You’re The Best Thing Charts

Original Story by Aaron J. Sams (2017-09-11)

“You’re the Best Thing” was released on September 6th, 2017, at 8am EST to radio and digital storefronts. That means this week it starts to show up in official chart tallies.

A word of warning before looking at these. The Billboard chart week in the USA runs from Friday to Thursday PM, which is why most singles are released on Friday. Releasing it Friday at the start of the day maximizes the sales available to be counted on the chart. The U2 song however was released on Wednesday. Thus it missed out on streaming and sales numbers for five full days and eight hours on the sixth day. These numbers placing it in the USA charts are for 40 hours (1.6days) of eligibility and not a full 168 hours (7 days) that most songs would have had. This of course will lead to a lower chart position this week. It will also likely lead to a lower position in the second week as the highest sales are typically on the first day of release.

In the UK the charts run similarly running from 00:01 Friday to midnight Thursday. Unlike the USA no airplay statistics are used in the official UK Singles chart, and they are in the Billboard Hot 100. What does this mean for a single released mid-week? The Grenfell Tower charity single was released on a Wednesday, just like “You’re The Best Thing About Me” and it managed to top the chart with just two days of activity on the charts. So sales are counted and it is possible for a mid-week single to show up on the charts.

Unfortunately for U2, the new song “You’re the Best Thing About Me” failed to make the Billboard Hot 100 or the UK Charts in the first week of release. But the single was not helped by only having two days of eligibility for sales and streams in those weeks. The song is appearing in the UK Charts for the second week of release, and a mid-week look at the charts places the song at #70 if sales continue as is for the remainder of the week.

So why release the single on Wednesday? Canadian music journalist Alan Cross suggested that Wednesdays are the days most radio programmers are picking out what to add to their stations, and U2 releasing a single that morning would hit at the same time many stations were looking ahead at what they would add. It would suggest that having a hit may have been sacrificed to get into play on as many stations as possible.

Lets look at where the song is actually placing:


IMAGE: Billboard.Com Alternative Songs

The Alternative Songs chart is based on airplay. Billboard defines this chart as “This week’s most popular alternative/modern rock songs, ranked by airplay detections as measured by Nielsen Music.”.

U2 usually appears on this chart, and “You’re The Best Thing About Me” appears at #36 after only two days of airplay. “Every Breaking Wave” (#24) and “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)” (#22) did better, but would have had a full week of airplay to count towards the first week. “Song for Someone” was not a charting song in this format. “Invisible” (#28), “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” (#31), “Magnificent” (#18), and “Get On Your Boots” (#5) have also all charted in this format, higher than the first week for “You’re The Best Thing About Me”. According to earlier information, U2 will be making a push in this format on radio on September 12, 2017, so perhaps that will help it go up in the charts for the second week of eligibility.


IMAGE: Billboard.Com Adult Alternative Singles

The Adult Alternative Songs chart is based on airplay. Billboard defines this chart as “This week’s most-played adult alternative songs, ranked by radio airplay detections on adult alternative-formatted stations, as measured by Nielsen Music”

The Adult Alternative Songs chart always picks up the U2 songs when they are released. “You’re The Best Thing About Me” charts with just two days at #18. Previous songs such as “Song for Someone” (#13), “Every Breaking Wave” (#7), “The Miracle of Joey Ramone) (#1), “Invisible” (#1), “Ordinary Love” (#1), “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” (#2), “Magnificent (#2), and “Get On Your Boots” (#1) would have all had a full week in their first week. These songs typically spend many weeks of the charts, so there is room to increase next week if airplay is good. Earlier information that there will be a push in this radio format today.


IMAGE: Billboard.Com Rock Hot Songs

The Hot Rock Songs chart is based on a compilation of radio airplay and streaming. Billboard defines this chart as “This week’s most popular rock songs, based on radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen Music, sales data as compiled by Nielsen Music and streaming activity data from online music sources tracked by Nielsen Music.”

On this chart U2 hits #11 with just two days of streaming and radio airplay to be counted. That’s pretty good considering the past performance of U2 songs. “Song for Someone” (#30), “Every Breaking Wave” (#34) and “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)” (42) charted far lower, but did not have a commercial push with a single for sale. “Ordinary Love” (#13) and “Invisible” (#15) fared better, with a sales component. But “You’re The Best Thing About Me” is doing better than both of these at this point. It is also doing better than older songs such as “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” (#27) and “Magnificent” (#33). This chart was not tracked prior to the release of that song.


IMAGE: Billboard.Com Rock Airplay

This one is a year end chart according to Billboard, “Year End most popular rock songs, ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen Music.” so after only two days, “You’re The Best Thing About Me” has enough Airplay to start appearing in this chart. It suggests airplay for the song is strong.


IMAGE: Billboard.Com Rock Digital Song Sales

This one is a purely sales driven chart that Billboard defines as “This week’s top-downloaded rock songs, ranked by sales data as compiled by Nielsen Music.”

U2 makes their debut at #6 on this chart. That is after only two days of eligible sales in the week. The songs from Songs of Innocence do not make this chart as there was no release of an actual commercial single for any of these. “Ordinary Love” (#9) and “Invisible” (#11) both charted lower. This chart does not go back to the No Line on the Horizon songs.


IMAGE: UK Official Charts Midweek Chart

“You’re The Best Thing About Me” appears to have not shown up on the UK charts for the first week that it was eligible, due to the shorter release time perhaps, having just over a day to compete against songs with seven days of sales. It is poised however to show up in the second week of the chart, but alas due to the stronger sales the first couple of weeks belonging to another week, the position will be low. The UK chart publishes a midweek look at the charts, and that was done yesterday. In those charts it looks that U2’s “You’re The Best Thing About Me” will come in around #70 at the week end charts. The UK charts are based purely on sales and streaming and do not include airplay.

Update: September 14, 2017:

At the end of the chart week, U2 placed #92 in the UK charts. This is the official first week position in the charts for the UK, but it is the song’s second week in release. It missed charting in its first week, likely because it was released late in the week and only two days of sales were counted. The UK chart is based purely on sales and streaming, and does not take airplay into account.

Billboard has also announced that “The Blackout” had topped the “Top Facebook Live Videos Chart”. The chart is a monthly chart, and U2 topped the chart for August. The chart is a monthly tally of the widest reaching videos on the Facebook Live platform. The views are tracked by Shareablee, and rankings on the chart are determined by a formula that mixes reactions to videos, comments, shares, and the first seven days of views. “The Blackout” had the most views (11.1 million in seven days), the most reactions (172,000) and the most shares (50,000) for the month. A video by Reba McEntire beat the U2 video in total comments.

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