Effective November 21st 2011, any albums priced below $3.49 during their month of release will be refused entry onto the Billboard 200.
In an official statement released by the company it stated:
Free or almost-free albums don’t represent a marketplace.
Whether you work with or are a fan of Madonna or Kenny Chesney, Lady Gaga or Coldplay, it is your faith in our efforts to keep our charts credible that we work to honor every day.
Ultimately, what swayed us to make a rule change now was the fact that we wouldn’t want an album that sold for one penny to count on our charts. Our charts are meant to indicate consumer intent.
And once you accept that you don’t want to count penny albums, the only remaining question is simply where a threshold should be.
Unit sales for Albums priced below $3.49 during their first four weeks of release will not be eligible for inclusion on the Billboard album charts and will not count towards sales data presented by Nielsen SoundScan.
Allow us break this down for you:
If Artist A released a project which sold 2 million copies in its first week, of which 50% of those copies were sold for less than £3.49, Billboard and Nielsen Sound Scan would only count the sales of copies sold at full price. Completely ignoring those sold at a discount price.
Good news for those in favor of equal playing ground but bad news for the likes ofLady GaGa and Rihanna who in the past have used discounted prices to boost their chances of debuting at #1 in the US.
In May of this year, GaGa’s third album ‘Born This Way’ debuted with sales of 1,108,000 but only because 440,000 copies had been sold by Amazon for an astounding $.099.
Had the project been released after the implementation of this new policy, it still would have been #1 week but would have sold 664,000 as opposed to 1 million copies.
However, all sales generated by Rihanna’s ‘Rated R‘ (including those sold at discount) would still be counted as the lowest available price for that album was $3.99, 50 cents over the newly introduced threshold.

by Nate Santos, N.Y.   |   November 03, 2011 4:30 EDT

Artists in this Article

Mariah Carey

Jermaine Dupri

Written by DJ Cisco

Thursday, December 17, 2009 – BlackVibes.com

Billboard Hot 100 Songs of the Decade list names “We Belong Together” number 1, “Be Without You” the top R&B song of the decade and Usher Raymond the number one Hot 100 Artist of the Decade.

Jermaine Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox, and Johntá Austin, Multiple Grammy Award winning Producers and Artist, make Billboard’s “Hot 100 Songs of the Decade List”, “Top 200 Artist of the Decade List”, “Hot R&B Song of the Decade List” and “Top 200 Albums of the Decade List”, through their work with Mariah Carey, Usher and Mary J. Blige.

“We Belong Together”, “U Got It Bad”, “Burn”, and “My Boo” are number 1, 15, 26 and 36 respectively on Billboards Hot 100 Songs of the Decade and Usher Raymond was also awarded the top spot on the Hot 100 Artist of the Decade as well as ranking #2 for the Artist of the Decade. Raymonds album “Confessions” was awarded the #2 Album of the Decade.

The #1 song, “We Belong Together”, produced and written by Jermaine Dupri, Johntá Austin, Mariah Carey and Manuel Seal, was a crossover success receiving two Grammy’s at the 2006 Grammy Awards, three Billboard Music Awards, two Radio Music Awards, and over two million in sales. The top R&B song of the decade, “Be Without You” written and produced by Bryan-Michael Cox along with Mary J. Blige received a Grammy and posted #1 on the R&B Charts for a record 13 weeks.

Usher Raymond was also mentioned on Billboard’s “Hot 100 songs of Decade” with “U Got it Bad”, produced by Jermaine Dupri and Bryan-Michael Cox, “Burn”, written and produced by Jermaine Dupri and Bryan-Michael Cox, and “My Boo”, produced by Jermaine Dupri with writing credits from both Usher and Dupri.

“We are pleased with the continued recognition for our hard work and dedication to music,” said Bryan-Michael Cox, Jermaine Dupri, and Johntá Austin. “We would like to thank Billboard for acknowledging our work throughout the years.”

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Michael Jackson Breaks Billboard Charts Records
June 30, 2009 – Rock and Pop

By Keith Caulfield, L.A.

As predicted, Michael Jackson is once again the King of the Pop charts.

Based on preliminary sales numbers from Nielsen SoundScan, the entire top nine positions on Billboard’s Top Pop Catalog Albums chart will house Jackson-related titles when the tally is released in the early morning on Wednesday, July 1. Nielsen SoundScan’s sales tracking week ended at the close of business on Sunday (June 28) night.

Jackson himself has a record eight out of the top 10, while a Jackson 5 compilation also finds its way into the upper tier.

The King of Pop’s “Number Ones” will fittingly lead the pack at No. 1 with 108,000 copies (an increase of 2,340%) while “The Essential Michael Jackson” and “Thriller” are in the Nos. 2 and 3 slots with 102,000 and 101,000, respectively. Last week, “Number Ones” was the only Jackson title on the chart, at No. 20 with 4,000 copies; both “Essential” and “Thriller” re-enter the tally this week.

Additionally, his classic 1979 studio set “Off the Wall” re-enters at No. 4 with 33,000 while his 1987 album “Bad” returns at No. 6 with 17,000. At No. 5, the Jackson 5′s “The Ultimate Collection” debuts with 18,000. Jackson’s fourth studio album for Epic Records, 1991′s “Dangerous,” re-enters at No. 7 with 14,000 while his 2001 compilation “Greatest Hits: HIStory — Volume 1″ also comes back to the list at No. 8 with 12,000. Finally, Jackson’s 2004 box set “The Ultimate Collection” charts its first week on the Pop Catalog chart, arriving at No. 9 with 11,000.

The lone non-Jackson-related set in the top 10 is a reissue of the “Woodstock” movie soundtrack, which bows at No. 10 with 8,000.

Collectively, Jackson’s solo albums sold 415,000 this past week. That’s extraordinary, since his titles sold a combined 10,000 in the week that ended June 21. Of the 415,000 total, 58% were digital downloads.

Additionally, the 415,000 albums sold just last week is nearly 40% more than what Jackson’s catalog had sold the the entire year up through June 21 (297,000).

Sp eaking of digital albums, on the Top Digital Albums chart, Jackson has a record six out of the top 10 slots, including the entire top four. “The Essential Michael Jackson” leads the Top Digital Albums list with 80,000 downloads sold, while “Thriller” is No. 2 with 57,000.

With the Black Eyed Peas’ “The E.N.D.” moving back to the No. 1 slot on the Billboard 200 chart with 88,000, this week marks the first time that a catalog album has sold more than the No. 1 current set on the Billboard 200 albums chart. (All three of Jackson’s top sellers on the Pop Catalog chart outsell “The E.N.D.”)

Ironically, the feat almost occurred when Jackson re-issued “Thriller” in February 2008. The set relaunched with 166,000, re-entering at No. 1 on the Top Pop Catalog chart. That week, Jack Johnson’s “Sleep Through the Static” led the Billboard 200 chart with 180,000 while Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” was at No. 2 with 115,000.

Catalog albums are ineligible to appear on the Billboard 200 albums chart, though they can chart on the all-encompassing Top Comprehensive Albums list. On the latter chart, Jackson’s “Number Ones,” “Essential” and “Thriller” are at Nos. 1-3, followed by the Black Eyed Peas’ “The E.N.D.” at No. 4.

Jackson places a record 25 songs on the 75-position Hot Digital Songs chart (21 solo hits and four with his siblings), smashing the mark of 14 charting titles established by David Cook i n the June 7, 2008 issue. Jackson’s Halloween radio staple, “Thriller,” moves 167,000, which is good for second place on the chart behind the 203,000 shifted by the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling.”

“Thriller” was also Jackson’s best seller in the week before his death with 5,000 downloads, which translates to a 3,551% jump. Jackson’s total volume of downloads this week — including his tracks with the Jackson 5 and the Jacksons — account for 2.6 million downloads, a remarkable number considering last week’s cumulative sum was 48,000. Moreover, Jackson becomes the first act to sell more than 1 million song downloads in a week.

Besides “Thriller,” Jackson places five other songs in the top 10 including “Man In The Mirror” (No. 3, 165,000), “Billie Jean” (No. 4, 158,000), “The Way You Make Me Feel” (No. 6, 136,000), “Beat It” (No. 7, 134,000) and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” (No. 8, 125,000).

Not surprisingly, each of the tracks in the top 10 of Hot Digital Songs were among the top 10 most-played Jackson selections at radio following his passing. According to research provided by Nielsen BDS of monitored airplay from over 1,600 terrestrial and satellite radio stations and cable music channels, “Billie Jean” was the Jackson track with the most spins for the week ending June 28 with 4,540 — 97% of which occurred after news of his death became public. The track posted only 318 plays in the prior week.