These days any artist whose album has already sold considerable amounts are going to really struggle to post decent digital sales of follow up tracks. This is why we'll see an increasing trend to do a "Rihanna" - release a couple of singles prior to the album, release a couple of ok tracks aimed specifically at certain radio genres, re-release album but only after sending two previously unreleased tracks to radio + iTunes.

The same patterns are occurring the world over, with the Hot100 partially insulated against these trends by the heavy use of airplay - a buffer most sales-only charts don't have the luxury of.

On your points re: Better In Time:

"A label that waits five months to follow up a No. 1 smash is at least a little nervous the follow up won't live up to the first song's success ..."

Of course, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's been delayed for that reason - it would make more sense to rush the follow to surf the tidal wave of success. With Bleeding Love being so incredibly successful (16 consecutive weeks now in the top 4 of the Hot100 and record-breaking numbers on Pop Airplay) it's been more a case of having to delay the second release for fear of getting swamped by the predecessor.

"A song that has charted on a smaller ... that are playing it."

It charted on the main Hot100 chart due to sales of approx. 40,000 the week of the album release - not sure it has charted anywhere since (maybe a week or two extra on the Pop100 as those digital sales tailed off - very typical in the digital era).

Of course some PDs will have been aware of it being the second single, as it had already been released worldwide however very few have switched yet from Bleeding Love as the call out scores have remained ridiculously high. It is only within the last 10 days or so that we've started to see a few stations switch (and still well ahead of the adds date). The next 2-3 weeks is the best time to judge how it might do as listeners get the chance to hear the song and thus request it.

"A song that's selling 176th out of 200 digital songs--when followup album cuts from other acts with zero label promotion are doing Top 50 numbers--is not shaping up to be a hit. Cruel, but usually true."

If that was the peak after considerable airplay I'd agree, but with very little airplay yet? And as I said artists who sell major album numbers seem to struggle to sell follow-up singles digitally until the airplay really kicks in - look at Alicia, Usher and Mariah for examples. Better In Time jumped 60 places this week on the digital chart commensurate with a low level airplay build so we'll see how further airplay rises affect it in the coming weeks.

UKidol

cheesebubble

cosmiclove

Still, I think Occam's razor, or Music Industry 101, tells us a few obvious things:

• A label that waits five months to follow up a No. 1 smash is at least a little nervous the followup won't live up to the first song's success. Please see Blunt, James; Powter, Daniel.

• A song that has charted on a smaller, niche chart (in this case, the Pop 100, for nearly two months) has to have gotten some meager amount of promotion from the label--at least a signal to certain PDs along the lines of, Hey, we're not going for adds yet, but this is gonna be the followup, if you're interested. But if the song has been bumping around the middle of a 100-position chart, clearly the public isn't into the song enough to buy it or request it, so that it gets more airplay on those stations that are playing it.

• A song that's selling 176th out of 200 digital songs--when followup album cuts from other acts with zero label promotion are doing Top 50 numbers--is not shaping up to be a hit. Cruel, but usually true.

Chris Molanphy

@UKidol: I see your overall point, and no doubt label promotions continue to lead both radio and the buying public to what the next "singles" (really more like emphasis tracks) are, nine times out of 10. But there's also no doubt the public, via iTunes, has nudged the labels toward songs they weren't ready to embrace in the last few years (just think of "My Humps," for starters; or don't, I wouldn't blame you), and that even radio has jumped the gun on songs without the labels' say-so.

Probably the most prominent example, which predates the iTunes Store but postdates the conversion of the Hot 100 into a "songs" not "singles" chart, was Nelly's 2002 smash "Dilemma" featuring Kelly Rowland. I specifically remember Billboard noting at the time that radio--spurred by listener requests--surprised Universal by jumping on the song as the followup to "Hot in Herre" with no prodding from the label, which at the time was considering "Air Force Ones" the probable followup. "Dilemma" started scaling the charts by leaps and bounds while "Herre" was still on top, catching the label (happily) off-guard. That kind of chart move would have been impossible on a pre-1998 Hot 100, which is all I was trying to say above.

Just to state what I meant more clearly: A song chart that permits so-called "album cuts" to chart means that radio can push any song--even one not formally promoted by the labels--onto the charts on its own (rare, but possible). And a music business that now allows every song on virtually every album release to be purchased a la carte is effectively allowing the public to vote for its own singles (less rare--and in fact quite common for brief periods after a blockbuster album is released; a couple of Lil Wayne's recent hits were not pushed by the label as single downloads). I'm not saying either of these phenomena is commonplace, but they're not unheard of, either.

Besides, let's not forget that label-surprising hits are not even strictly a digital-era phenomenon! From "Maggie May," to "I WIll Survive," to the live version of "Coming Up," radio has famously forced labels to flip 45's and promote former B-sides as A-sides numerous times. It happens just often enough to be fun.

Chris Molanphy

The Illiterate

"I say "formally," because of course, in the digital age, once an album is released any of its songs are de facto singles; and on the modern-day charts, any song radio chooses to play is Hot 100-eligible, regardless of a label's marketing plans. So far, neither the public nor radio programmers have flocked to a second Lewis song en masse."

Radio is very reluctant to play other album tracks unless they've been formally serviced by the record company. They'll wait until they see an official adds date announced and then you start to see a few early stations take the plunge ahead of the adds date. Better In Time follows this pattern almost exactly - it's already started to pick up decent spins across three formats a couple of weeks ahead of the Pop adds date.

Similarly I don't think there's any real evidence that the public flocks en masse to buy putative future singles apart from the week of album release. We've seen this quite frequently in recent months with the likes of Mariah "prematurely" debuting Bye Bye and Migrate on the Hot 100 the week of the release of E=MC2, Usher with Moving Mountains and (ironically) Leona debuting Better In Time the week Spirit was released, only for the tracks to drop away the week after.

Without decent radio play and a video doing the rounds on BET/VH1/MTV/Fuse the public don't decide to push a single into the charts. Unfortunately they still need shepherding despite the apparent revolution in music delivery.

UKidol

As it is described in the Billboard excerpt, this policy only makes sense if people wait until the album comes out officially, cherry pick the singles from the complete tracklist, then come back later and want the whole album.

Halfwit

baconfat

So this CD's going to sell 300K first week.

Rock You Like An Iracane