Volante wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 11:26 am
Billboard combines the 5- and 10- minute versions:
https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-b ... 235001340/
“All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” was released on Red (Taylor’s Version) Nov. 12 on Republic Records, via two versions on the set: its 5-minute, 29-second and 10-minute, 13-second versions, both of which are combined into one listing on Billboard‘s charts. (The song’s original 5-minute, 29-second 2012 version is tracked separately.)
I've questions regarding Billboard's treatment of this song.
What might be a good reason for Billboard to have combined the two versions of the song into one chart entry?
Other albums, by other artists, have included multiple versions of the same "base" charting song, and those multiple song versions were not fused together into a combined
Billboard chart construct. Nor were any of the songs' secondary versions' characteristics cherry-picked and then applied to the whole in order to earn recognition of the song as an outstanding achievement.
The language used here by Billboard implies that there is only one song: The article uses "All Too Well (Taylor's Version)" to represent both the shorter version of the song usually named thereby, as well as the longer version of the song, the longer version of which is almost always identified in other places (including in other places on the Billboard website) as "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)".
This song has become a record-setter in the Longest Song Duration category via the application of some dubious rationale.
My second query regards the use of the word "set" in the quoted excerpt from the Billboard website. In other places on the same website, the
Billboard charts identify
Red (Taylor's Version) as an "album" in the standard manner.
In the context of musicians and their recording process, the word "set" has the meaning of "the music recorded at one session." Yet the word has no such application here. If Billboard intends to further dilute the traditional concept of the music album by propagating the notion of songs organized into less-formal collections (such as is seen in the practice of artists releasing "playlists"), then we arrive at another question. Which role best suits Billboard: Gatekeeper or iconoclast? Can that beast thrive which is a cat of variegated stripes?
As an authoritative source of pop music news and information, Billboard abrogates its responsibility by employing inscrutable reasoning and sloppy word usage. By these acts Billboard has liquidated a portion of its finite store of precious cultural cachet. It may be that the amount of this debit is never recovered.
Billboard does as it will—thus Billboard pays the price.