Keyboard Cat has not yet cracked the Billboard Top 100, but another Kitty has snuck in thanks the inclusion of video views in the chart tabulation.
The largely reviled Avril Lavigne "Hello Kitty" bows at #75 on the chart — the second highest charting single from her latest album — thanks almost entirely to YouTube views of a video that went viral for its unique mix of culural insensitivity and general oddness.
"Kitty," which is not an official U.S. single, claws its way onto the Hot 100 with 92 percent of its chart points from streaming. Factoring into its rank: a weekly U.S. count of 2.9 million streams (up from 41,000 the prior frame), with 73 percent of that activity attributed to Vevo on YouTube views, according to Nielsen BDS.... The song also surges to 5,000 downloads sold in the tracking week ending Sunday, April 27, up from a negligible amount the week before, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
So a song with no radio play and that only sold 5,000 tracks over the charting week is a hit solely because of the video which gets passed around for all the wrong reasons.
The Billboard Hot 100 is meant to be the ultimate barometer for what's a hit — and even if this is an accurate depiction of the modern musical landscape, it's fairly depressing for anyone who thinks hit songs should actually be, you know, hits.
So, if you have a band and want a hit, here's some advice that I sincerely hope you don't follow: Make you video a sextape, or a beheading. All you need is a few million streams to have a hit.
note: Videostatic does not endorse or recommend making videos containing any illegal activities. Or, besmirching the fine reputation of Hello Kitty.
