BTS Has ARMYs Right Behind Them As Billboard Changes Their Rules…Again

Jin said it best: “can’t we make music in more honest ways?”

According to SingleMusic, Billboard introduced new rules for the “Hot 100” and other charts back in December of 2021. These rules were put in place and have been effective as of 2022. With these new rules, only one digital sale will be counted per customer per week for songs and albums. Purchases of two or more will not be counted. However, this does not affect physical album sales.

| Billboard

Of course, this got people talking on Twitter as they discussed what these rule changes could mean. When discussing Billboard charts or the music scene in general, of course BTS was mentioned and ARMYs had a lot to say.

| BTS Official Facebook

With these new rules one can’t help but to think that Billboard is discouraging fans from buying their favorite artists’ music.

The American music industry is saying they won’t reward buying. Oh and don’t forget, you can now take a cut in your already pitiful streaming royalties in order to get your music on big playlists.

—@Zubbycat, Twitter

Billboard seems to be shifting the focus and importance of streams, which according to Business Insider pays artists about $0.0033/stream on Spotify.

Does that sound as low to you as it does to us? Devin Jay, an artist from Wisconsin confirmed that the amount Spotify pays artists per stream got him a whopping $27 USD despite having over 25,000 streams.

August 2021 Issue | Billboard

One can’t help but remember when Billboard was under fire for their interview with BTS in their August 2021 issue, when Billboard implied ARMYs were responsible for chart manipulation to help BTS’s rise to the top on their charts.

It’s a fair question. But if there is a conversation inside Billboard about what being No. 1 should represent, then it’s up to them to change the rules and make streaming weigh more on the ranking. Slamming us or our fans for getting to No. 1 with physical sales and downloads, I don’t know if that’s right … It just feels like we’re easy targets because we’re a boy band, a K-pop act, and we have this high fan loyalty.

—RM, Billboard

Resilient and prone to taking the high road, ARMYs, while frustrated with Billboard‘s lack of care for supporting and uplifting artists for their music, have decided not to worry as BTS will indeed have ARMYs right behind them forever.

Devin Jay, witnessed firsthand the love and support of ARMYs after they saw his Spotify receipts. ARMYs went to buy and stream his music, while also leaving kind words for the striving artist.

We love to see ARMYs using their powers for good!

And on that note, we’ll just leave this here:

BTS