The ranking of NewJeans on Billboard Hot 100 is raising a lot of doubt among netizens, leading to “manipulation” concerns.
After entering the Billboard’s Hot 100 chart with “Ditto”, NewJeans continue their streak with impressive international achievements. In particular, “Ditto” experienced several rises in ranking, while NewJeans’ later song, “OMG”, also made it to the list. There is no denying the popularity of NewJeans in the competitive US music market, yet some netizens remain doubtful.
According to these netizens, NewJeans’ songs appear in over 800 major playlists of music streaming platform Spotify, yet make no noticeable appearances in other large music platforms. They also speculate that this abnormal occurrence is due to NewJeans’ agency “manipulating” Spotify and utilizing the playlist function to chart.
Recently, the prediction for Billboard Hot 100 (chart dated February 4th, 2023), was released. Here, Kpop entries including TWICE’s “Moonlight Sunrise” at #84 (new entry), NewJeans’s “Ditto” at #88 (down 3 ranks), and NewJeans’ “OMG” at #79 (up 12 ranks). Meanwhile, Taeyang’s “VIBE” (ft. Jimin of BTS) has disappeared from the chart.
Against BIGBANG Taeyang and BTS Jimin’s grand collaboration “VIBE”, NewJeans did extremely well digitally. Nevertheless, the fact that NewJeans surged while “VIBE” disappeared raised a lot of questions, especially with “OMG” in a constant upward trend. Netizens also believe that there’s no denying the impact of “Ditto”, but “OMG” should not be able to climb ranks so quickly, and so “playlisting” and “manipulation” concerns are once again brought up.
In addition, many music listeners also reported that NewJeans’ “OMG” would start playing on Spotify after other Kpop artists’ songs. As a result, people become cynical over the song and speculation further about the Spotify manipulation accusation.
Below are some comments from netizens:
- Every time I finished listening to a BTS playlist, NewJeans songs started to play, even though I blocked them on Spotify. This is suspicious
- I had to hide NewJeans on my Spotify account because their songs keep popping up
- I understand “Ditto” getting into Billboard Hot 100, but “OMG” has way lower impact…
- “VIBE” got #1 iTunes US and #1 iTunes in over 100 nations, along with great views, and yet they disappeared from Billboard Hot 100, how come “OMG” is still rising?
- There is no noticeable rise in the number of streams for “OMG” so I don’t get how the song can climb 12 positions within a week.
Source: Twitter
