bundles were the worst imho, like Bon Jovi going to #1 cos of the tour tickets, next week out ofd the top 100...

 

for the singles I can also see the issue, cos they're going to #1 thanks to these physical singles that don't exist yet and are promised to be delivered in 6 months time

Madonna sprang to mind when I read this - could it put an end to her tally of #1 albums?

not sure, Madonna fans still buy CDs I guess?

but It will be interesting to see what happens now when people like Bon Jovi release a new album

It depends on whether their fans actually care enough to opt in to the bundles. Some still will and at that point it's pretty fair to count it as a legitimate sale.

agree the Opt option is 100% ok now

I'd imagine a lot of those hardcore fanbases will still buy the album in Week 1 regardless so it may not have as big an impact on legacy acts as we think. We're also seeing more and more alternate formats being produced e.g. vinyls, cassettes, etc. that will help bump up Week 1 sales.

 

To be honest I really wish Billboard would re-look at the Hot 100 and the album bombs which are dropping weekly and making the charts painful to read. My interest has waned so much in the past few months. Surely these tracks should only be counting towards the album totals when streamed as part of the album?

Edited July 15, 20205 yr by Rob

I'd be surprised if they ever changed the rules re: album bombs, they've been very prevalent for a long time, if they were ever going to do anything they would have done by now. (I suppose the same was kind of true in the UK but the Ed Sheeran album bomb was an order of magnitude more chart distorting than any previous album bomb to spur the OCC into action, whereas Billboard had Drake send 7 songs from his last album into the top 10 and didn't do anything about it so I don't think they view it as a problem at all).

sure Billboard does not have a problem with it as it's been going on for ages,

well before the streaming era, guess since iTunes? cos I remember Taylor having multiple entries in the singles chart during album release week even in the late 00s

 

I'd rather have the chart filled with 1 week charting album tracks than boring, endless radio driven parabolas. Seeing a song take 30 weeks to peak is cute the first time, mind numbing as a standard.