Beginning with the chart ranking dated Sept. 2 (to be released online Aug. 22), Billboard will launch a revised Emerging Artists chart. The survey is a breakout of the overall Billboard Artist 100 chart and will highlight the top-performing rising acts each week.
The Emerging Artists chart will use the same formula as the Artist 100, which debuted in 2014 and measures artist activity across Billboard's most influential charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, Billboard 200 and the Social 50, among others. The methodology incorporates key metrics of music consumption, blending album and track sales, radio airplay, streaming and social media fan interaction to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.
The Emerging Artists chart will exclude artists that have notched a top 25 entry on either the Hot 100 or Billboard 200, as well as artists that have achieved two or more top 10s on Billboard's "Hot" song genre charts that blend streaming, airplay and sales data (such as Hot Country Songs, Hot Rock Songs, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Latin Songs) and/or consumption-based "Top" album genre rankings (including counterpart charts Top Country Albums, Top Rock Albums, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Latin Albums).
Portugal. The Man tops the inaugural revamped Emerging Artists chart, as the alt-rock band's hit single "Feel It Still" reaches a new peak on the Hot 100 (No. 26). The act, which also makes its first appearance in the Artist 100's top 40 (54-36), gains by 22 percent in activity; radio airplay is the group's greatest points contributor (31 percent), as "Still" leads the Alternative Songs chart for a ninth week.
Rounding out the Emerging Artists top five, country trio Midland places at No. 2, powered by its breakout single "Drinkin' Problem"; Canadian country singer Lindsay Ell is at No. 3, as her debut full-length The Project debuts at No. 4 on the Top Country Albums chart; Bronx-based rapper A Boogie Wit da Hoodie ranks at No. 4; and Swae Lee, half of Rae Sremmurd, holds the No. 5 spot.
The revamped Emerging Artists chart replaces the weekly Billboard + Twitter Emerging Artists chart (with the weekly Billboard + Twitter Top Tracks and real-time Billboard + Twitter Trending 140 charts also being discontinued). The former iteration of Emerging Artists served as a weekly title-based ranking of the most shared songs on Twitter in the U.S. by new artists.
With the revised Emerging Artists chart, Billboard will remain at the forefront of tracking music discovery with a dynamic new measurement platform for up-and-coming artists, which includes all relevant consumer interaction metrics.
Check out the first revamped Emerging Artists chart on Billboard.com and Billboard.biz on Tuesday Aug. 22 and in the next Billboard issue, dated Sept. 2 (on sale Aug. 25).
