Over a half-century of chart history, radio generally has preferred its novelty records in English. 12, but it’s actually impressive Top 40 radio was willing to play a 95% Korean-language song that much at all. "Gangnam Style" never got higher on Radio Songs last year than No. 1 "Roar", has an audience of 162 million. Sounds like an impressive number, until you consider that the most-played song at radio, Katy Perry’s former No. According to Billboard, last week "The Fox" had a U.S. On Billboard’s Radio Songs chart, the third leg of the Hot 100 stool, "The Fox" doesn’t appear at all, even on a 100-position list.
There’s a third component to the Hot 100 that I haven’t mentioned yet, and that’s the culprit: radio.
6? Shouldn’t they be on their way to surpassing Psy and hitting No. So if "The Fox" is selling well and streaming like crazy, why is Ylvis stuck at No. As with "Gangnam" a year ago, many who see the video are inspired to hit iTunes, and so "The Fox" is also doing well on Digital Songs-another of Billboard’s Hot 100 components. It has never left the Top Three on that chart, which explains how "The Fox" has scaled the Hot 100. "The Fox" debuted in mid-September on Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart-one of the main components of the Hot 100-all the way up at No. Psy’s loss seems to be Ylvis’s gain, and when "The Fox" debuted on the Hot 100 a month ago, streaming (a combination of YouTube and Spotify) was overwhelmingly responsible. Mind you, those digital sales weren’t nothing for more than a month, Psy had the best-selling song in America. Psy had to scale the Hot 100 last year with one hand tied behind his back all those tens of millions of views of “Gangnam Style” didn’t count in Billboard and only helped him insofar as they inspired a few million iTunes sales, which did count.