Billboard will not include sales from Jay-Z’s Samsung deal

Billboard will not include sales from Jay-Z’s Samsung deal

Jay-Z's Samsung deal will not be recorded on Billboard.

Jay-Z may have thought he was getting a sweet deal through his recent partnership with Samsung in which one million free copies of his upcoming album Magna Carta Holy Grail would be given to Galaxy smartphone users three days before its official release of July 7, earning him $5 for each of those albums and more specially five million dollars in sales.

However, the potential for those sales in be included in Billboard’s official chart numbers has been shot down. Reuters reports that these free albums can’t be considered in the total amount of sales, despite the fact that the rapper will be paid for them, due to official rules of the long-running trade magazine.

Bill Werde, the editorial director of Billboard, explained in a letter on the magazine’s website Friday that the promotional sales couldn’t be counted toward the Billboard 200 chart since “nothing was actually for sale.” He went on to say that if Jay-Z and Samsung had charged the minimum price of $3.49, which qualifies an album to be featured in Billboard’s count, for the special app that will enable Samsung users to get their hands on the album early the sales would have been included.

Nonetheless he praised the Grammy-winning singer’s Samsung deal saying, “The ever-visionary Jay Z pulled the nifty coup of getting paid as if he had a platinum album before one fan bought a single copy.”

While Werde has no qualms about Jay-Z earning a spot on the Billboard charts, as the album is expected to sell between 400,000 to 450,000 copies in its opening week, he does believe Billboard’s rules regarding chart numbers may change one day given the amount of big brand deals and the ever-evolving nature of the consumption of music.

He writes, “Just because the Billboard 200 has been based purely on sales of an album for the entirety of the life of the chart doesn’t mean it must always remain so.”

He gave proof of this possibility by explaining how Billboard’s Hot 100 songs chart has changed over the years to allow sales from digital downloads and online streaming services to be included in chart numbers. Werde even pointed out that he listens to most of his albums through a subscription streaming service.

While we await to see if changes to Billboard 200 will take place, fans of Jay-Z’s music can make the prophecy of him landing a spot on the charts a reality by buying his album next month.

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