Album Bombs (Past, Present & Future)
There have always been massively popular albums where many songs from said album enters the charts but it wasn't till the inclusion of streaming counting towards the charts that we got full chart dominance from artists every time they release an album.
Arguably the most influencial album in terms of chart dominance and getting the most songs into the charts at once came from Ed Sheeran with his March 2017 release ÷ from which all 16 songs got into the Top 20 in the UK.
Since then in both the UK and US there have been a surprisingly large number of albums dominating the charts, from Kendrick Lamar to most recently Eminem.
You might have noticed that my two examples there are both rappers and indeed it has been popular rap that has benefited from streaming more than any other genre. In the US it seems like every other week there's a huge album bomb where between 6 and 25 new songs enter all by the same artist/rapper.
Post Malone, Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Travis Scott, Pusha T, Kanye West, Ariana Grande, Logic, The Weeknd and Drake are all some of the biggest artists that have had a major album bomb in the charts in the past year with that "25 songs by one artist" being attributed to Drake for his huge new album Scorpion. Although, exactly how huge is it when he vast majority of songs have already vanished from the Top 100. He still achieved three no. 1s from the album and a couple of other songs that have stuck around but as it was a few years ago the majority of songs on the album don't stay in the eyes of the public for very long.
What has changed is the way people consume the albums, oftentimes listening to the songs that have been placed on the mega popular playlists that take the forefront of Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer's home pages. That's a topic for another day, but the point is that Album Bombs are more reflective of which songs people like the most rather than only the singles getting the fame.
Even some indie and smaller artists are seeing the benefits of streaming for their albums, my favourite band The XX had 6 songs from their 2017 album in the UK Top 100, a feat usually constrained to only pop artists.
A few months and Album Bombs after Ed Sheeran's record breaking feat with ÷, the UK chart rules changed to state that a single artist can only ever have 3 songs in the Top 100 at any time, essentially truncating and artificially representing what is the most popular. I disagree with the choice to do this and hope over in America they don't choose to follow suit. A choice I do commend is the change to include watches on YouTube to count towards the charts, something effective both sides of the pond. This is another step towards taking YouTube seriously that needed to happen.
Looking forward it is only the US that can properly represent Album Bombs although the UK still sees the influence of huge albums, especially with artists like Drake who seems to bag Top 5 hits every time he releases a song. It doesn't look like this sort of occurrence will cease in the near future, in fact it seems to be a common thing to happen at the moment. What used to be a conundrum has become a norm and not the Chart Anomaly that Sheeran's ÷ was.
My only hope is that the types of artists that achieve these Chart Bombs diversifies as it is heavily biased towards hip hop, rap and pop. More artists like The XX should get to impact the charts and in a bigger way.
Arguably the most influencial album in terms of chart dominance and getting the most songs into the charts at once came from Ed Sheeran with his March 2017 release ÷ from which all 16 songs got into the Top 20 in the UK.
Since then in both the UK and US there have been a surprisingly large number of albums dominating the charts, from Kendrick Lamar to most recently Eminem.
You might have noticed that my two examples there are both rappers and indeed it has been popular rap that has benefited from streaming more than any other genre. In the US it seems like every other week there's a huge album bomb where between 6 and 25 new songs enter all by the same artist/rapper.
Post Malone, Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Travis Scott, Pusha T, Kanye West, Ariana Grande, Logic, The Weeknd and Drake are all some of the biggest artists that have had a major album bomb in the charts in the past year with that "25 songs by one artist" being attributed to Drake for his huge new album Scorpion. Although, exactly how huge is it when he vast majority of songs have already vanished from the Top 100. He still achieved three no. 1s from the album and a couple of other songs that have stuck around but as it was a few years ago the majority of songs on the album don't stay in the eyes of the public for very long.
What has changed is the way people consume the albums, oftentimes listening to the songs that have been placed on the mega popular playlists that take the forefront of Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer's home pages. That's a topic for another day, but the point is that Album Bombs are more reflective of which songs people like the most rather than only the singles getting the fame.
Even some indie and smaller artists are seeing the benefits of streaming for their albums, my favourite band The XX had 6 songs from their 2017 album in the UK Top 100, a feat usually constrained to only pop artists.
A few months and Album Bombs after Ed Sheeran's record breaking feat with ÷, the UK chart rules changed to state that a single artist can only ever have 3 songs in the Top 100 at any time, essentially truncating and artificially representing what is the most popular. I disagree with the choice to do this and hope over in America they don't choose to follow suit. A choice I do commend is the change to include watches on YouTube to count towards the charts, something effective both sides of the pond. This is another step towards taking YouTube seriously that needed to happen.
Looking forward it is only the US that can properly represent Album Bombs although the UK still sees the influence of huge albums, especially with artists like Drake who seems to bag Top 5 hits every time he releases a song. It doesn't look like this sort of occurrence will cease in the near future, in fact it seems to be a common thing to happen at the moment. What used to be a conundrum has become a norm and not the Chart Anomaly that Sheeran's ÷ was.
My only hope is that the types of artists that achieve these Chart Bombs diversifies as it is heavily biased towards hip hop, rap and pop. More artists like The XX should get to impact the charts and in a bigger way.
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