Lady Gaga: 'Applause' Singer Blasted By Billboard

Billboard took issue with how Lady Gaga has been promoting her latest single, The Huffington Post reported Wednesday.

Bill Werde, editorial director of Billboard, took exception to Lady Gaga advising her fans on how to illegally stream Youtube views. The streams count towards the chart position of a song on the Hot 100. Since Applause was released last week, it has failed to gain the same headwind as previous songs from the 27-year-old superstar. It sold 218K copies in its day of release whereas Katy Perry had a haul of 577K for copies of her new single, Roar. Many saw Gaga's directive as a ploy to boost sales.

An artist tweeting out and facebooking a link that enables a fan to hit play and leave their computer is not in the spirit of what we chart.

— Bill Werde (@bwerde) August 21, 2013

I just hate to see anyone try to game the charts, be it fans or artists. It's not in the spirit of what we do, celebrating success. — Bill Werde (@bwerde) August 21, 2013

Gaga removed the messages and Werde accepted her explanation that her postings were a mistake. Gaga has not addressed the controversry. She has instead asked fans to buy Applause on iTunes and its video.

If you haven't yet go here--->https://t.co/6y7xRxEuw3 to pick up APPLAUSE. Click over to 'Music Videos' and you can also purchase the video!

— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) August 22, 2013