Britney's Hot 100 History & Her Return From Chart Wilderness

[©!nful]

Got Lost In The Game: Hot 100 Victory Returns Britney From Chart Wilderness

Ten years ago this month—Oct. 23, 1998, to be exact—Jive Records released a savvy, Max Martin–produced pop trifle called “…Baby One More Time.” It went on to top Billboard's Hot 100 in the winter of 1999 and kick off teen-pop’s headiest, craziest and silliest year of cultural dominance.

It was also the last time former Mouseketeer, aspiring starlet and pop fetish object Britney Spears would top the premier U.S. singles chart—until this week, when Spears (as predicted) shoots from the chart’s bottom rungs to the penthouse with “Womanizer.” In the process, she ousts rap king T.I. and duet partner Rihanna; defeats a record he set twice in the last two months for the biggest leap to the top in Billboard history; beats Mariah Carey’s record for one-week digital sales by a female act; and consummates a year-long effort to rehabilitate her career.

When I speak about Britney’s rehabilitation, I’m not just referring to her well-publicized efforts to turn around a half-decade of tabloid-level personal breakdown. I’m also referring to her surprisingly checkered U.S. chart history. Indeed, the first question some of you might be asking yourselves is, How is this only her second No. 1 hit?

The short answer: she’s arguably gotten screwed by the refs. To a chart geek like me, Spears comes off as a victim of a decade of erratic industry practices and radical shifts in Hot 100 chart rules.

By the same token, the industry practices and chart rules that have hurt her all these years help her disproportionately this week. Last week, a solid showing at radio brought “Womanizer” to the Hot 100 a bit earlier than expected, and it debuted at No. 96. This week, sales of 286,000 make radio almost irrelevant, and the song shoots to No. 1. Over the past four years, the Hot 100 has become a chart where radio airplay is pretty important but digital sales are massively important—and the first two chart weeks of “Womanizer” show it.

In 1998–99, when Spears scored her first hit, the Hot 100 was in transition. Back then, the digital market was essentially nonexistent, the physical single was disappearing, and Billboard was about to make a move that would give radio even greater sway over chart performance than it already had. In December 1998, the Hot 100 was converted from a singles chart to a songs chart, making album cuts and promotional tracks not available for sale to the public eligible to chart for the first time. So began a half-decade of total radio dominance, with singles sales an afterthought.

Mind you, “…Baby One More Time” was released as a retail single, and it benefited mightily, reaching No. 1 on the Hot 100 thanks largely to the platinum sales it racked up in the weeks before Spears’ similarly-titled album dropped in 1999. But as Jive elected to release fewer of her subsequent hits as singles, and as radio came to dominate the Hot 100, “…Baby” was the last Spears single to benefit so greatly from sales for years.

Here’s the complete list of her Hot 100 hits—I have bolded her Top 10s:

“...Baby One More Time” (No. 1, 1999)
“Sometimes” (No. 21, 1999)
“(You Drive Me) Crazy” (No. 10, 1999)
“From the Bottom of My Broken Heart” (No. 14, 2000)
“Oops!...I Did It Again” (No. 9, 2000)
“Lucky” (No. 23, 2000)
“Stronger” (No. 11, 2000)
“I'm a Slave 4 U” (No. 27, 2001)
“Overprotected” (No. 86, 2002)
“Me Against the Music” (feat. Madonna) (No. 35, 2003)
“Toxic” (No. 9, 2004)
“Everytime” (No. 15, 2004)
“Outrageous” (No. 79, 2004)
“Do Somethin'“ (No. 100, 2005)
“Gimme More” (No. 3, 2007)
“Piece of Me” (No. 18, 2007)
“Break the Ice” (No. 43, 2008)
“Womanizer” (No. 1, 2008)

continued...

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That’s six Top 10s out of 18 hits, or one out of three. (I’m not even including songs Jive promoted that didn’t make the Hot 100.) It’s a respectable yield over a decade for the average pop star, but Spears isn’t average—she has been, for better or worse, the defining female pop star of her time. Madonna’s or Mariah Carey’s people wouldn’t tolerate this kind of performance; how did Spears end up with such a mixed record?

(You can quip here if you like about the quality of Spears’ oeuvre, and I’m not her biggest fan either—I waver from song to song. But (a) since when have the charts been entirely about artistic merit? And (b) it’s arguable that the sheer volume of media attention and label promotion Spears has received should produce better results than this.)

Here’s what you don’t see glancing at the above list:

• Four of those hits (“Sometimes,” “Oops,” “Lucky,” “Overprotected”) were airplay-only in the United States.

• Four more (“Crazy,” “Slave,” “Everytime,” “Outrageous”) were released in the States only on 12-inch vinyl. The last two of those vinyl singles were also available on iTunes—but in 2004, at a time when digital sales weren’t included on the Hot 100.

• Also in 2004, the masterful “Toxic” was a huge seller at iTunes, but again, at that time it didn’t count; the song only squeaked into the Top 10 by ranking No. 1 at Top 40 radio.

• Two of her earlier hits, “…Broken Heart” and “Stronger,” were released as normal CD singles and sold superbly (platinum and gold, respectively); but by then, airplay was so critical to chart position that the songs’ underperformance at radio prevented either one from making the Top 10.

• The last five songs on the list charted in an era when iTunes sales counted toward the Hot 100, and all of them—even the unpromoted, No. 100–peaking “Do Somethin’”—probably charted better than they otherwise would have, thanks entirely to digital sales.

In short, after “…Baby,” there’s some kind of caveat on practically every hit Spears ever had, related to format, chart quirks and the development of the digital economy, rather than the relative quality or fan-friendliness of any of the songs. If Spears had been a pop star in an earlier era, when singles availability was predictable and airplay had a normal influence over the charts, she might not have gone Top 10 every time, but she likely would have had a more consistent chart presence.

Judging both on quality and on cultural resonance, the thumping “Womanizer” isn’t half as great a song as, say, the lower-charting “Toxic.” But let’s give Britney her due. Radio wouldn’t have jumped on “Womanizer” two weeks ago if the song weren’t catchy, and if she weren’t perceived as “back” in a pop-star sense. The solid hits she scored off last year’s Blackout went a long way toward reestablishing her hitmaking credibility.

And the public wouldn’t have snapped up nearly 300,000 copies of the song if she weren’t an object of fascination again, one worthy of 99 cents and about four minutes of their time.

http://idolator.com/5065220/got-lost-in-the-game-hot-100-victory-returns-britney-from-chart-wilderness

If you ever wondered why her singles didn't do so well back in the day, this explains why. :)

[heavenwaits_22]

Exactly. They even said in that article that airplay is important but, sales are way more important.

Airplay doesn't always signify what people want to hear.
It's about the sales.

[totodyal]

Well put! That was an amazing break down.
Notice how all of her singles are mentioned under the assumption that everyone has already heard them before despite their low charting presence. I posted about this a few days ago but this writer actually goes into detailed research to explain it.

Thanks for posting.

[Chismé]

Thanks for posting Ravane. :kiss:

[Elroy Jetson]

This is common knowledge amongst fans. Nothing knew really.

[Sasha Reigne]

Ravane I just have to say it, the Womanizer in your avatar looks like he is getting raped.

[totodyal]

I wonder if "Womanizer"s airplay and number of stations its being played on are equal to that of a typical #1 pop song. I somehow doubt that most of radio have turned a 180 and started putting her music back into rotation. I still know of many pop/urban stations here that don't play her music.

[©!nful]

Ravane I just have to say it, the Womanizer in your avatar looks like he is getting raped.

:nc: :laugh:

[JessicaJ10790]

t4p!

[sofia22]

thanks for posting