Imagine having a number three album in the seventh biggest market in the world with next to no sales. That day has come. Welcome to 2018 and why does XXXTentacion have the number 3 album in Australia?
Putting aside the XXXTentacion album is complete rubbish, the new chart formula favours crap. Just look at the recent Post Malone record. No-one is buying it. At best it has had curious listening, but lets not let the truth get in the way of a good story.
But back to this weeks facts:
The XXXTentacion ‘?’ has sold zero physical discs (CD or vinyl) and 726 digital downloads and that has earned it the no 3 spot on the ARIA chart nationally.
Most of the sales tallied for the XXXTentcion album aren’t real sales at all. A figure of 2635 sales has been allocated for “streams” meaning people have listened to ‘?’ this past week on Spotify or some other streaming service.
The formula for sales vs listens is a constant work in progress (making every chart from week to week apples and oranges, but that’s another story) but roughly 150 listens equals one sale. To put that into perspective, if Kyle and Jackie O played an album from start to finish the listens would equate to more “sales” than the number three album in Australia this week.
The fact is the ARIA chart has zero relevance anymore. Comparing what happened last week to what did happened in the 50s with Elvis, the 60s with The Beatles, 70s with Abba, 80s with U2 or 90s with Nirvana makes no sense when the recipe is completely different.
To compare an Abba string of hits when the only way they could be bought at the time was on disc in a store and not on a Sunday when the shop was shut to a made up figure of listens divided by 150 24/7 without leaving home is a joke.
Bruno Mars might be a huge talent by todays standards, but when you compare apples with apples he is Boyz II Men at best, and still on his way to Backstreet Boys status.
For news as it happens follow Noise11 on Facebook
Listen to the Noise11 Music News channel now at iHeartRadio
