Godly Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 (edited) Back in January, on the occasion of Rare's release, Billboard posted a breakdown of Selena Gomez's most streamed songs in the US, and this is what their ranking looks like: Most Streamed (On Demand) Songs Taki Taki: 540M We Don't Talk Anymore: 539M Wolves: 344M Come & Get It: 211M Lose You to Love Me: 203M It Ain't Me: 175M Back to You: 167M Same Old Love: 166M Good For You: 160M Love You Like a Love Song: 144M I Can't Get Enough: 115M The Heart Wants What It Wants: 104M Look at Her Now: 80M Who Says: 79M Hands To Myself: 78M The numbers were suspiciously low at first sight, with Hands To Myself the most egregious standout having 82M streams in the US on Spotify alone according to kworb, but to have better perspective of how off these numbers are, let's compare them to Billboard's calculations of Demi's biggest songs. Most Streamed (On Demand) Songs Sorry Not Sorry: 895M Solo: 402M Heart Attack: 359M Confident: 358M Echame La Culpa: 328M Tell Me You Love Me: 313M Cool For The Summer: 291M No Promises: 290M Stone Cold: 247M Let It Go: 225M Really Don't Care: 192M Give Your Heart A Break: 170M Sober: 159M Skyscraper: 156M Neon Lights: 128M It seems like Billboard is trying to convince us that the #58 peaking Clean Bandit song somehow ended up being streamed twice as much as Selena's top ten smash hit It Ain't Me, and notice that It Ain't Me has almost THREE times the amount of US Spotify streams according to kworb (130M vs 47M). At the same time, it lists Sober and Back To You as being basically equal when another swift look at their respective US Spotify streams will tell you that Selena's song is at 93M streams while Demi's is at... 6.3M. These are just two examples but I think it's pretty obvious how the argument applies to basically all the songs in here. So what is it, Selena's numbers being too low, Demi's being too high or both? Innocent mistake or an OSH Billboard intern acting out? Edited June 30, 2020 by Godly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MALAMENTE Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 Suspicious Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pop Art Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 You can't really use Kworb 's Spotify archives like that, as it only tracks the streams from the time the song in question was in the Top 200. Let's look at this example to visualize it. While In the Top 200 Song A: 200M streams Song B: 150M streams Overall History Song A: 350M streams Song B: 400M streams Using your logic, Song A got more streams, but overall that was not the case. I'm not saying this is what happened, but the reality is we just don't know any song's country-specific streams once they exit that country's Top 200 Spotify chart. However, your point about Hands To Myself having more streams just from its time in the Top 200 on one service than Billboard reported for all services is true, and extremely odd. I can't really explain it and it definitely puts the rest of the numbers they reported for her in question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MALAMENTE Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 I mean it is almost impossible that HTM only has 78M streams lol, considering it is about every platform. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godly Posted June 30, 2020 Author Share Posted June 30, 2020 (edited) 11 minutes ago, Pop Art said: You can't really use Kworb 's Spotify archives like that, as it only tracks the streams from the time the song in question was in the Top 200. Let's look at this example to visualize it. While In the Top 200 Song A: 200M streams Song B: 150M streams Overall History Song A: 350M streams Song B: 400M streams Using your logic, Song A got more streams, but overall that was not the case. I'm not saying this is what happened, but the reality is we just don't know any song's country-specific streams once they exit that country's Top 200 Spotify chart. However, your point about Hands To Myself having more streams just from its time in the Top 200 on one service than Billboard reported for all services is true, and extremely odd. I can't really explain it and it definitely puts the rest of the numbers they reported for her in question. Yeah I know about that, but although technically possible it still would be extremely unlikely that all those Demi songs could catch up while not charting, especially since their chart runs don't reflect that at all. 8 minutes ago, selenachris said: I mean it is almost impossible that HTM only has 78M streams lol, considering it is about every platform. That's just flat out impossible actually and I can only imagine how off it is considering we can disprove it just by the amount of streams it got on only one platform and only while it was charting too Edited June 30, 2020 by Godly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaneloberlin Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 Yeah I agree it's not adding up (literally.) But then because Kworb isn't reliable for songs that aren't charting anymore and IFPI only breaks down the Top 10 of the year I guess Billboard is the only source we have left to know specific recurrent information But it is dodgy. Maybe they put Solo's worldwide streams in place for its US streams (because it did better in other countries). But then why would Billboard report on that. Anyway. Good on you for clocking the tea. @Godly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pop Art Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 5 minutes ago, Godly said: Yeah I know about that, but although logistically possible it still would be extremely unlikely that all those Demi songs could catch up while not charting, especially since their chart runs don't reflect that at all. It's not entirely farfetched actually. Let's look at Selena's three biggest songs on her page. Song Title: Total Spotify Streams (Top 200 Spotify Streams; % Increase) Taki Taki: 1.012B (899M; 13%) It Ain't Me: 979M (675M; 45%) Wolves: 859M (608M; 41%) And then let's look at the same for Demi. Song Title: Total Spotify Streams (Top 200 Spotify Streams; % Increase) Sorry Not Sorry: 791M (521M; 52%) Solo: 740M (555M; 33%) Échame La Culpa: 667M (488M; 37%) Using this, Selena's biggest song's on average get 33% of their total streams from after they leave the Top 200, while for Demi's biggest songs it's 41%. Now this is isn't a definitive statement, but from this we can see that on average, Demi tends to get more streams after she leaves the Spotify Top 200 than Selena does. And FYI although I stan neither, I tend to prefer Selena so please don't think I'm just a Demi stan trying to twist facts to defend her. I already agreed the numbers Billboard posted for Selena are questionable given what we know about Hands To Myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magazine Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 Demi has better recurrent streams Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iHype. Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 Yeah those numbers are probably incorrect. No way Sober has 2x more streams than Hands to Myself. Perhaps for Selena’s they only included video streaming or something, and left out audio streams. There is so many streaming lists they have access to that they probably just copied from the wrong one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godly Posted June 30, 2020 Author Share Posted June 30, 2020 24 minutes ago, Pop Art said: It's not entirely farfetched actually. Let's look at Selena's three biggest songs on her page. Song Title: Total Spotify Streams (Top 200 Spotify Streams; % Increase) Taki Taki: 1.012B (899M; 13%) It Ain't Me: 979M (675M; 45%) Wolves: 859M (608M; 41%) And then let's look at the same for Demi. Song Title: Total Spotify Streams (Top 200 Spotify Streams; % Increase) Sorry Not Sorry: 791M (521M; 52%) Solo: 740M (555M; 33%) Échame La Culpa: 667M (488M; 37%) Using this, Selena's biggest song's on average get 33% of their total streams from after they leave the Top 200, while for Demi's biggest songs it's 41%. Now this is isn't a definitive statement, but from this we can see that on average, Demi tends to get more streams after she leaves the Spotify Top 200 than Selena does. And FYI although I stan neither, I tend to prefer Selena so please don't think I'm just a Demi stan trying to twist facts to defend her. I already agreed the numbers Billboard posted for Selena are questionable given what we know about Hands To Myself. I get what you're saying and as a general statement it's definitely true, it's just that I don't think it's applicable in this situation where the gap of reported streams for songs like Solo and It Ain't Me is that big. As an experiment you could pretend that after falling out of the US charts, Solo continued to gain 200k daily (which is approximately what songs just below the Top 200 gain in the US) while IAM remained froze to the 130M streams it had before exiting the Top 200. Even then, by the time those lists were made in early 2020, Solo would be either on par or barely above IAM. That's how huge of a gap it is, and it's not like Billboard reports that they're equal, but they deadass put Solo with more than double the streams As a general rule I agree with you though, if the disparity in the numbers had been small you could have easily made a case about recurrent streams being the determining factor. Spoiler It's also kinda unfair to take Taki Taki into the equation to determine Selena's recurrent streams though, considering it's not been out for long and it's still gaining like 500k daily Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pop Art Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 1 hour ago, Godly said: I get what you're saying and as a general statement it's definitely true, it's just that I don't think it's applicable in this situation where the gap of reported streams for songs like Solo and It Ain't Me is that big. As an experiment you could pretend that after falling out of the US charts, Solo continued to gain 200k daily (which is approximately what songs just below the Top 200 gain in the US) while IAM remained froze to the 130M streams it had before exiting the Top 200. Even then, by the time those lists were made in early 2020, Solo would be either on par or barely above IAM. That's how huge of a gap it is, and it's not like Billboard reports that they're equal, but they deadass put Solo with more than double the streams As a general rule I agree with you though, if the disparity in the numbers had been small you could have easily made a case about recurrent streams being the determining factor. Reveal hidden contents It's also kinda unfair to take Taki Taki into the equation to determine Selena's recurrent streams though, considering it's not been out for long and it's still gaining like 500k daily In this case, you're probably right, but I was just pointing out that it's technically possible. I don't know why I was playing devil's advocate though since I agree they're probably wrong for Selena. Taki Taki is over well 18 months old, AKA the time Billboard generally considers things to be catalog, but I see your point. I'm sure the percentages for both would be very different if we looked at their comprehensive numbers, but who has the time and especially when we both agree on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rihannabiggestfan Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 1 hour ago, magazine said: Demi has better recurrent streams Right. And for example Solo peaked low cuz of pop radio, but that doesn't mean it didn't do well on streams Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godly Posted June 30, 2020 Author Share Posted June 30, 2020 (edited) 6 minutes ago, Pop Art said: In this case, you're probably right, but I was just pointing out that it's technically possible. I don't know why I was playing devil's advocate though since I agree they're probably wrong for Selena. It's fine, you were right to point that out, I should've actually addressed it in the original post Edited June 30, 2020 by Godly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raphy23 Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 but Solo was a HUGE hit! Do not undermine it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godly Posted June 30, 2020 Author Share Posted June 30, 2020 1 hour ago, Raphy23 said: but Solo was a HUGE hit! Do not undermine it. Worldwide it was a smash yes, but it underperformed pretty heavily in the US and that's what the numbers are about Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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