Yes I wanna see Beyonce and Gaga debut with under 100K and Taylor debut with 2.6 million 

3 minutes ago, Calvin said:

The Weeknd has 80+ merch variants (reported by billboard) 

Gaga had 23 variants (reported by billboard)

Billie had 20 variants (reported by billboard)

Olivia had 22 variants (reported by billboard)

 

All of these should be banned. 

2-3 variants are fine in my opinion, I think it should be to buy your favourite, not to build FOMO and push people to buy all of them.

 

I collect vinyl records too, but buying multiple copies (especially if we're talking more than 5, let alone 20) of the same album is crazy. We should all stop buying useless material things honestly, and not only because of money, it's bad for the environment + being slaves to multinationals and billionaires isn't anything to brag about. I have no respect for fans who rush to do (mostly buy) anything their fave tells them to as goddamn brainless puppets. 

Taylor really got y'all losing your minds 

46 minutes ago, Supernatural94 said:

Yes they should. It's a fraudulent way to inflate numbers. 
 

I think Madonna is the only ethical mpg who only releases the standard and deluxe versions of her albums. 

Watch her do a bunch of variants for this next one though

No, at least not entirely. Some (rich) artists may be doing too much out of sheer greed but for smaller artists/bands physicals are pretty important. A lot of them probably wouldn't even be able to put an album out without them. Though I wouldn't be mad if they found a way to limit things like "the icing on the cake edition only available for 24 hours", "sitting at my castle looking at the stars edition also only available for 24 hours", "the frog across the street that ate the shiny bug edition and guess what? This is available for 24 hours as well" etc.

13 minutes ago, Gossip_Boy said:

No, at least not entirely. Some (rich) artists may be doing too much out of sheer greed but for smaller artists/bands physicals are pretty important. A lot of them probably wouldn't even be able to put an album out without them. Though I wouldn't be mad if they found a way to limit things like "the icing on the cake edition only available for 24 hours", "sitting at my castle looking at the stars edition also only available for 24 hours", "the frog across the street that ate the shiny bug edition and guess what? This is available for 24 hours as well" etc.

But I don't think those 24 hr digital exclusives are selling that much. Probably 10k total. 

Edited October 7, 20251 yr by Calvin

Yes

Honestly, yes.

 

And this is not a dig at Taylor since, as everyone knows, she will keep selling a lot of albums... 

 

It is just needed to stop clogging the charts.

Having said that...

Radio SHOULD BE BANNED FIRST, payola is truly the worst offender among all the shady tactics to inflate numbers 

Yes, at least limit it to 3 variants max or so. It's a shitty practice to manipulate charts + its bad for the environment.

No, ban free streaming, keep actual sales.

Yall rly think it would hit other artists hard

 

if anything, swifties are the fanbase that collects variants the most (and we've seen the pics)

 

 

"they will be struggling to reach 50k" please  

Taylor is going to sell a million units anyway, so do it 

Yes here to watch your faves not even break 100k. 

11 minutes ago, BellKat said:

Radio SHOULD BE BANNED FIRST, payola is truly the worst offender among all the shady tactics to inflate numbers 

And remove autoplay too. 

They should ban the practice of "limited edition pressing variant only available for 24 hours" fifty-seven times per era. Yes. You can't ban different vinyl colors, that would be ridiculous.

2 hours ago, Mr.X said:

Yes, for real. 

 

2 hours ago, ttsmu said:

Yes they should do it.

Finally something we all can agree on.
I need this to happen, so people would run out of excuses to use.

3 hours ago, TayDuaStan said:

Taylor still gonna sell a ton

Y'all faves though… good luck ever surpassing 100k 

 

Do it

Well she has a daily carbon footprint of third world country and MAGA friends to satisfy!!!

A restriction on the exclusive tracks is severely needed. 
 

No serious person gives a f*ck about the alternate covers and colors, but gatekeeping actual content, aka songs…. That's a mess  
 

Putting out multiple variant exclusive tracks so you need to buy them all to get the full recording is lowkey unethical. 
 

Having a target exclusive track is one thing, but literally having multiple cds where tracks are separated in order to incentivize their purchase is sh*tty.

Ik when BTS will top billboard with their variants BB will suddenly ban. 

18 minutes ago, Sawk said:

A restriction on the exclusive tracks is severely needed. 
 

No serious person gives a f*ck about the alternate covers and colors, but gatekeeping actual content, aka songs…. That's a mess  
 

Putting out multiple variant exclusive tracks so you need to buy them all to get the full recording is lowkey unethical. 
 

Having a target exclusive track is one thing, but literally having multiple cds where tracks are separated in order to incentivize their purchase is sh*tty.

This too. 

 

Honestly, just allow one version per format and then extra tracks have to be done together in a delux edition. That should be all, at least for the first year of release. Then you could do more re-releases later for anniversary editions, etc. 

 

At the moment, it's all horribly wasteful and capitalistic. 

I think four variants, physical and digital, for the first two years after release would be reasonable

 

 

All artists do lots of variants, but Taylor gets the most attention because she sells the most. She would undoubtedly continue to outsell everyone but fundamentally all of these artists are trying to munipulare the charts

 

 

For the sake of nature protection and sustainability, yes.

How many people are actually buying multiple variants? 

i mean taylor would still break records and even if it doesnt help her chart any better she's still making a boatload of money so it wouldnt stop her. or anyone else for that matter. it would be a more accurate reflection if you banned counting variants but religious fantacism fan culture and hyperconsumerism will continue.