VIDEO: 'Livin' on a Prayer' is on the Billboard chart and you can thank YouTube
Some nerds over at Billboard recently reconfigured how the Hot 100 chart is compiled, presumably by writing algorithms on their office windows, or something. Now, the Internet has a hand in what makes the cut because YouTube views are factored into the process.
Some nerds over at Billboard recently reconfigured how the Hot 100 chart is compiled, presumably by writing algorithms on their office windows, or something. Now, the Internet has a hand in what makes the cut because YouTube views are factored into the process.
Enter: Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer."
The song was released off of the band's 1986 album Slippery When Wet and was their second consecutive single to top the Hot 100 chart. Nearly three decades after the song's initial release, it's back on the charts thanks to those fancy new equations and a video of a dancing Celtics fan from 2009.
The video, posted in 2009, recently went viral and has garnered more than 3,000,000 views, catapolting Bon Jovi's jam back to No. 25 on the Hot 100 chart. Thanks for everything, Internet.
Billboard adds in the report that, after a 26-year departure, "Prayer" "returns with 94% of its Hot 100 chart points owed to streaming" and that "it sports an 11% uptick to 4,000 downloads sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan."
But the song isn't the only one experiencing a comeback. The video itself was actually made in 2009, but it received a new upload to Utrend.tv on Oct. 17. [Variety]