Billboard.com FAQ
How do I become a member of Billboard.com?
You can become a Billboard.com registered user by clicking on the applicable ‘Join Billboard’ link at the top of the Billboard.com website and following the instructions. You will be asked to provide your email address, choose a user name and to select a password.
What are the cool things I can do as a member?
As a Billboard.com member you can:
- Create your own profile
- Rate content and songs with our new "Love/Hate" functionality
- Follow the activity of other Billboard.com members and
- Post comments on any article throughout the site
- Play the Chart Game
- Create your personalized playlist through the Soundtrack of My Life feature
Can I customize my own profile page?
You can customize your profile page with your own vanity name and image.
What is the "Love/Hate" functionality?
Express your real feelings about music. The Love/Hate function allows you to love or hate articles, features, artists and songs. You can get customized feeds of all the content you love within your profile page.
How can I find my friends?
Billboard.com allows you to search for friends or bring them straight from Facebook through Facebook Connect.
How do I follow other members?
You can find members with the same musical taste and follow them by receiving customized news feeds of their activity.
How do I comment on articles?
There is an "Up for Discussion" box on the bottom of each article page where you can post your comments. When you post a comment your member name will appear to encourage discussion with other members.
What is the Soundtrack Of My Life? How does it work?
The Soundtrack Of My Life is an innovative feature that offers fans the opportunity to create personal playlists around significant events throughout their life based on historic Billboard chart data. Fans can enter key dates from their lives (i.e. birthday, high school graduation, etc.) and Billboard.com will create a personalized playlist of the No. 1 song from the specific date entered.
What is the Billboard Chart Game? How do I play?
The Billboard Chart Game is an interactive game that puts fans against one another each week to test their knowledge of the current music landscape by predicting the charts. Every Tuesday, players will choose 5 artists they think will make the most noise on the Billboard charts. Players will come back on Thursday’s, when the current week’s charts are released to see how their artists/bands have performed. Points are earned and/or lost based on the artists’ movement either up or down on the chart. Players compete for weekly prizes as well as the grand prize at the end of the year (based on their overall score).
What is the Visualizer? How does it work?
The Visualizer is a customized digital tool that allows fans to track the success of artists/bands in a unique custom layered graph format. Fans can also compare the careers of artists/bands head-to-head.
How can I listen to music on the site?
Clicking the Play icon on chart, album and song pages will stream music through the player provided by Lala. Lala provides one full length play of every song in its catalog (over 7 million songs), including most songs and albums on Billboard. From the time you play your first song on Billboard or any other website powered by Lala, you will enjoy five days of access to play songs. After five days, you will be prompted to sign up for a free Lala account to enjoy continued access.
What if I like a song and want to listen to it again or download it?
Lala is a music store - they sell MP3 downloads compatible with any device starting at $0.89. Not ready to buy the download? Lala lets you buy the "web song" for only $0.10 to play it an unlimited number of times from any internet-connected computer. If you later decide to get the MP3, you just pay the difference. And to start you out on Lala, the first 25 web songs are free! Add web songs to your Lala collection from Billboard by simply clicking the "add" button, visible by scrolling over the song in the Lala player.
Why buy from Lala?
All music that you purchase from Lala is always available for you to play from the web using your free account on Lala.com. Whether you purchase the web song or download the MP3, you can always play your music from any internet-connected computer. Plus, you can add all the music you already have (MP3s, ripped albums, tracks bought on iTunes, etc.) to complete your collection on Lala.com.
Want more? Lala.com provides access to a catalog of over 7 millions songs to play in full, create playlists, and share recommendations with friends - all using the best music application on the web.
Do you review/write about unsigned/independent artists/releases?
Yes. Select unsigned acts are profiled on our Billboard Underground column.
Why didn’t you review [insert name here]’s latest disc?
Literally hundreds of new albums are released each week and arrive at Billboard’s offices, all seeking print and online reviews and/or mentions. It is physically impossible to cover all of them within the magazine or online. Billboard’s experts choose various titles to review based on retail and airplay potential, as well as artistic merit.
Can you tell me how high an artist charted?
Specific questions about chart feats should be addressed to our “Chart Beat” editors. And specific questions can be directed to our ask Billboard experts.
You made a mistake/I know more than you/you left something out of your article.
Although none of those are questions, Billboard.com readers often have comments and/or information regarding articles that are published on the site. If you feel you can correct and error or add something significant, please direct your comments to the site’s editorial staff via the links on the “Contact Us” page.
I have a technical question/website issue, where do I submit those?
Please click here to submit feedback.