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Billboard's music charts now feature Spotify song clips
Billboard has long been the authority on what's popular in music. The company tallies weekly rankings across charts like the Billboard 200 and Hot 100. With a hand from Spotify, you'll now have a way to listen to clips of songs on those charts without having to hunt for them elsewhere. Billboard announced the partnership today, and the snippets of tracks are already live on the weekly lists of what's popular in terms of audio entertainment.
The UK official albums chart will soon include streaming data
The way we all consume music has changed remarkably since charts began ranking the popularity of tracks and artists decades ago. In July last year, the UK's Official Charts Company thought it was about time online streaming figures contributed to the crafting of the singles chart. And today, it's announced the official albums chart will begin incorporating streaming intel, too. Starting with the chart to be released on March 1st, plays from Spotify, Deezer, Napster, Google Play, Xbox Music, Rdio, Rara and O2 Tracks will count towards album rankings. It's more problematic than it might seem at first, however, as the Official Charts Company is keen not to let a few killer singles propel an album undeservedly to the top spot.
#NowPlaying: Twitter and Billboard flip the switch on real-time music charts
Back in March, Billboard and Twitter announced plans to bring real-time tune-tracking charts to the masses. Well, today a couple of those charts went live. The Trending 140 keeps tabs on shared songs in the US, calculated by increased action in the last 60 minutes. As you might expect, you can filter the results for the last 24 hours and stats will get posted weekly as the Billboard Twitter Top Tracks chart. There's an Emerging Artists ranking too, and it'll work and be published in the same way. In case you're wondering what lights up the ticker, tweets containing links to streaming services like Spotify or iTunes, music-specific hashtags (like #nowplaying or a song title) and words like "music," "song," or "listen" all weigh into the minute-by-minute tally. In the few minutes it took to write this post, John Mayer, Demi Lovato and Austin Mahone have all spent a moment in the number one spot.
UK gets official Top 100 music streaming chart next week, Billboard seen crying in the corner
Used to be, musicians were judged (commercially speaking, of course) by how much radio play they got and how many albums and singles they sold. The UK's answer to Billboard, the Official Charts Company, has seen a future filled with streaming music from services like Spotify, Napster and Deezer and decided that it needed a streaming chart to truly judge the success or failure of today's, and tomorrow's, top tunes. Thus, a Top 100 streaming chart was created and is set to launch next Monday, May 14. So, who rules the web across the pond, sonically speaking? You'll have to wait for the full list, but a preview of the top ten artists awaits in the PR below.
