Lady Gaga has been criticised by Billboard honcho Bill Werde for apparently bolstering her chart placement by plugging her new video.
The US Hot 100 recently adjusted their rules so that online streams, such as on music videos, contribute towards the final chart positions.
Gaga sent out a tweet when the ‘Applause’ video premiered urging her so-called Little Monsters to play and retweet the video, thus dramatically increasing its play count.
Lady Gaga has been criticised (Music video still)
Werde wrote on Twitter:
“We count multiple views per person. Go to VEVO and keep watching a video on your own and we count it. “An artist tweeting out and facebooking a link that enables a fan to hit play and leave their computer is not in the spirit of what we chart.
“Tweeting that other artists game the system is like telling a cop other people were speeding. When we catch it we stop it.”
He went on:
“Please keep this in context. Streaming is only a portion of Hot100 and surely overwhelming percent of views have been well-earned. “I just hate to see anyone try to game the charts, be it fans or artists. It’s not in the spirit of what we do, celebrating success.”
‘Applause’ looked set to be drastically outsold by Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’ last week, but still sold a huge 225,000 copies.
