We're slowly but surely polishing things up, another update is now ready to be released. Like what you see? Follow me on Twitter for more.Thanks to everyone who shared their NetLogs to help us track down sync errors, and those reported various bugs that the game liked to boast. It has been updated to reflect that he only used a ticket bundle. This article has been updated with insight from Ben Kline.Ī previous version of this article stated that Chesney utilized merchandise bundles for his new album as well as a ticket bundle.
2 behind Travis Scott’s Astroworld. With the excitement of the now-postponed Chillaxification Tour in the rearview, Chesney’s latest album is destined for a similar freefall on the Billboard 200, while Drake’s sad-rap smorgasbord will hug the upper realm of the chart for weeks to come. 13 in its second week, while Scorpion finally dropped to No. 2 below Drake’s Scorpion, which was then in its fifth consecutive week at No. Chesney debuted his last album, 2018’s Song for the Saints, at No. Regardless, history has proven that Drake will have the last laugh. It’s plausible that more people listened to Drake’s Dark Lane Demo Tapes than Chesney’s Here and Now last week, even if the charts don’t reflect that. The streaming-equivalent album formula will never be perfectly accurate, and there’s no way of knowing how many customers who buy ticket bundles actually listen to their accompanying albums. The system is obviously flawed on both sides.
1 album on Billboard 200 doesn’t prove who is the most popular artist in the United States on any given week it merely proves who is better at topping the Billboard 200 by any means necessary. When a country artist with paltry streaming numbers outsells the biggest commercial rapper in the world, it’s clear that a No. It’s no secret that streaming is the primary mode of music consumption these days. 1 album and what makes artists bend over backward to earn them in the first place. 1 album, fans should question the value of a No. Rather than slam Chesney for “robbing” Drake of his No. In reality, the only likely difference between this week and last week was a refresh of the Billboard 200. I have no reason to doubt Chesney and his team held out until the last possible second and did everything in their power to avoid postponing the Chillaxification Tour, but I am skeptical of how much new COVID-19 information they could have received in the last week to influence their decision. By bundling Here and Now with tickets to a tour that was obviously going to be postponed, Chesney cashed in on his fans’ desire for a return to normalcy and sold them a lie that everything would be okay by summertime. They want to sing along to his treasure trove of hits while whacking beach balls around a baseball stadium. With all due respect to one of country music’s bestselling artists, most fans aren’t champing at the bit to hear Chesney’s new album cuts. But by implementing a ticket bundle in the era of COVID-19, when all stadium shows will be put on ice for the foreseeable future, Chesney shamelessly gamed the Billboard chart.
1 albums when they otherwise wouldn’t have cracked the Top 20. Chesney’s victory isn’t without precedent, either: Plenty of artists have utilized ticket bundles to earn No. 1 album last week is a moot point he didn’t get it, and that’s not going to change. Drake’s new commercial mixtape came with no ticket or merchandise bundles, and the rapper sold no physical albums fans could only listen to consume Dark Lane Demo Tapes via streaming or digital download. Dark Lane Demo Tapes bowed with 223,000 equivalent units, including 201,000 streaming-equivalent albums, or 269.1 million on-demand streams. Here and Now opened with 233,000 album-equivalent units, of which 222,000 were traditional album sales, while only 10,000 came from streaming-equivalent albums, totaling a measly 13.4 million on-demand streams. While Chesney is entitled to use the current rules to his advantage as much as any artist, the numbers for his and Drake’s new albums are revealing. Spectators-particularly Drake fans-have accused Chesney of gaming the Billboard chart methodology to earn his latest No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with Here and Now, aided largely by a concert ticket/album bundle for a tour that had not yet been postponed. Chesney’s new album narrowly outsold Drake’s Dark Lane Demo Tapes, giving the Toronto rapper his first non-No. But the news has drawn the ire of many music consumers, because last week, Chesney scored his ninth No.
Normally, the Chillaxification Tour postponement would barely register on most non-country fans’ radars. Chesney is just one of dozens of stadium and arena headliners who have put their massive tours on hold this year.