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YouTube Charts Crown Latin Artists As Kings Of Summer 2017 Pop Sounds

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Latest YouTube charts show complete domination of summer pop sound by Latin artists
Brian Haack
GRAMMYs
Sep 11, 2017 - 2:13 pm

As if the recent U.S. chart successes of songs like Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee's "Despacito" and J Balvin & Willy William's "Mi Gente" weren't enough of an indication, YouTube's top 25 Song Of The Summer charts have overwhelmingly confirmed that Latin artists were the undisputed kings of the global pop sound of summer 2017.

The 'Songs Of The Summer' charts were compiled from songs released in the past year, and ranked by number of views gained both globally and in the U.S. between Memorial Day and Labor Day 2017 to determine which songs reign supreme over the metaphorical internet airwaves.

Despite musical entries from every corner of the globe, the international chart was dominated by Latin sounds, grabbing a whopping 16 of the 25 spots with artists like Shakira, Daddy Yankee, Maluma, and of course Luis Fonis. Puerto Rican trap and reggaeton singer Ozuna also grabbed four of the top global video slots on his own.

Check out the full listings of the top 25 Songs Of The Summer global and U.S. charts as originally shared over at Billboard.

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Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images

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Music Streaming: Huge Q3 Led By Big Albums, Viral Hits

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Nielsen Music's quarterly report shows big jumps for streaming, continuing declines for physical sales and the return of a classic album to the top of the heap for vinyl sales
Brian Haack
GRAMMYs
Oct 3, 2017 - 5:20 pm

Nielsen Music's Q3 2017 report has some excellent news for the ever-growing music streaming market: a 40.5 percent-plus jump in music consumption from the same time in 2016.

Billboard reports that the first three quarters of 2016 saw approximately 315 billion on-demand streams, a metric nearly surpassed in 2017 by just the end of Q2. The 40.5 percent increase in streams is likewise up from the 36.4 percent growth rate clocked by Nielsen just three months ago, proving that the market still has plenty of growth headroom.

Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito," this year's most-streamed track so far, has already pulled in 1.11 billion streams. That's almost twice what Desiigner's "Panda" had achieved by the end of Q3 last year. Furthermore, another six tracks have also surpassed the 674.4 million streams that Desiigner's "Panda" had by this time last year.

On the album side, Kendrick Lamar's DAMN. currently leads the charge with 2.35 million consumption units, with Ed Sheeran and Drake's 2017 offerings coming in second and third at 2.13 million and 2 million, respectively.

Both physical album sales and single track downloads showed continued declines, while vinyl album sales notched a slight 3.1 percent increase. The best-selling vinyl album of the year so far? The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which isn't totally surprising, given its recent 50th-anniversary special-edition reissue.

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'American Dream' Grab No. 1 Chart Spot For LCD Soundsystem

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GRAMMY-nominated band tops the Billboard 200 for the first time in their 15-year run
Brian Haack
GRAMMYs
Sep 11, 2017 - 5:17 pm

The seven years since GRAMMY-nominated dance-punk outfit LCD Soundsystem released their critically acclaimed third album This Is Happening saw a variety of notable moments in the members' lives.

The band separated for five years, some members continued to work with side projects and another bands — namely Hot Chip and the Juan Maclean — and frontman James Murphy went on a crusade to convince the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority to change their subway turnstile sounds to a series of melodic bleep-bloop tones.

When the group came back together in 2016, there was some uncertainty as to what would happen next. It seemed like the band had departed at the top of the heap for their scene and what they'd ostensibly been trying to accomplish. 

"We're not the Rolling Stones," Murphy told The Hollywood Reporter back in 2012. "We didn't start when we were teenagers. We started when we were older. People had kids."

So when they did come back, Murphy made it clear to his fans in a well-publicized blog post that he was well aware, "It needs to be better than anything we’ve done before."

LCD Soundsystem's fourth LP American Dream was released on Sept. 1, and just this past week has officially become the band's first album to ever reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. (This Is Happening held the band's previous highest chart seat at No. 10.)

The chart rank was gained almost completely by way of physical album sales, helped along in part by the band's decision to take advantage of an increasingly common practice of bundling physical copies of the CD along with all tickets sold on their current U.S. and European 2017 tour.

Arcade Fire, the Chainsmokers and Katy Perry have employed similar strategies with their 2017 releases, with each artist or group likewise grabbing the No. 1 slot in their opening sales weeks.

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Billboard 200 Album Chart To Count Video Plays From Streaming Services Starting In 2020

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The implementation of video data will also impact other genre album consumption charts
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Dec 13, 2019 - 2:10 pm

In what may be an industry-shifting change, Billboard will soon begin counting video and audio plays and data from the leading video and streaming services into the Billboard 200 album chart for the first time ever, it was announced today (Dec. 13). Taking into effect with the charts dated Jan. 18, 2020, which track sales and streaming figures between Jan. 3-9, the forthcoming chart metrics will now reflect officially licensed video content plays from YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Tidal and Vevo. The change will also impact other genre album consumption charts, including country, R&B/hip-hop, Latin and others.

The implementation of video data into the Billboard 200 chart, which ranks the best-selling albums and EPs in the U.S. each week, follows a major change in 2014 when it pivoted from a strictly sales-based ranking to a multi-metric chart reflecting streaming figures and digital track sales—what's known as a "consumption model."

The Billboard 200, as well as the genre album charts, will only count "official licensed video content uploaded by or on behalf of rights holders," according to Billboard. Its counterpart, the Billboard Hot 100, the weekly chart ranking the top songs in the U.S., has counted YouTube streams and nonofficial user-generated videos since 2013.

Read: What Was YouTube's Most-Streamed Music Video Of The Decade?

"As the steward of the definitive charts that uphold the industry's measurement of music consumption, our goal is to continually respond and accurately reflect the changing landscape of the music," president of Billboard-The Hollywood Reporter Media Group, which oversees Billboard magazine, Deanna Brown said in a press release announcing the chart changes. "Our decision to add YouTube and other video streaming data to our album charts reflects the continuing evolution of the music consumption market and the ways in which consumers connect to album-related content."

Added Lyor Cohen, Global Head of Music at YouTube: “YouTube's inclusion in the Billboard 200 is a very important moment in making the chart a more accurate representation of what people are listening to. Genres like Latin, hip hop and electronic, which consistently dominate the YouTube charts, will now be properly recognized for their popularity. This is another great step in bringing YouTube and the industry together and we're so grateful to Billboard and the music business at large for making this addition.”

The Billboard 200 update is the latest development in a string of industry and chart changes throughout the years, which include the launch of the Social 50 and digital download charts as well as streaming chart changes.

Rooted in the 1950s and evolving throughout the decades, the Billboard 200 chart adopted its current name in 1992.

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Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee in "Despacito"

Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee in "Despacito"

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What Was YouTube's Most-Streamed Music Video Of The Decade?

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"Despacito" by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee earns the spot of the most-streamed music video of all time with over 6.5 billion views to date
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Dec 12, 2019 - 2:06 pm

YouTube has released data for the most streamed music videos of all time on its platform. Not surprisingly, Luis Fonsi's and Daddy Yankee's huge 2017 Latin GRAMMY-winning hit, "Despacito," earns the spot of the most-streamed music video of all time with over 6.5 billion (!) views to date.

To be clear, this is the original version, not the Justin Bieber-assisted remix, although the pop sensation also makes the top 10 list, at No. 6, for his 2015 bop "Sorry." The Purpose track earns the spot with over 3.2 billion views. In fact, each of the top 10 videos has racked up over two billion views.

Related: Who Ruled Music Streaming In 2019?

The second most-viewed music videos on YouTube is one of the other catchy-as-hell, inescapable hits of 2017: Ed Sheeran's GRAMMY-winning "Shape Of You," which has over 4.5 billion views to date. Another one of the British pop star's GRAMMY-winning songs, 2014's "Thinking Out Loud," also makes the list, at No. 10 with over 2.8 billion video views.

As for the third and fourth spots, we have 2015's "See You Again" by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth, a GRAMMY-nominated song from the Furious 7 Soundtrack, and 2014's GRAMMY-winning bop "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. These two music videos have over 4.3 billion and over 3.7 views, respectively. Fifth place goes to PSY's 2012 meme-ready viral hit, "GANGNAM STYLE," at over 3.4 billion video views.

The seventh most video of all time goes to the song that allegedly prompted a stranger to throw sugar at Adam Levine's face, Maroon 5's GRAMMY-nominated hit "Sugar." The 2015 track's visual has over three billion views on YouTube and is followed by Katy Perry's 2013 GRAMMY-nominated empowerment anthem, "Roar" at over 2.9 million views. Finally, the number nine spot goes to OneRepublic's 2013 barn-stomping pop hit, "Counting Stars."

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The data, which YouTube shared via a press release, broke out the top music videos by the last four decades, based on the year they were originally released because, of course, YouTube has only been around since 2004. While the aforementioned top 10 videos of the 2010s were also the top 10 videos of all time, the top music videos of the 2000s, 1990s and 1980s also had some interesting finds.

The No. 1 song of the 2010s is Axel F's "Crazy Frog" at over 1.9 billion views, surpassing Linkin Park's Numb," Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and Taylor Swift's "You Belong To Me," which followed chronologically on that decade chart. Guns N' Roses take the number one spots for both the 1990s and 1980s list, with "November Rain" topping the former and "Sweet Child O' Mine" the latter.

An honorable mention goes to "Baby Shark Dance," the kid's song that was released in 2016 by South Korean company Pinkfong and went viral earlier this year. The original video (not to be confused with the many spinoffs or official EDM remix by JAUZ) has earned more views than "Uptown Funk." Baby Shark's family takes the number five spot of the most viewed videos of all time (music or otherwise) list on YouTube. Don't worry, Fonsi and Yankee are still at the top of this all-content list, so they don't have to worry about any hungry baby sharks—for now, at least.

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