Billboard revises rules, denies Britney Spears #1 album

[Beeyotch]

Revised Chart Policy Lands Eagles At No. 1

Revised Chart Policy Lands Eagles At No. 1
The Eagles
November 06, 2007, 8:30 PM ET

Mitchell Peters, L.A.
The Eagles' first new studio album in 28 years, "Long Road Out of Eden," takes a short route to No. 1 on The Billboard 200 after Billboard revised a significant chart policy today (Nov. 7).

In consultation with Nielsen SoundScan, Billboard will now allow exclusive album titles that are only available through one retailer to appear on The Billboard 200 and other charts, effective with this week's charts. Prior to this, proprietary titles were not eligible to appear on most Billboard charts.

Early SoundScan numbers have the Eagles taking the top perch on The Billboard 200 with 711,000 copies sold, with most sales moved by Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores. For now, the only other U.S. outlets carrying "Eden" are walmart.com, where both physical copies and downloads are sold, and the Eagles' own Web site.

"Eden" became available at the mass-market chain Oct. 30. Aside from two compilations, this is the Eagles' first album since the mostly live "Hell Freezes Over," which led The Billboard 200 for two weeks in 1994.

Britney Spears' new Jive album, "Blackout," which would have been No. 1 had the Eagles' data not been reported, will open at No. 2 with first-week sales of 290,000 copies.

"We know that some retailers will be uncomfortable with this policy, but it was inevitable that Billboard's charts would ultimately widen the parameters to reflect changes that are unfolding in music distribution," says Geoff Mayfield, Billboard's director of charts. "We would have preferred to make this decision earlier, but only became aware within the last 24 hours that Wal-Mart would be willing to share the data for this title with Nielsen SoundScan."

The revised policy initially impacts The Billboard 200 and Top Country Albums, where "Eden" will also bow at No. 1. Criteria for the remainder of Billboard's albums charts will be formulated later this week. A handful of other titles will debut this week on The Billboard 200 as a consequence of the policy revision.

Previously, titles that were not generally available at retail were not eligible to appear on The Billboard 200, but were entitled to chart on Billboard's Top Comprehensive Albums, which includes catalog titles and proprietary albums from retailers willing to report those sales.

The comprehensive chart will continue to appear on Billboard.biz, to show how catalog titles compete with the overall market. However, once parameters for the remainder of the album charts are determined, Top Comprehensive Music Videos will be discontinued, as exclusive titles will then be eligible for the Nielsen SoundScan-fed Top Music Videos.

HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHA!!!

How much did Billboard not want her to have the top album over the Eagles--they just changed their rules today!!!

Well, rightly so since they outsold her by more than twice as many units and that's just by selling it through one retailer--Wal-Mart!!

[msdeb]

[DontMindMe]

God bless Billboard and the Eagles, Amen.

[Cali]

Best thing they ever did.

Cheers for the suits at Billboard!

[Yoko Ono]

"We would have preferred to make this decision earlier, but only became aware within the last 24 hours that Wal-Mart would be willing to share the data for this title with Nielsen SoundScan."

Yeah sure.
More like they are raving Eagles fans who are willing to cheat and move the goal posts to give them an advantage over other artists.

Lots of artists have released boutique albums that sold really well in the past.
I guess they never thought to ask them if they would like to include their sales in Soundscan.

I'm an Eagles fan don't get me wrong. But it really bothers me well this kind of thing happens no matter who the artist is.

[NoNoRehab]

It's not a cheat. If anything, the Eagles have a disadvantage selling only through one retailer, whereas all other the artists get to sell from a ton of retailers. And still the Eagles sold more than twice their nearest competitor.

Unless someone wants to change the rules of mathematics, it's not a cheat.

[Yoko Ono]

compared to Britneys sales it's not a cheat, I agree.

I meant for all the other artist who have distributed through similiar channels who previously weren't included.

Obviously they werent fans of them artists to even ask if their distributers would like to have their sales included too. Why would they not? Before it was a steadfast rule that they weren't included. End of.

This will probably now include Maccas album that was released exclusively to Starbucks (or whatever it was)

Just seems like some 60 year old fart changing the rules to help his fave artists along to me.

[sputnik]

a new radiohead album and it's shitney that's at the top of the charts. people suck.
as for the eagles, i'm sick of hotel california and anything else of theirs that i've heard has been kind of boring.

[NicoleWasHere]

God bless the boys of summer! Britney just got uber pwned again!

[aabbcc]

The Eagles are 100x better than Twitney anyway.

[NoNoRehab]

McCartney's album was included on the charts because it wasn't exclusive to Starbucks. It was on their label but was still sold everywhere else. (It hit the top five on the album charts - random trivia, his 48th top five album).

[GoldDust77]

Originally Posted by DontMindMe

God bless Billboard and the Eagles, Amen.

^^Exactly what i was thinking. THANK GOD FOR THE EAGLES!!!!

[purple rain]

Bwahaha.

Twitney fans were salivating over Britney having her first 5 studio albums hit #1 in the US, and now that's ripped away from her. I think her CD will drop like a rock, too. Only hardcore fans are interested in her music nowdays.

Also, I love how Christina's non-mainstream album had bigger first week sales than Britney's. All Britney ever had over Christina was bigger sales, but true talent wins out over time.

[lavi]

Originally Posted by Yoko Ono

compared to Britneys sales it's not

Obviously they werent fans of them artists to even ask if their distributers would like to have their sales included too. Why would they not? Before it was a steadfast rule that they weren't included. End of.

This will probably now include Maccas album that was released exclusively to Starbucks (or whatever it was)

Just seems like some 60 year old fart changing the rules to help his fave artists along to me.

This is what a great manager will do for you. Irving Azoff is one of the biggest and most connected managers in the Music Industry. No doubt he pulled a few strings to get this worked out.

However, I can't help but laugh about all those Brit fans rubbing it in everybody's face how she was going to have a number 1 album

[CherryDarling]

INTERESTING!!!! I wonder what Twitters reaction to this one will be.