Billboard magazine said its music charts will no longer count albums or singles sold in bundles with concert tickets, T-shirts or other memorabilia, a move designed to make the rankings better reflect fans’ listening habits and less prone to manipulation by record companies. With the soaring popularity of branded merchandise and—until the pandemic—a booming live-music business, artists in recent years have increasingly offered CDs and digital downloads packaged with memorabilia or concert tickets. Such bundled sales are widely...

Source: Wall Street Journal July 13, 2020 22:30 UTC