After months of the same songs on the Hot 100, ‘Billboard’ tweaks its rules

Billboard has revised its system of removing songs from the Hot 100 singles chart once they’ve gotten too old to qualify as contemporary hits. The measure, intended to shorten the amount of time successful songs spend on the Hot 100, knocks 10 tracks off this week’s chart — including Swims’ “Lose Control,” which spent more than two years on the Hot 100 — and in the process cements a record that could take a decade to surpass.

Billboard has long had a problem with streaming — as well as with radio stations’ growing reluctance to pull hit songs from heavy rotation after many, many months. When you look at the list of the songs with the longest-ever runs on the Hot 100 (a chart whose history dates back to 1958), they’re all from the streaming era. Streaming services use algorithms that feed people songs they’ve already played, and that’s created a doom loop that’s allowed recent-vintage songs like The Weeknd‘s “Blinding Lights” (90 weeks on the Hot 100), Glass Animals‘ “Heat Waves” (91 weeks) and Swims’ “Lose Control” (112 weeks) to stay on the chart for absurdly long runs.

Until this week, Billboard employed a system that seemed reasonable enough: Songs were pulled from the Hot 100 if they’d dropped below No. 25 after 52 weeks, or below No. 50 after 20 weeks. That generally prevented the chart’s lower reaches from getting crowded with stubborn-but-declining hits — endlessly charting smashes like Post Malone‘s “I Had Some Help (feat. Morgan Wallen)” and Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” finally dropped off the chart in recent months thanks to this system — but didn’t have an answer for songs that just weren’t descending far enough or quickly enough.

Effective this week, the thresholds have moved dramatically, in ways that will reshape the charts in the months and years to come. Now, if a song drops below No. 5 after 78 weeks — a year and a half! — it’s gone. (Consider that “Lose Control” sat at No. 6 before The Life of a Showgirl came along.) If a song drops below No. 10 after 52 weeks, it’s gone. If it drops below No. 25 after 26 weeks? Bzzzt. And if it drops below No. 50 after 20 weeks? That’s a wrap.

Billboard is reserving the right to bend its own rules and keep songs on the chart beyond those benchmarks on a case-by-case basis, and you can see a handful of exceptions on this week’s chart. Most notably, Billie Eilish‘s “Wildflower” — the longest-charting song left on the Hot 100 — is in its 70th week on the chart and sits at No. 50. But, while it’s lasted way more than 26 weeks, it’s actually climbing, jumping from No. 63. Also, once the holidays roll around, the usual chestnuts won’t be held to precisely the same standards, provided they rank at No. 50 or higher, same as in previous years.

So be sure to take a moment, light a candle and pause to reflect on such once-immortal, now-vanquished eternals as… [lights dim as a screen bears the words “In Memoriam”] Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars‘ “Die With a Smile” (60 weeks), Benson Boone‘s “Beautiful Things” and “Sorry I’m Here for Someone Else” (89 and 32 weeks, respectively), Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Problem” and “Just in Case” (36 and 29 weeks, respectively) and Kendrick Lamar‘s “Luther (feat. SZA)” (46 weeks), as well as songs by sombr and BigXthaPlug. We’ll never know how long they might have lasted under the old system — except in the case of “Lose Control,” which we can state with virtual certainty would have left the Hot 100 sometime after the next Ice Age.