Hot 50 Forecast: Bebe Rexha, Taylor Swift & Charli XCX Battle For Top Debut

With half the week already gone, it's time to take a moment to look at which stars are heating up the CDS Music Chart Hot 50 with brand new entries. I'll also cover some movers and shakers.

Biggest Debuts

Taylor Swift - "Shake It Off"
With the surprise announcement on Monday that "Shake It Off" would be the first single from Taylor Swift's upcoming 5th studio album (1989), the track quickly flew onto the building Hot 50 chart at #35. Just hours later (alongside the official iTunes release of the song), the track had already leaped 19 positions to #16 and looked to post the largest opening of any song this week. Further fueling its  fire was the Social Songs 100, where it quickly reached #2, behind only Bebe Rexha's latest release, "I Can't Stop Drinking About You". Thanks to a highly successful campaign among Taylor Swift fans online, "Shake It Off" eventually topped the Social Songs 100 around mid day Tuesday.

Thanks to the release of the track's video, the song received a one time bonus of 5 additional chart points, per the rules about songs with videos. Additionally, the track entered the Radio Songs chart at #38 on Monday night, quickly jumping to #9 on Tuesday. With a massive presence on all components, "Shake It Off" outpaced every other new track, and was just days away from claiming the biggest debut of the week.

However, that all changed come Wednesday afternoon. By 11 A.M. Wednesday, "Shake It Off" had dipped 16-24 on the Streaming Songs chart (the most critical of all component charts), and 9-16 on Radio Songs, though it firmly held the top spot on the Social Songs 100 ahead of "I Can't Stop Drinking About You" and previous chart topper "Bang Bang".

At this point, "Shake It Off" has lowered so much, that the other two new entries headed for Hot 50 debuts -- Bebe Rexha's "I Can't Stop Drinking About You" and Charli XCX's "Break The Rules" -- could actually debut above it. Keep reading to learn more.

Bebe Rexha - "I Can't Stop Drinking About You"
After the release of the track's music video last week, "I Can't Stop Drinking About You" began adding a small amount of points (thanks to a #45 debut on Streaming Songs), but ultimately fell short of the CDS Music Chart Hot 50 last week. However, the track's addition to the Social Songs 100 at the top of this week caused a massive frenzy online. Thanks to continuous votes, "I Can't Stop Drinking About You" instantly reached #1 on the Social Songs 100, and commanded said component list for about 1.5 days before dipping to the runner up position. A #25 rank on the Streaming Songs list by Monday night further pushed its cumulative points upward.

Unfortunately, "I Can't Stop Drinking About You" ultimately lost control of the summit on the Social Songs 100, and quickly fell victim to a massive downpour of negative votes thanks to unnecessary spam. With "I Can't Stop Drinking About You" being the prime beating bag for Nicki Minaj, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift fans alike (because its the highest ranked competitor for those groups other then themselves), it's bound to drop even more by the end of the week. While I'm still expecting it to be in the top 10 on the Social Songs 100 when the final whistle blows, it's guaranteed to be on the fringe.

As for the Hot 50 itself, the track will debut, but how high has yet to be determined.

Charli XCX - "Break The Rules"
I've got to admit, Charli XCX has been a bit of a surpriser. She's landed 3 top 20 singles since her 2013 debut, including a #1 with Icona Pop ("I Love It") and her 'fancy' collaboration with Iggy Azalea and she is almost guaranteed to land a fourth...possibly this week.

Debuting at #11 on the Streaming Songs 100 and #5 on the Social Songs 100 upon release, "Break The Rules" quickly became one of the biggest openers on the respective charts. Unfortunately, its rank on the Social Songs 100 slowly deteriorated and its likely to drop out of the top 20 on that chart by the end of the week. That leaves only points earned on the Streaming Songs chart, but its high holding rank on that chart will likely translate to a decent debut. In fact, I'm expecting "Break The Rules" to claim the largest opening for a song this week.

Top Debuts (Estimates)
1. "Break The Rules" by Charli XCX
2. "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift
3. "I Can't Stop Drinking About You" by Bebe Rexha

Biggest Climbers

Based on mid week numbers, Ella Henderson's "Glow" could rocket to the top 10 after a top 40 start last week, and Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" (which dropped 29-40 last week) could reach the top 10 as well thanks to a massive rise on the Social Songs 100 (where it'll likely crown thanks to a continual rise), a debut on Radio Songs and a massive uptick on the Streaming Songs chart. Additionally, it'll receive a one time bonus of 5 additional chart points due to its video premiere (which of course broke the Vevo record).

Come back for the chart highlights and Hot 50 chart soon!

Taylor Swift Debut's "Shake It Off": Review and Analysis

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