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

I was hoping for something like harper valley pta or funkytown making the top 10 again

earlier on this thread (i think it was this thread) i pointed out that if a speech is commercially released as an mp3, youtube popularity would seem to qualify it for the Top 40 (just as classic audio op-eds like "The Americans" and "Gallant Men" showed up in the '60s-'70s). If Obama's ever feeling too lame duck I hope he does that for kicks.

xping what I wrote here months ago but youtube parodies have taken away the "intentionalness"...you buy what you want to listen to, rafio stations play what their listeners want to listen to, but when a song charts bc it was in the bg of a vid you might as well start adding muzak to the hot 100 too.

Having the actual video count seems reasonable though, or at least more reasonable.

Blount, you're moving the goalposts all over the place.

why don't christmas songs chart on the hot 100 every december?

haha i have long been a proponent that songs heard in grocery stores, drugstores, etc should somehow be factored in but to achieve that it would probably take some level of big brother security state we're at least two, three years away from

musicians are adapting to the new world though. When that "Gone" viral video gave Kanye lemons, he got on a motorcycle with Kim and made lemonade.

ha forgot about the bon jovi thing, still holding out for something more absurd tho

I can see comedians taking advantage of this too

don't forget "harlem shake"

it just occurred to me that the ppl in charge at billboard are pretty old, at least to be bringing an understanding of the internet in 2013

Bill Werde is pretty young iirc!

I can see comedians taking advantage of this too

next time someone like lou reed dies andy samberg or somebody should dance shirtless on youtube to their best jam, get them the chart respect they deserve.

"maybe it was insensitive me to hump that ottoman to 'Dancing Barefoot' but dammit it made #33 for a week! RIP Patti"

i've been amazed we haven't seen a million byron mcgregors bloom. you'd think it'd be so easy to rig the charts w/ ted cruz doing a speech over an instrumental of 'battle hymn of the republic', the same way they've rigged the best seller lists by having think tanks buy crates of charles krauthammer books. or if that wouldn't work cuz fcc regs on giving airtime to politicians just have limbaugh or hannity do some rant w/ musical accompaniment, most of the old novelty hits were created by radio dickheads looking for their big shot anyway.

otm, how soon before a little lightbulb appears over glenn beck

if mj had died this year thriller (the song) would have gone to #1 i'm sure

attn old/sick singers: get your shit on youtube asap

if they counted youtube ads i'm sure "vicious" would be on the top 40 right now

http://global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/Opinion/660-krauthammer-book-cover-.jpg

^^ audiobook #1 on Hot 100

seriously of all the authors that didn't need to put their picture on the cover

I like the legal pad

things that matter: when you hear a fire alarm exit the building. don't assume it's a prank or wait to come to a stopping point. that fire will burn you. take it from me, charles krauthammer.

what's the open book -- the platform for the RNC?

I'm just disappointed that no one has been able to make a viral video out of Bring in the Katz.

OTM

things that matter: when you hear a fire alarm exit the building. don't assume it's a prank or wait to come to a stopping mobpoint. that fire will burn you. take it from me, charles krauthammer.

fwiw though i think the year of macklemore/miley/thicke/justin/eminem happening at the same time as the year of billboard factoring youtube is not unrelated or coincidental, but i think there's a good chance most or all of those records would've dominated the pop landscape this year anyway if billboard hadn't changed anything (like, "blurred lines" got a lot of attention for the video, but it didn't actual jump into the top ten until he performed it on the voice and the itunes sales/radio spins spiked). so i dunno acting like billboard MADE this stuff happen, much less what their intent was, is not really where the discussion should go imo.

also as much as i hate to admit it, drake's crossover popularity is as huge as any number of rappers that routinely had solo #1s a decade ago and i think it's pretty silly that he hasn't had one. i mean it was only five years ago that wayne had "lollipop" at #1. but of course that was the year before gaga and edm started totally changing the 'rhythmic' radio landscape, which is a HUUUUUGE factor in the whole way things have been going.

yeah thanks to sirius whatnot i have no idea what standard radio formats sound like these days

but of course that was the year before gaga and edm started totally changing the 'rhythmic' radio landscape, which is a HUUUUUGE factor in the whole way things have been going.

― some dude, Wednesday, December 18, 2013 8:26 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bingo. this is one of the big things no one talks about, probably largely because New York doesn't actually HAVE a rhythmic format so most writers dont actually know what it is

at least, according to my coworkers, who only know pop stations and rap stations

edm has pretty clearly peaked though - witness gaga flopping (which really shouldn't have been a surprise w/ ke$ha flopping before her and the decline of b.e.p.). maybe if there had been a big a flo rida or kid cudi release this year (and maybe there were and they flopped to i don't know) maybe you would have had an african american artist hit #1. those guys always felt like also rans to me though, hard to imagine a market w/ no place for b.e.p. and gaga but plenty of time for fucking flo rida. i know ppl point to gaga or maybe grudging admit b.e.p. for spearheading that but i've always thought 2007 was obv year zero for that w/ timbaland hitting w/ 'the way i are' and obv 'stronger' standing in for the moment when daft punk were finally actually mainstream. six years is a normal lifespan for a style's moment - by 96/97 the early 90s altwave had clearly crested, by 98/99 the babyface era that you could say was ushered (heh) in by the bodyguard ost was effectively over, by 91/92 the era of hair metal dominance that came in w/ the mid-80s (i know traditionally ppl point to quiet riot but i'd argue homogeneity doesn't set in until slippery when wet) obv died. i'm not sure how to track the early 00s era, it seems to multi-varied to me (even w/ the all hip-hop top ten it's not like it was all crunk), but that might just be cuz i actually liked that era. drake is a very interesting case though, seems like if a music journalist really wanted to look into this a good approach might be to look at what pop stations don't play drake and then figure out why (ie call them and ask 'why don't you play drake'). there's an obv potential downside here though in that it could lead to more drake being played on the radio.

probably bc they're anti-semitic

i don't think you would be able to find a single pop station that hadn't played "hold on we're going home" or "take care" or "find your love" or "best i ever had"

Wait, what? New York has WKTU, which didn't lean on R&B but which has definitely exterminated much of the freestyle that it used to play in favor of (more) Eurohouse clones. (It even had a four-hour block on Sunday nights that was devoted to freestyle, and that was put out to pasture in 2011 or 2012.)

I don't think EDM has peaked, though. Kiss 108 is all "Clarity" and that Avicii song and the Zedd track with Hayley Williams on lead vocal.

Unless we're counting "Harlem Shake" there hasn't been an EDM #1 since January of last year.

yeah, i mean, the year-end pop songs chart has, peppered in among thicke and macklemore and piano ballads: zedd, taylor swift dubstep song, imagine dragons dubstep song, swedish house mafia, avicii, daft punk, calvin harris, calvin harris, lana del rey dance remix...i wouldn't be surprised if the 2014 year-end chart is less EDM but if the trend is on the way out it's not going very quickly.

http://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2013/hot-pop-songs

Miles Raymer predicts a "country-EDM boom" in 2014, with "Timber" and "Wake Me Up" leading the way:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2013/11/26/pitbull-prepares-us-for-the-country-edm-boom-of-2014

I feel more that edm, rather than being on the way out, has just infected nearly every song on the charts that isn't a throwback of some kind--sort of the way that in the late 70s-early 80s lots of non-disco songs had disco elements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXyzOEAJVB4

"His work is motivated purely by profit, and from the start has remained untainted by any apparent ideas about art or urges to express his inner life. Pitbull makes music to make money, and that's pretty much end of story."

this is why I love Pitbull

I feel more that edm, rather than being on the way out, has just infected nearly every song on the charts that isn't a throwback of some kind--sort of the way that in the late 70s-early 80s lots of non-disco songs had disco elements.

― I got the glares, the mutterings, the snarls (President Keyes), Thursday, December 19, 2013 9:28 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah...you take something like "Locked Out of Heaven," which is a pretty faithful homage to Police songs from the '70s, also have this four-on-the-floor EDM chorus.

Wait, what? New York has WKTU, which didn't lean on R&B but which has definitely exterminated much of the freestyle that it used to play in favor of (more) Eurohouse clones. (It even had a four-hour block on Sunday nights that was devoted to freestyle, and that was put out to pasture in 2011 or 2012.)

― maura, Thursday, December 19, 2013 1:31 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

u right. my coworker corrected himself.

in that case i have no idea why people haven't realized that the reason black artists aren't on the charts is that they also aren't really on rhythmic which serves as a connective tissue between R&B and/or hip-hop radio and top 40

because a lot of people don't really listen to the radio anymore?

at least in the subset of "people who write about music." even those who do, probably couldn't tell you the exact delineation of radio format besides, I dunno, "this station does things like cut Lil Wayne out of Kevin Rudolf songs"

lmao right now

not sure why that's funny? I mean, sure, the difference between contemporary top 40 and hip-hop is pretty obvious to the layperson, but without a specific grounding in radio, the delineation between rhythmic top 40 or rhythmic contemporary or mainstream top 40 is not completely obvious, let alone the internal politics/pressures that go into those. most people I talk to know radio stations by their numbers and general idea.

'general idea' = format

like, when i was a kid, i knew 'rhythmic' by everything but name—it was chicago's B96, and they played house music/ace of base (and the occasional snoop dogg/skee lo) until about '97, and then it was rap through about '06, and then it slipped back towards edm

but i always knew what kinds of songs i'd hear on rhythmic vs. WGCI which was rap, R&B, and occasionally gospel or old school, or Power 92 which would do street rap, some pop R&B, and juke. Or Kiss FM, which did pop music with guitars included. etc

I don't think radio is nearly as dead as people say. if you grow up in a certain place you still get to know the dial

Miles Raymer predicts a "country-EDM boom" in 2014, with "Timber" and "Wake Me Up" leading the way:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2013/11/26/pitbull-prepares-us-for-the-country-edm-boom-of-2014

― jaymc, Thursday, December 19, 2013 2:24 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

surprised this article doesn't talk about Avicii's current single "Hey Brother" which takes the country EDM crossover as far as I've heard it taken yet. Not to mention Miley's album. Or the "The Spark" by Afrojack, which has somebody named Spree Wilson on it. Except... that hasn't been released in the US it seems??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB3lcPjvWLA

i saw "The Spark" on MTV Hits a while back and was entranced by its awfulness