11 hours ago, HiyaLuv! said:

I thought they were snubbing it because they were thinking more about what a typical Radio 2 listener would want on a current hits CD given that young people don't really see the point in these things.

Now 122 was a big improvement because they toned down on the radio 2 artists and shoved them all at the bottom of disc 2. Maybe they did that because of the negative reviews that they were getting when they were overloading the albums with radio 2 artists

1 hour ago, Dobbo said:

Harry, what happened?

People heard it.

29 minutes ago, Rob said:

People heard it.

14 hours ago, Hadji said:

Now 122 was a big improvement because they toned down on the radio 2 artists and shoved them all at the bottom of disc 2. Maybe they did that because of the negative reviews that they were getting when they were overloading the albums with radio 2 artists

Radio 2 artists are the best, the negative reviews were definitely not because of the older artists it was because they were pushing the same forgettable songs on Now, most people who buy/stream Now are older than the general crowd therefore some Radio 2 artists would help push sales up…

33 minutes ago, Big Mistake said:

Radio 2 artists are the best, the negative reviews were definitely not because of the older artists it was because they were pushing the same forgettable songs on Now, most people who buy/stream Now are older than the general crowd therefore some Radio 2 artists would help push sales up…

The negative reviews they get are also about where songs are placed on the album; particularly what they pick for track 1 and also because the discs don’t get filled up like they used to and there’s always massive gaps and they also get negative reviews when they reuse songs that have appeared on past volumes and Now should be focusing on the chart and radio 1 playlist at least

Edited 15 hours ago15 hr by Hadji

17 hours ago, Rob said:

People heard it.

Counterpoint: Harry has 63 million monthly listeners on Spotify (up from 52 million just before the song dropped) and the song only has 55 million streams. I'd estimate somewhere around 10-20 million listeners total (it's a 5 plays per listener ratio on last fm), so the problem is that even among people who listen to Harry Styles, most of them have not heard it.

Tbh the monthly listeners isn’t really a measurable factor as all you have to do is press play on a singular song of the artist during the month to count.

I agree but inflated or not, it indicates a lot of potential listeners that haven't even clicked on the new song, which at the very least suggests it's not quite an all-encompassing 'event' single that everyone's moved on from.

1 hour ago, Dircadirca said:

I agree but inflated or not, it indicates a lot of potential listeners that haven't even clicked on the new song, which at the very least suggests it's not quite an all-encompassing 'event' single that everyone's moved on from.

I don't think you understand how it all works. Harry's monthly listeners aren't all fans that includes people who have listened in playlists casually etc...

You can't measure his monthly listeners based on new singles at all, It clearly is a huge 'event' single given it's one of the biggest number of daily streams in a single day on UK Spotify alone.

The song is just rubbish it was never going to continue to do huge numbers especially being 5 minutes and such a long intro but I'm sure he's picked up some new fans because of the risk.

Yeah by the monthly listeners logic Ed should of had 5 easy number 1s last year with Play, so it probably suggests people are deliberately choosing not to listen to Harry's new one which may or may not be affected by the general reaction by those that have

Also just because you didnt listen to a song on streaming doesnt mean you haven't heard it, there's radio for starters 😅

45 minutes ago, Mr. C. Joel said:

I don't think you understand how it all works. Harry's monthly listeners aren't all fans that includes people who have listened in playlists casually etc...

You can't measure his monthly listeners based on new singles at all, It clearly is a huge 'event' single given it's one of the biggest number of daily streams in a single day on UK Spotify alone.

The song is just rubbish it was never going to continue to do huge numbers especially being 5 minutes and such a long intro but I'm sure he's picked up some new fans because of the risk.

I absolutely understand how it works. My point is that the initial (new release window) audience reach for anyone is just too small to call it decisive. Long standing hits are the ones made by people who haven't gotten to it yet. Maybe they're not going to because the first burst of listeners aren't giving it the best vibe, but I think it's erroneous to suggest that a song underperforms because of listeners and not non-listeners, especially when it reflects a general audience trend against all new music. The only song released within the last few months even competing with it is Noah Kahan's, and Harry's already overtaken that one on DSPs.

I'll admit I have an aversion to the observation of 'it flopped because bad', a tenet only used when it's convenient to our own narrative, but it's way too soon to call it anyway.

Comparing Noah to harry is insane, Noah had 1 humongous hit and a few small successful ones with 1 album, Harry's had 3 huge albums all containing humongous hits hardly a fair comparison

The harry song is just shit and the public arnt connecting with it , it only had a large week 1 because hes Harry freaking Styles plus he was staggering his tour release dates, now that hypes over we are seeing the true performance of the song

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by 777666jason

1 hour ago, Dircadirca said:

I absolutely understand how it works. My point is that the initial (new release window) audience reach for anyone is just too small to call it decisive. Long standing hits are the ones made by people who haven't gotten to it yet. Maybe they're not going to because the first burst of listeners aren't giving it the best vibe, but I think it's erroneous to suggest that a song underperforms because of listeners and not non-listeners, especially when it reflects a general audience trend against all new music. The only song released within the last few months even competing with it is Noah Kahan's, and Harry's already overtaken that one on DSPs.

I'll admit I have an aversion to the observation of 'it flopped because bad', a tenet only used when it's convenient to our own narrative, but it's way too soon to call it anyway.

Comparing Noah to Harry is WILD lol. Aperture is absolutely everywhere it's been all over the media, spammed on radio and extremely high on playlists across all music platforms. If a song is going to be huge it remains stable at the very least from launch, even with Harry's sold out 12 Wembley stadium dates (Over a million tickets sold) Aperture is falling day by day despite having great playlisting still (Harry is #1 on Today's Top Hits and Noah is at 39 on the biggest playlist but is number 1 in the USA Top 50) It's not hard to work out it's just not connecting on a huge mega hit scale at the moment.

It was never going to be a commercial huge hit whether the opinion is positive/negative on the song because a 5 minute risk taking song will always struggle. There's a chance The Brits / Album release could give it a boost but my guess is the next single which will push the album will be way more commercial and I'm sure will do better than Aperture (Streaming/Sales wise).

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by Mr. C. Joel

I just don't get why you would swing so different on your lead single, so many fans are now not even excited for his album anymore.

23 minutes ago, Mr. C. Joel said:

Comparing Noah to Harry is WILD lol. Aperture is absolutely everywhere it's been all over the media, spammed on radio and extremely high on playlists across all music platforms. If a song is going to be huge it remains stable at the very least from launch, even with Harry's sold out 12 Wembley stadium dates (Over a million tickets sold) Aperture is falling day by day despite having great playlisting still (Harry is #1 on Today's Top Hits and Noah is at 39 on the biggest playlist but is number 1 in the USA Top 50) It's not hard to work out it's just not connecting on a huge mega hit scale at the moment.

It was never going to be a commercial huge hit whether the opinion is positive/negative on the song because a 5 minute risk taking song will always struggle. There's a chance The Brits / Album release could give it a boost but my guess is the next single which will push the album will be way more commercial and I'm sure will do better than Aperture (Streaming/Sales wise).

I'll concede it's probably not set to be his biggest hit or anything, but I think it is worth considering that there are times when the public really just aren't rushing towards new music, for whatever reason. I like comparing fellow new singles (ie less than 3-4 months old) because they don't have the same degree of ironed-on listeners and tend to start from scratch. Kinda like how Djo's "End of Beginning" is doing roughly as well now as it did 2 years ago. It's easier to do that because it has a baseline of around 1.5 million streams every day that it didn't last time around. In the same way Harry Styles has a lot of monthly listeners by happenstance, it's an example of the way older songs (whether of the "Boys Don't Cry" or the "Lush Life" variety) tend to outperform brand new hits with less promotional effort, both in terms of reaching surprisingly high peaks and also not collapsing quite as fast as the moment seems to end.

All things considered, I think it's doing fine thus far and the big week 2 decline can just as easily be explained by the natural cooling on early repeat listens, as it is an irregularly high curiosity listen->bounce rate. We already know there's a second wind built into the album release day incoming so we'll see if that rejuvenates it. I'll leave it at that though because my social battery's pretty spent for the day 😌

For the record I think it’s a good comeback from a non Harry fan as it sounds like something the Chemical Bros would release and I personally love that 😅!

21 minutes ago, Dircadirca said:

I'll concede it's probably not set to be his biggest hit or anything, but I think it is worth considering that there are times when the public really just aren't rushing towards new music, for whatever reason. I like comparing fellow new singles (ie less than 3-4 months old) because they don't have the same degree of ironed-on listeners and tend to start from scratch. Kinda like how Djo's "End of Beginning" is doing roughly as well now as it did 2 years ago. It's easier to do that because it has a baseline of around 1.5 million streams every day that it didn't last time around. In the same way Harry Styles has a lot of monthly listeners by happenstance, it's an example of the way older songs (whether of the "Boys Don't Cry" or the "Lush Life" variety) tend to outperform brand new hits with less promotional effort, both in terms of reaching surprisingly high peaks and also not collapsing quite as fast as the moment seems to end.

All things considered, I think it's doing fine thus far and the big week 2 decline can just as easily be explained by the natural cooling on early repeat listens, as it is an irregularly high curiosity listen->bounce rate. We already know there's a second wind built into the album release day incoming so we'll see if that rejuvenates it. I'll leave it at that though because my social battery's pretty spent for the day 😌

I see what you're saying but the examples you've given are because they've gone viral on social media or heavily prominent in a huge TV show (I'd argue that doesn't necessarily define how 'good' a song is just people jumping on the bandwagon in terms of going viral on socials) but yes obviously these reach new audiences/listeners. Harry Style's is a little different as he's such a huge global star the songs pushed out everywhere from the start so naturally reaches a massive audience from the outset.

If you look at viral songs it's usually a brand new artist where the song hasn't even charted, a song that's charted pretty low and has gone under the radar or for nostalgic reasons it's rare for an artist as big as Harry to have a song that blows up a couple of months later, although that's not to say it couldn't happen.

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by Mr. C. Joel

Top 40 Update?

3 minutes ago, Maldicq said:

Top 40 Update?

Normal after 6

4 minutes ago, Maldicq said:

Top 40 Update?

https://www.musicweek.com/midweek-singles

It's here.