Last month Attack Attack!'s album This Means War, a generic but not terrible hardcore album, reached # 11 in Billboard's Hot 100 with sales of 17,000.
17,000 units moved may be many things, but it isn't really a hit album. I mean, I would be shocked if the record company made a profit on it. 17,000 units and an on the border top 10 album? If that's the case, while Billboard are doing many fine things, I don't think they are telling us the bottom line on successful bands any more.
There was a time when a top ten album means you'd made it, now it is mostly a reflection of
1. A hit single
2. a fanbase.
But a hit single isn't enough to sustain anything, and a fanbase of 50,000 people buying your album means, hey, guess what, you're a star! Or is that a start?
Album charts aren't single charts, we expect singles charts to be littered with one hit wonders, but album charts should dig deeper, it means one thing has lead to another.
Or rather, it doesn't' any more. McCartney's newbie hit the charts but it certainly wasn't a hit. Does it mean anything at all about Macca's ongoing career?
Nowadays there are social media charts and I get that they are telling us something, but what they are not telling us is who is successful, who is making money…
Perhaps a new paradigm is needed but I don't know how to do it.. on a weekly basis, income from record sales + streaming + merch + ticket sales. Of course, if a band isn't on tour that wouldn't work.
I dunno but I know this. Billboard charts don't tell us what they claim to: who is winning and who is losing.