Chart Shifts by Billboard Draw Fire

Lee Jae-Won/Reuters

Billboard's revisions made "Gangnam Style," by Psy, above, No. 1 on the new Rap Songs chart.

Three weeks ago, the editors at Billboard, who for decades have defined what makes an American hit, shook up the song charts for various genres.

The magazine started counting digital sales and online streams along with radio airplay in its tallies for most major formats. It also created two new charts using the same criteria, breaking out rap songs in one and R&B songs in a second.

The results have given stars with a pop-oriented sound and broad crossover appeal an advantage over other artists, upsetting and puzzling some music fans. Take Psy, the pudgy South Korean pop star with the infectious dance moves whose video “Gangnam Style” went viral on the Internet. Since the new rules took effect, “Gangnam Style” has been the No. 1 song on the new Rap Songs chart for the last three weeks, even though Psy does not rap on the track and most American hip-hop radio stations have yet to embrace him as a bona fide rapper.

On the Hot Country Songs chart, Taylor Swift’s pop single “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” has held the No. 1 position for three weeks, even as many country stations have rejected it, and Rihanna’s pop hit “Diamonds“ has remained atop the Hot R&B-Hip Hop Songs chart, causing dismay among R&B purists.

Bill Werde, Billboard’s editorial director, said the shake-up was necessary to reflect changes in the way people consume music these days. There was a time when radio programmers — and the record labels who lobbied them — largely defined the charts, using surveys of their listeners and their gut instincts to select hits. Now the Internet gives fans a greater say, as people buy music from online stores, stream it through services like Spotify or listen to it on video sites like YouTube and Vevo.

“Three weeks ago, the main genre charts only reflected FM radio play,” Mr. Werde said. “Every fan out there in the world knows and everyone in the music business knows that is not the business we are in anymore, that a stream on Rhapsody or Spotify, or a download at iTunes or Amazon — all these different things — are a meaningful part of the fan experience. And to have genre charts that don’t reflect that? I can’t believe anyone would be arguing for that.”

Still, some people did. The changes caused a backlash on Twitter and other online forums from some purists among hip-hop, country and R&B fans. A headline on one commentator’s blog was “Billboard Chart Changes — R.I.P. R&B Music.” The Web site Saving Country Musiclamented that “these new rules could cause the largest wholesale power shift to superstars that music has ever seen.”

Psy’s climb up the rap chart was also criticized. “Trust me when I tell you hip-hop does not consider Psy rap,” said Ebro Darden, the program director at Hot 97 (WQHT, 97.1 FM) the leading hip-hop station in New York. “Billboard has pull, but they cannot make people who live hip-hop believe Psy is rap.”

Most of the criticism, however, has come from fan groups with narrow interests. Carrie Underwood fans were furious that her song “Blown Away” was blocked from No. 1 by Ms. Swift’s pop tune, even though Ms. Underwood’s track is being played far more on country radio stations.

Some R&B and hip-hop fans were dismayed that Rihanna’s song jumped abruptly to No. 1 from No. 66, and that it has remained at the top of the chart ever since. Fans of R&B singer Brandy were particularly incensed, because her song “Put It Down,” featuring Chris Brown, which had been in the Top 10, dropped like a stone after the rule change, even though it remains a favorite on urban radio stations.

An online petition was started to persuade Billboard to undo the changes and has gathered 625 signatures, a small number for an Internet-based campaign.

Mr. Werde characterizes the detractors as a “vocal minority” and has stood firm in the face of the criticism, arguing in columns and online discussions that the definition of a hit has changed and Billboard must keep up with the times.

Similar changes were made a few months ago to the Hot 100 song chart, the main chart that measures popularity across genres, and they have been widely accepted by the industry. Some critics have said there is a subtle price to pay for the new rules. For starters, it becomes harder for artists of a traditional bent, or whose work lacks crossover appeal, to attain a No. 1 hit in their genre.

Billboard made one other change to its methodology that rewards crossover hits. Previously, the magazine only counted airplay on country stations for the country chart, and spins on R&B stations for the R&B chart, and so on. Now it is counting all the plays a song receives on 1,200 stations across genres
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