Itunes, Billboard, and the marginalization of black music and black audiences in America

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i see the benefits to both approaches

balls, Monday, 25 February 2013 22:23 (twelve years ago)

you can also look at the sales chart in america, it's not like it disappeared

iatee, Monday, 25 February 2013 22:27 (twelve years ago)

a lot of bands started off with hits just scraping the top 40 due to sales.
Also cant imagine acts like The Fall getting a top 40 in the USA :)

Vote in the ILM 70s poll please! (Algerian Goalkeeper), Monday, 25 February 2013 22:29 (twelve years ago)

you don't have some magic chart we don't have

iatee, Monday, 25 February 2013 22:30 (twelve years ago)

this harlem shake thing is so embarassing

Donkamole Marvin (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 25 February 2013 22:32 (twelve years ago)

it kinda seems like the UK charts being sales-based has always kept it open to lots of goofy novelty #1s ("Crazy Frog," the whole Christmas #1 tradition), and that the US started to veer towards that kind of thing more after iTunes data started impacting the Hot 100, and the YouTube data is just a harder swing towards that.

luaka boppa flame (some dude), Monday, 25 February 2013 22:33 (twelve years ago)

"Gangnam Style" and "Thrift Shop" became radio hits eventually, but that seemed to be a direct result of the viral success giving them a sales-fueled chart boost before any US radio station would touch it.

luaka boppa flame (some dude), Monday, 25 February 2013 22:34 (twelve years ago)

yeah, reflecting the larger culture i guess, but it's impossible to imagine something like d4l hitting #1 during the nineties when #1 meant 'this song is completely unavoidable, you know it well regardless of what radio stations or music you listen to, and it ain't going anywhere soon'.

balls, Monday, 25 February 2013 22:35 (twelve years ago)

what's funny is this is the first time i can remember (which isn't going back very far - 90s basically) that billboard changed their methodology and it wasn't pretty explicitly cuz 'things were getting too black'. does seem plausible (more plausible at least) that you could have a rap or rock or maybe even r&b #1 hot 100 single again.

balls, Monday, 25 February 2013 22:39 (twelve years ago)

i dunno, i think this YouTube thing will benefit rap much less than other genres -- Drake's new single got a boost because his video dropped the week the rules changed, but in general it's pretty rare for even the biggest hip hop radio hit to put up really impressive YouTube numbers on the level of your standard Rihanna pop smashes that already dominate the charts.

luaka boppa flame (some dude), Monday, 25 February 2013 22:46 (twelve years ago)

god that perpetua hire at buzzfeed looks more and more tragic and evil every day

balls, Monday, 25 February 2013 22:53 (twelve years ago)

I heard "Thrift Shop" for the first time today. That shit is terrible.

:C (crüt), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 00:14 (twelve years ago)

during the nineties when #1 meant 'this song is completely unavoidable, you know it well regardless of what radio stations or music you listen to, and it ain't going anywhere soon'.

I did not have this experience of the '90s at all. at least the latter half of the '90s.

wk, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 00:34 (twelve years ago)

ok but name some #1s of the late 90s that you can't hum, i think a lot of people would go whaaaat

luaka boppa flame (some dude), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 00:39 (twelve years ago)

I completely avoided the latter half of the 90s number ones - for ex I did not recognize a single song on that recent boy band poll

Donkamole Marvin (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 00:41 (twelve years ago)

the only ones I recognize are the big jokey gangnam style / rebecca black things like the macarena or mmmm bop. pre-internet it was pretty easy to avoid that kind of stuff if you didn't listen to pop radio. basically my total ignorance of top 40 music began at the point I went to college and ended when the internet made that stuff inescapable again.

wk, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 00:43 (twelve years ago)

'4 seasons of loneliness' is one tbf. i think that was the last #1 i hadn't heard until 'harlem shake'. excepting whitney/boyzIImen, the '#1 = monolith' trend may be most pronounced immediately before the itunes introduction (thinking of usher, outkast). jesus christ babyface must be rich as fuck.

balls, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 00:49 (twelve years ago)

how is that stuff more inescapable now??? deliberate exposure vs radio, grocery store pa's, mtv

balls, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 00:50 (twelve years ago)

I still haven't heard the majority of 90s number one singles.

:C (crüt), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 00:56 (twelve years ago)

you were a 9/11 baby there's no shock there

balls, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 00:58 (twelve years ago)

what is a Londonbeat

:C (crüt), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 01:01 (twelve years ago)

that was when music meant something, the berlin wall had fallen, pepsi was clear, and a little song called 'smells like teen spirit' had changed the world and opened ppl's minds

balls, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 01:10 (twelve years ago)

how is that stuff more inescapable now??? deliberate exposure vs radio, grocery store pa's, mtv

when I was in my 20s I didn't watch much TV or listen to the radio and didn't really know anyone my age who did either. I'm just saying it all depends on your age and to what degree you engage with pop culture, and I suspect your memory of '90s pop has a lot to do with how old you were at the time. I do think the internet makes it harder to escape this stuff though. If I wonder "what is this thing people are talking about?" I can click and form an opinion in 30 seconds. And I just find that it's more difficult to insulate your self from pop culture on the internet than IRL.

wk, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 01:39 (twelve years ago)

and for the record I did watch a lot of mtv in the late '90s and it was all Beavis and Butthead and the Real World

wk, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 01:40 (twelve years ago)

why hasn't billboard deemed baauer worthy of the r&b/hip-hop songs chart

teledyldonix, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 09:27 (twelve years ago)

yeah they make a lot of judgment calls there now that i don't totally understand

songs that Billboard deems worthy of the new iTunes-driven R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart: Rihanna's "Diamonds," Macklemore's "Thrift Shop," Justin Timberlake's "Suit & Tie"

songs that haven't been deemed worthy of that chart: Rihanna's "Stay," Flo Rida's "I Cry," PSY's "Gangnam Style," Pitbull's "Don't Stop The Party," Baauer's "Harlem Shake," Justin Bieber's "As Long As You Love Me"

luaka boppa flame (some dude), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 10:01 (twelve years ago)

sales-only chart has always been a dishonest kind of honesty if you examine the ways that music is consumed irl

tochter tochter, please (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 10:06 (twelve years ago)

Thinkpiece time!

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9005926/harlem-shake-thrift-shop-youtube-music-revolution

And it ends with:

"Friday" already seems like a throwback to a more innocent time. Back then, memes were only memes. If "Friday" came out today, Rebecca Black would have a no. 1 record.

So there you go.

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 5 March 2013 23:59 (twelve years ago)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/21775499

Some music artists are buying social networking statistics to get into the charts, a Newsbeat investigation has found.

The statistics, which can be bought, include YouTube views, Twitter followers and Facebook likes.

Newsbeat has found that you can buy 10,000 YouTube views for as little as £30.

There is also a market for buying comments to attribute to the views to help authenticate them.

A data monitoring company based in America says that it has a list of artists who they believe are buying statistics to increase their popularity with record labels and radio bosses.

....

Alex White is the CEO and co-founder of Next Big Sound, which gathers information on daily physical music and online consumption around the world.

He wouldn't name which artists he suspected had been purchasing its data, but said sometimes it was obvious to see that they had.

Martin V is based in Ottawa in Canada and runs a company where people can buy tens of thousands of YouTube views and comments for less than £100.

Twitter says using a company or a computer programme to increase your online activity on Twitter is against its rules.

In a statement it told Newsbeat: "Twitter reserves the right to immediately terminate your account without further notice [if] you violate these rules."

Facebook told Newsbeat that gaining "likes" from people who aren't interested in that page is "no good to anyone".

They advised: "If you run a Facebook page and someone offers you a boost in your fan count in return for money; walk away.

"Not least because it is against our rules and there is a good chance those Likes will be deleted by our automatic systems."

YouTube agreed that purchasing views or any other channel data was against its rules and said if it found out it had been done they could go as far as terminating your account.

Algerian Goalkeeper, Tuesday, 19 March 2013 01:54 (twelve years ago)

got an email today with the subject line "Billboard Charts Now Using YouTube Data!! Get Youtube Marketing Today!!!"

Stephen Thomas Duttywine (some dude), Tuesday, 19 March 2013 02:24 (twelve years ago)

"Harlem Shake" has finally dropped from the #1 spot after five weeks. "Thrift Shop" would have been at #1 for eleven weeks without the recent rejiggering.

skip, Friday, 29 March 2013 13:20 (twelve years ago)

out of the frying pan

TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, 29 March 2013 16:39 (twelve years ago)

like it or not, at least thrift shop "feels" like a number one record

ums (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 29 March 2013 17:21 (twelve years ago)

amazing dissection of how "Harlem Shake" happened: http://qz.com/67991/you-didnt-make-the-harlem-shake-go-viral-corporations-did/

staten island on my pinky, queens on my (some dude), Friday, 29 March 2013 22:06 (twelve years ago)

That's a cool article - amongst other things underlines how every viral hit is due to network effects. You either hit a hub or you don't.

Newgod.css (seandalai), Saturday, 30 March 2013 00:48 (twelve years ago)

kinda lol but mostly sad:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/1556367/macklemore-ryan-lewis-thrift-shop-sets-record-on-hot-rbhip-hop-songs-chart

the drummer for gay Daddy Yankee (some dude), Saturday, 6 April 2013 11:07 (twelve years ago)

read every instance of "while" in that article as "white"

how's life, Saturday, 6 April 2013 11:35 (twelve years ago)

meanwhile "adorn" RETURNS to #1 on r&b/hip-hop airplay after many weeks of other songs being #1. this would have been its... 23rd week at #1??

teledyldonix, Saturday, 6 April 2013 14:08 (twelve years ago)

oh jk just saw that was mentioned on the miguel thread lol

teledyldonix, Saturday, 6 April 2013 14:33 (twelve years ago)

it's ok, teddy dominatrix

the drummer for gay Daddy Yankee (some dude), Saturday, 6 April 2013 15:28 (twelve years ago)

i kinda wonder about an alternate universe where "adorn" had been released ten years ago - it would probably have been a double digit week long hot 100 number one, maybe even have had a record breaking stay there.

but in 2012/13 a 23 week long r&b airplay number one only gets you a top 20 hot 100 hit. depressing.

prolego, Saturday, 6 April 2013 16:23 (twelve years ago)

yeah i dunno... old-fashioned elements of the song aside, "Adorn" feels very much of its time, as does Miguel's whole career. and he probably wouldn't have an Usher-type profile in any era. although it does have some things in common with Mario's "Let Me Love You," which was #1 for nine weeks in '05, so you may have a point.

the drummer for gay Daddy Yankee (some dude), Saturday, 6 April 2013 17:03 (twelve years ago)

It doesn't matter, for if I get gay-married, "Adorn" will be the First Dance.

the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 6 April 2013 17:08 (twelve years ago)

actually found that article pretty weak, like he doesn't rly deliver on the nefarious corporate force pulling the strings he's implying w/ that tone & intro. like he counts Mad Decent & two internet media ones as the corporations responsible for making harlem shake happen... MD released the single & the other two are only implicated because, like, someone at College Humour posted it. (Thousands of “Harlem Shake” videos were uploaded during the week of Feb. 11, many of them from businesses with something to sell. many! oh, no!) and like, hey guess what guys, Youtube is a corporation too! and they're owned by Google, who are really BIG. and the video was posted on Youtube.

also this image linked within the article (although too small to read the text) doesn't seem to support his thesis at all. does make me wonder how they figure out if you're an african american twitter user using harlem shake in its original context tho

http://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/screen-shot-2013-03-27-at-6-53-01-pm.png?w=1024&h=678

flopson, Saturday, 6 April 2013 17:08 (twelve years ago)

clive davis was on bill maher a few weeks ago doing book promotion and they were essentially talking about how EDM is crap (in so many words) and clive was talking about highlighting REAL MUSICIANS at his pre-grammy party and the first person he mentioned was miguel, thought that was kinda cool

J0rdan S., Saturday, 6 April 2013 17:09 (twelve years ago)

a mention of a cool person in the middle of what sounds like a very uncool chat

flamenco drop (lex pretend), Saturday, 6 April 2013 17:10 (twelve years ago)

well it was an old white hippy directing a conversation about current pop music, so yeah

i mean clive was being much more conciliatory but i'm sure he's not exactly jamming swedish house mafia in the crib

J0rdan S., Saturday, 6 April 2013 17:13 (twelve years ago)

Clive devotes a chapter in his memoir to Taylor Dayne. I read it in Target.

the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 6 April 2013 17:32 (twelve years ago)

aww clive and kelly clarkson are gonna have a reconciliation over a miguel slow dance

the drummer for gay Daddy Yankee (some dude), Saturday, 6 April 2013 18:06 (twelve years ago)

ha

agree w/flopson re: that harlem shake article. it's like... MD promoting their own song? the wool has been pulled over your eyes! It didn't even really get into the real story of corporations making money off of "Harlem Shake" which is not only google as flopson said but also the companies who paid for the ads in expectation of a return.

The Reverend, Saturday, 6 April 2013 19:10 (twelve years ago)


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