The Billboard charts are the absolute authority when it comes to tracking how commercially successful music is, but lately, there have been challengers emerging. Last September, Apple Music introduced their own charts that are updated daily, and now Rolling Stone is doing something similar, although with some key differences.
Beginning on May 13, the new “Rolling Stone Charts” will list the top 100 singles and the top 200 albums in the US, with the singles chart getting daily updates. An important difference between this chart and Apple Music’s is that Rolling Stone‘s will include data from analytics firm BuzzAngle Music, not just Apple Music’s streaming numbers. Additionally, Rolling Stone will launch three other weekly charts: the Rolling Stone Artist 500, which will rank the most-streamed artists; the Rolling Stone Trending 25, which will list the fastest moving songs; and the Rolling Stone Breakthrough 25, which will list hot artists on the chart for the first time.
Penske Media Corporation (which owns Rolling Stone) CEO Jay Penske said in a statement, “PMC’s strategy is to constantly evolve our brands and products across media platforms. What’s imperative and exciting about our new Rolling Stone Charts is that it will present a transparent, granular and real-time quantification to accurately reflect listeners’ evolving interests and give insight into worldwide trends.”
Penske also told Vanity Fair, “Rolling Stone is the most widely recognized brand in the music space, and we think it should be used in other ways to help people discover music.”
PMC also noted in a press release that the Rolling Stone charts will go deeper into streaming data, and they will be more transparent about their methodologies. Ultimately, Billboard is the well-established leader in this space, but Rolling Stone‘s entrance into the field is promising.
