Sandy Guberti-Ng / August 8, 2018

The Billboard Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming in the United States. Over the last decades, the music industry has faced many technological disruptions that change the way we listen and consume music.

What is a Album-Equivalent Unit? As we moved from purchasing whole albums, to single digital tracks, and now, streaming, the album-equiva- lent unit emerged as a measurement unit in the music industry to measure the success of an artist or an album. The album-equivalent unit was introduced in the mid-2010s as an answer to the drop of album sales in the 21st century.

Stream Equivalent Album Track Equivalent Album Album Sales (SEA) (TEA)

= = 1500 10 1 album purchase song streams song downloads

2016 Top Overall Albums Number of Album-Equivalent Units

Drake 4.1 million Views

Adele 2.3 25

Beyonce 2.1 Lemonade

Rihanna 1.9 Anti

Twenty One Pilots 1.7 Blurryface

Justin Bieber 1.6 Purpose

Chris Stapleton 1.4 Traveller

Various Artists 1.3 Hamilton: An American Musical

Various Artists 1.1 Suicide Squad: The Album

Ariana Grande 1.0 Dangerous Woman DATA SOURCE: NIELSEN MUSIC YEAR-END REPORT U.S. 2016

Number of Tracks on Each Album

If you’re a thirsty pop artist of note, you can theoretically game the system by packing Drake 20 tracks as many as 20 tracks into an album, in the Views process rolling up more album-equivalent units—and thus album “sales”—as listeners check the album out. Adele 11 25 Brian Josephs, Spin.

Beyonce 12 Lemonade

Rihanna 13 Anti

Twenty One Pilots 14 Blurryface

Justin Bieber 13 Purpose

Chris Stapleton 14 Traveller Various Artists 46 Hamilton: An American Musical

Various Artists 14 Suicide Squad: The Album

Ariana Grande 11 Dangerous Woman DATA SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA Median # of Tracks 13.5

Streams vs. Sales How do album sales, song downloads, and streams make up Album-Equivalent Units?

Song Streams Song Downloads Album Sales

21% 16% 46% 57% 38% 77%

DANCE/ELECTRONIC LATIN R&B/HIP HOP POP OVERALL INDUSTRY COUNTRY CHRISTIAN/GOSPEL ROCK CLASSICAL JAZZ HOLIDAY/SEASONAL CHILDRENS More Streams More Sales

Ariana Grande Twenty One Pilots Dangerous Woman Adele Tidal Exclusive Blurryface Lemonade is unavailable King of Streaming Drake 25 Views was the first album Views to Spotify and Apple Music to accumulate one-billion skewing streaming numbers. streams on Apple Music.

Beyonce Lemonade Rihanna Anti

Chris Stapleton Traveller

Justin Bieber Purpose

DATA SOURCE: NIELSEN MUSIC YEAR-END REPORT U.S. 2016

If I gave two fucks about streaming numbers, Would have put Lemonade up on Spotify.

- The Carters. “NICE”

IMAGE SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

What if Lemonade were on Spotify?

Beyonce is thought to be a Pop/R&B artist. If Lemonade was on Spotify and Apple Music, I estimate that it would increase the Album Equivalent Unit by 1 to 1.6 million. This would solidified Lemonade as the No. 2 album of 2016.

Drake 4.1 million Views

R&B/ Hip Hop Lemonade 3.7

Pop Lemonade 3.3

Industry Avg 3.1 Lemonade

Adele 2.3 25

Beyonce 2.1 Lemonade

Methodology: (Album Sales + Song Downloads) / (100% - Genre Streaming Rate %) IMAGE SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA