Billboard issues new chart policy

Billboard has announced some new policies for albums and singles which will make it harder for artists to land on the top spot of the charts. These changes will become effective November 21 and result from numerous complaints from critics that artists would adopt unfair methods to generate high sales numbers.

- Albums priced below $3.49 will not be eligible on the Billboard album charts during their first four weeks of release and will not count towards sales data presented by Nielsen SoundScan.

- Unit sales for Digital Tracks priced below $0.39 during their first three months of release will not be eligible for inclusion on Billboard’s digital songs charts.

- Minimum pricing for a multi-disc album (not a single disc with extra tracks), where the extra disc is audio content, will be $3.49 times the amount of discs being made available.

- Unit sales for albums or EPs with 8 or less tracks will not be eligible for charting if the retail price is less than the sum of the tracks on the release, multiplied by $0.39

This signifies that units sold at a discount price will completely be ignored. Lady Gaga and Rihanna debuted at number one after their respective albums, Born This Way and Rated R, due to diverse discount strategies. Please share your thoughts on this below.