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

The only changes to the charts that bother me are the genre chart changes. The inclusion of iTunes and YouTube stuff was inevitable because the chart first and foremost operates for music industry insiders and iTunes and YouTube are huge sources of income for the music industry right now. Still absurd that they counted 30 second "Harlem Shake" video views though.

new interesting chart case to arise from all this: "royals" is now #1 on the urban radio format (first white female to top it since...) but billboard won't count it on the r&b chart. now I'm no fan of the song but isn't it entirely self-defeating for billboard to arbitrarily decide something shouldn't count on a chart when it's a number one radio song amongst its actual audience. that feels sort of unprecedented

^^^^

I mean... what is actually the point of any of their chart tinkering if they're not actually going to follow the results it gives them? Why not just make up a list of songs you think should fit wherever and publish that?

wow that article. does he even really look at the charts much? like yes, the fact about #1s has been the most obvious effect of the trend, but it should be VERY obvious from looking at the hot 100 from top to bottom (or ANY of the genre charts that now use its formula), so fuck his sample size quibbles

wow, that article. Perpetua, if you still come through ILX, I've enjoyed a lot of what you've written in the past, and you've given me a lot to think about with regard to a lot of things - but what the hell? The insistence on the #1 as the "sample size" is your choice and you could easily expand it to reveal what's actually going on, which is precisely what this thread's title suggests. Why give yourself the job of defending Billboard anyway?

Yikes, the comments on that article.

:\ people are so terrible

embrace a sense of working class pride that’s been largely absent from the mainstream for a very long time

can i

just remember, Perpetua is the dude who tweeted that someone doing an overearnest, mocking rendition of Ice Cube's "It Was A Good Day" was better than the original

literally throw garbage at this man

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

im not gonna play that vid. i assume he sat on his guitar and then put "the predator" on his stereo. bc that is how u play "it was a good day"

embrace a sense of working class pride that’s been largely absent from the mainstream for a very long time

can i

― can't believe people like things (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, January 21, 2014 8:03 AM Bookmark

This is the point at which I almost threw my laptop. Because it's only working class pride when white people exhibit it?

When you throw it, Rev, aim east.

wow that article. does he even really look at the charts much? like yes, the fact about #1s has been the most obvious effect of the trend, but it should be VERY obvious from looking at the hot 100 from top to bottom (or ANY of the genre charts that now use its formula), so fuck his sample size quibbles

― dyl, Tuesday, January 21, 2014 7:45 AM Bookmark

He says this as if the highest song by a black artist on the Hot 100 this week isn't way down at #16.

Ha, I just re-read his attack on me five years ago for panning Animal Collective. He called me an "out-of-touch crank"!

Because it's only working class pride when white people exhibit it?

of course! also, if you talk about material wealth or symbols of consumer status in your work then you're clearly not working class

I'm firmly pro-Royals but wow, that's an astoundingly dumb statement re: "working-class pride". Incorrect on every level.

Nina Smith · Top Commenter · Cheif Director of nap times & cracker breaks. at Little Hands Gucci Knockoff Sweatshop.
This article does a huge disservice to the MANY hugely talented black jazz blues artists of our time. Pop is fluff, junk food for the brain. There is so much more to the musical experience.

Lol DL how can you think that and new pro-Royals, that's the message of the song

No, it's about money and pop culture, not class. She's not working class and doesn't claim to be. Often I'm as annoyed by misreadings from people who like it as I am by ones from people who hate it. It's not a simple binary at all.

how is "counting dollars on the train" or w/e not working class?

i must admit i hate the song and everything that it represents with the white hot heat of 1,000 suns but i think it's pretty fucking convenient that it seems to be so widely "misinterpreted"...like literally every time it pops up on facebook or i see youtube or comments on an article that's how people are interpreting it, and that's how i interpret it....but somehow it's defenders want to believe that everyone else is wrong with the simplest and most obvious answer is that everyone, the haters and the mass of its fans, are interpreting it exactly as it is.

This is interesting: "Drunk in Love" is now the #1 streaming song, but that's only good for #12 on the big chart.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/01/22/lordes-royals-the-go-go-version/

xp Money is not the same as class. Simple. I grew up without much money of my own, very much counting my pounds on the train, but I'm still middle class. I'm addressing Perp's miscategorisation there, not your hatred of the song.

wasn't there some poll not long ago that found that like 80% of ppl considered themselves middle class?

Plus, middle and upper class folks may be more likely to dismiss the trappings of money and pop culture as did Lorde, as they have always had more than working class folks

also maybe bc they can signal status in more subtle (+ often more expensive, eg 60 grand graduate degree mannerisms) ways

I've always read it as about being the listener rather than the performers, ie "I wish I heard different messages on the radio" (cf the Smiths: "The music that they constantly play says nothing to me about my life") as opposed to "Rappers shouldn't buy themselves nice cars". But yes, it's a lower-middle-class bohemian POV.

the brute-force Importance of new sites that just happen to have a lot of money and the ability to throw it around in ways that generate traffic is maybe my least favorite development of this decade. like, why should people care about such a wrongheaded and ignorant argument? well, because lots of people read buzzfeed. because it has audience manipulation science on its side. just, ugh, gahhhh.

(you too grantland)

This is interesting: "Drunk in Love" is now the #1 streaming song, but that's only good for #12 on the big chart.

― The Reverend, Thursday, January 23, 2014 5:47 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

so what does this mean? wasn't the thread thesis that including streaming songs was creating these new results?

There's no way it's the streaming songs creating these results. To the people that think they are, what song by a black artist would have gone #1 if streaming wasn't included?

there's really not enough data to make any real conclusions yet. it's been a year! everything right now could be a blip

i think it's possible that streaming helps songs by black artists get onto the hot 100 when they wouldn't have otherwise (also known as the vine phenomenon) but also puts a cap on how high they can go because streams by memes (harlem shake, what's the fox say) and white pop artists (miley etc) end up crushing them in numbers

to me the most important test case for black music and the modern pop charts is "adorn," which was pre-streaming rules but was the biggest r&b radio hit OF ALL TIME and still peaked at #17 on the hot 100. something is wrong there.

Yep. And "Love on Top" a few months earlier.

I definitely think there are other factors at play here—the drop-off seems to be around the time Flo Rida came on the scene (he was probably America's most popular MC until Macklemore came along). But I also think (and someone with more chart knowledge can correct me on this) that depending on the number of streams being accessed, being "#1 on streaming" by itself might not carry as much weight as being #1 on radio, or in sales—so a song can top the streaming chart but not have as many chart points as, say, a track that's #5 on radio. This is why things like "Gangnam Style" and "Harlem Shake" went so bonkers—they were much wider phenomena that had much more to do with sharing the communal experience of A Thing In Culture Right Now than they did the simple enjoyment of a song.

Also re radio trumping streams: Did someone link that WSJ piece about radio being narrower already?
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303754404579313150485141672

"The most-played song last year, Robin Thicke's 'Blurred Lines,' aired 749,633 times in the 180 markets monitored by Mediabase. That is 2,053 times a day on average. The top song in 2003, 'When I'm Gone' by 3 Doors Down, was played 442,160 times that year."

when god puts me in hell he is going to force me to listen to "When I'm Gone" by 3 Doors Down 442,160 times in a row

when god puts me in hell he is going to force me to listen to "When I'm Gone" by 3 Doors Down "Blurred Lines" 442,160 times in a row

oh my god, I'm already in hell

HEY HEY HEY

I think the thing I'm angriest at "Blurred Lines" for ruining "Firestarter" for me

Failing to see the connection/resemblance (in cases like this, it's usually pretty obvious and right in front of me).

well you just wrote "HEY HEY HEY" and I thought "oh, 'Firerstarter'" but "Blurred Lines" went through my mind instead and I went ;_;

Oh, right. Anyway, here's a fact about me, the "Firestarter" video was the first music video that scared me when I was young.

For the purposes of Billboard, "streaming" means services like Spotify, Pandora, etc. Youtube views are tracked separately. "Drunk in Love" is only #13 on THAT chart, which is currently topped by "Wrecking Ball" (STILL).

damn youtube viewers love miley

does this wrecking ball version count towards it?
http://youtu.be/6xljA6zJn4I

the 'on demand songs' chart is what tracks spotify/pandora/etc. 'streaming songs' includes all of that + youtube/vevo/other video streaming sites. streaming songs is the hot 100 component chart (along w/ digital, radio), while on demand is a subset of it.

I dunno what that Ron Jeremy business is, but "Wrecking Ball" returned to #1 after Lorde's 9 week reign because of some parody video.

Is there a limit to how long a stream needs to last before it's counted? Like if a million people click on a video and watch it for 30 seconds and shut it off, does it still count?