re: Teenage Dream on iTunes

 I’ve gotten a lot of different questions about this and have seen several different posts talking about it, but here’s the gist.

Last week the songs were up on iTunes on Sunday night at 11pm EST, but the week before they didn’t go up until Tuesday. Whether they’re released tonight or released on Tuesday, I think we should all wait until after 4.04 airs to buy the songs (but we should all make a point to buy them).

If we all wait until Thursday at 10 PM EST to buy the reprise of “Teenage Dream” (and any other Glee songs you want to support), they will have the best chance of beating a nice path up the iTunes chart.  The more people who buy a song at once, the higher it goes on the chart.  Waiting won’t have any effect on the total sales week, but it could have some effect on it’s chart ranking. 

Why? (Under a cut to avoid clogging your Dashes)

• There’s something to be said for coordination.  For example, twenty four people buying the same song at the same time is more noticeable than one purchase per hour for a whole day, because it will make a nice little spike in sales.
   
• Fandom has a fair bit of purchase power, and for the last few weeks the songs have made steady progress up the charts even before the episodes they were in had aired.  
   
• By waiting until after 4.04 airs to purchase the songs, we can build off the episode’s buzz and maybe give a bit of a boost to how high on the chart it gets by combining fandom power with the general audience purchases.
   
• This song doing well on the charts and having really strong sales in general sends a strong message of support for Darren/Klaine/Blaine singing songs that have actual context.
   
• Waiting a couple days to buy the song may not help anything but it also won’t really hurt anything. So why not give it a shot?

Other things:

• Honestly, if you are able to buy the song at any time, that’s great and kudos to you even if you can’t because I know it’s just not possible for some folks.
   
• The iTunes chart ranks are separate for each country and also separate from the Billboard Charts, which are only published once a week.  Any point this week you buy the songs will contribute to the Billboard rankings.
   
• Buying the song multiple times won’t affect it’s US iTunes ranking, nor will buying it outside of the US.  If you really want to buy multiple copies, it’s better to “gift” the song because then the multiples will count.