Note: I am not affiliated with Billboard in any way, though I'll occasionally make sales and chart placement predictions (you can find one for "Shake It Off" below). On the other hand, I create a personal chart based around my favorite tracks (the CDS Music Chart Hot 50, the focus of this blog). You can learn more about that by clicking here.
Overview
While Earl Sweatshirt might not be so into "Shake It Off", pretty much everyone else across the globe can't stop "shaking" to Taylor Swift's latest instant hit. With the announcement on August 18th that Swift would be dropping her 5th studio (and first completely POP) album, 1989, on October 27th, the singer's lead single "Shake It Off" was quickly uploaded to iTunes and Youtube. While it didn't instantly reach #1 on iTunes charts (mainly because most fans had a hard time locating it, and because iTunes temporarily stopped updating due to a massive wave of Swifties bombarding their servers), it eventually landed at the surface of the iTunes Top 200 in 12 countries before Monday was all said and done. By mid-morning Tuesday, the track was announced to be the most downloaded track of the day internationally and eventually wound up at #1 in 3 dozen countries (36 for those that aren't quite ready for school to re-start).
But let's back track a second... being #1 on any given country's iTunes Store doesn't necessarily mean that you have the #1 song in that country. In most countries (like the US for example), the most popular songs are determined by a precise formula that usually combines Streams, Radio Airplay, and Digital Sales. For example, Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass" was the most downloaded track in the United States last week, but only ranked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 due to lagging airplay and streams. On my personal chart, dubbed the CDS Music Chart Hot 50, I use a similar method (combination of plays through my music library, fan voting through Ranker, and plays from whatever I hear on the radio).
In most cases (on personal and official country wide charts), you'll need to have strong numbers stemming from all branches that make up the chart. That's easier said than done. However, there are two and only two ways to get around having proficient scores in every category. The first is to dominate 1 category in such a way that there's no way your competitors can even catch up, and the second is to do well on iTunes in countries that only counts digital sales (the United Kingdom).
So the fact that "Shake If Off" is the #1 track on iTunes in 36 countries doesn't mean it'll debut at #1 in 36 countries, just to clarify.
Sales & US Billboard Hot 100 Rank Prediction
Interestingly enough, Taylor Swift's popularity in the United States is catastrophic, which leads me to another interesting possibility. According to a variety of sources, the sales of "Shake If Off" in the US alone between 9 PM EST on Monday to 9 PM EST on Tuesday (almost its first 24 hour of release), are just over 105,000 copies. That doesn't sound like a lot, but that's only 1 day of sales. That's 4,382 sales per hour, 73 per minute, and 1.25 every second. If it continues to perform like this throughout the rest of the week it'll debut with sales that are through the roof -- literally.
Since "Shake It Off" will have almost 150 hours to rack up sales in its first week in the US (Billboard claims the clock restarts Sunday at Midnight), a simple mathematical equation gives us a first week sales estimate of 657,000 copies sold. While it's possible that the track does hold that well, it seems unlikely. However, its strong presence on pop and country radio charts after 1 day of release and the fact that Swift will perform at the MTV Video Music Awards gala on Sunday at 9 PM will likely give it somewhat of a boost. It also has its counterpart video receiving lots of media attention -- both good and bad --, which will ultimately help drive its sales forward. As a side note, its music video has been watched over 8.6 million times since release last night (remember, Youtube views in the US do count toward Hot 100 chart points), and while its unclear how many were in the US, that early total should help it do well on Billboard's Streaming Songs list.
At this point, I'm officially guessing that it'll tally at least 620,000 500,000 downloads by the end of the week, which would make it one of the all time biggest openers and the biggest opening week of 2014, beating out Ariana Grande's "Problem", which sold 438,000 copies in its first week.
Update #1: My initial prediction of 657,000 copies is about right. More forecasts are coming in between 625k to 665k.
Update #2: I have lowered my estimate to 500,000 due to a large dip in sales between Wednesday AM and PM.
Update #3: "Shake If Off" held well between Wednesday PM and Thursday AM, down by just 1.8%. 500k-525k still looking like the best guess.
That should mean that "Shake If Off" reaches #1... in its second week. You're probably wondering why it wouldn't debut at #1 in its first week on the Hot 100, but the answer really isn't that simple. For some reason, Billboard ends the digital sales frame on Sunday at 11:59 PM, but keeps the Radio tally open until Tuesday at 11:59 PM. Since "Shake It Off" debuted on a Monday, it has a chance to debut on the Billboard Hot 100 based on 1 day of airplay alone. That seems impossible, but it's not. Swift's own "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" debuted at #72 on the Hot 100 based on one day of airplay back in 2012 and then powered to #1 the following week thanks to sales being added to its equation. If you need me to elaborate on this more please let me know in the comments below or by contacting me on Twitter.
At this point, it's likely to debut low on the Hot 100 (between 80 and 100) and then leap to #1 or #2 in the following week. If it does debut on the Hot 100 based on one day of airplay, Billboard will announce it tomorrow morning around 11 AM PST. If it doesn't debut, it'll likely open at #1 next week. In that case, Billboard will reveal it on August 27th at 11 AM PST.
To avoid further confusion, I will publish a separate post about how "Shake It Off" will debut on the CDS Music Chart Hot 50 sometime either tonight or tomorrow morning.
Review
As for the song itself, "Shake It Off" is actually pretty damn catchy. While I wasn't really a fan of Taylor's country music, this new sugary pop vibe (which started with "I Knew You Were Trouble.") has actually been a winning equation in my book. As a note, my favorite Taylor song of all time is in fact "I Knew You Were Trouble.", my favorite country song is either "Red" or "Back to December", and I believe "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" is her worst effort to date. She's notched two entries, both pop hits, on the CDS Music Chart Hot 50: "22" (which ironically peaked at #22) and "I Knew You Were Trouble.", which became one of my favorite songs of 2013. It peaked at #4.
Still, "Shake It Off" can't help but feel like a little bit of a sell out for Taylor, a goodbye to the past 8 years of her career as a predominately country artist. Though the track is french horn tipped, repetitive and full of stomp! clap! sounds (all of which are normally associated with the 1980s), it's really not anything like 80s music.
However, in the end, "Shake It Off" ends up feeling like a distinct win for Swift, who's been cranking out chart hits for 5 solid years.
Rating: 8.25/10
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