Project Approach :

K-Pop Billboard Ranks Prediction

This project analyzes how musical features and popularity indicators influence a K-pop song’s peak position on the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard Global 200. Billboard ranks only the top 100 songs on the Hot 100.

According to a 2023 study by Hwang et al., Billboard’s chart formula is based on three weighted components: 39 percent sales, 34 percent radio play, and 27 percent streaming. Because radio play often favors English-language music, foreign-language songs typically face more barriers, yet strong streaming numbers can still allow culturally specific songs to move into the general mainstream.

Using a dataset updated for the first week of December 2024, this project focuses on measurable musical variables, including key, song length, season of release, BPM, and platform-based popularity metrics from Spotify and YouTube. Through cumulative logistic, probit, and complementary log-log modeling, the analysis evaluates how these characteristics influence the probability of reaching different Billboard chart tiers.

Reference

Hwang, Hyeseon, et al. “The International Strategy for Korean Pop Music: What Makes K-Pop Listed on Billboard Hot 100.” Asia Pacific Business Review, vol. 29, no. 5, 2023, pp. 1349–1368.