This past summer, Taylor Swift became the first act to ever score a #1 Billboard Hot 100 song and #1 Billboard 200 album debut in the same week. Her “cardigan” started atop the former chart, while her album “folklore” ruled the latter.<\/p>\n
This week, BTS becomes the second. The group tops the Billboard Hot 100 with “Life Goes On,” while ruling the Billboard 200 with “BE.”<\/p>\n
Why is this feat so elusive? Consider the mechanics of industry strategy and chart tracking.<\/p>\n
Artists adhering to a traditional album campaign will release their lead single(s) prior to the full album. Given their existing familiarity and momentum, this\/these single(s) will typically be the top-performing track(s) during album release week. As a result, there is no opportunity for one of the artist’s new songs to debut atop that week’s Billboard Hot 100.<\/p>\n
A surprise album drop helps artists avoid this scenario, but it creates another challenge. New releases never receive as much airplay as established hits, which means they will be at a disadvantage in the chart calculation. It takes massive sales and streaming numbers to compensate for lesser radio.<\/p>\n
Surprise releases also remain rare, particularly among superstar artists.<\/p>\n
Swift took the surprise approach, and her “cardigan” did generate the requisite sales and streams (as an official single, it did receive a solid, though not earth-shattering, amount of airplay).<\/p>\n
BTS’ model, on the other hand, falls in between the two. The group did release a (chart-topping) lead single in “Dynamite,” which still had plenty of momentum and radio activity during the album’s release week (it is #3 on this week’s Hot 100). But the group and its fans also enthusiastically embraced “Life Goes On” as a release-day focus track. As a result, the song posted the requisite sales and streaming numbers.<\/p>\n
The compensation challenge was particularly big for “Life Goes On,” since it is not being promoted as an official US radio single. As a result, it received very little opening week airplay.<\/p>\n
And, of course, let’s not forget that simultaneously topping the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 – even ignoring the “debut” part of the equation – is an incredible feat in its own right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BTS did it with “Life Goes On” and “BE.” Taylor Swift did it with “cardigan” and “folklore.”","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":144966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1047],"tags":[14105,8321,13942,13939,7787,145],"adace-sponsor":[],"yoast_head":"\n