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

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?

Folks were wondering about that question a year ago, and I still don't know the answer

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.

something is wrong with r&b radio or r&b itself right? unless adorn is really the greatest r&b song of all time?

Are you a weirdo who doesn't like Adorn

Not even a top 5 song on Kaleidoscope Dream tbh.

At least we once saw crossovers like Mary J. Blige's "Be Without You," an even bigger R&B hit that actually sat in the Hot 100 top five for a while.

Not even a top 5 song on Kaleidoscope Dream tbh.

― tsrobodo, Friday, January 24, 2014 11:00 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yup

At least we once saw crossovers like Mary J. Blige's "Be Without You," an even bigger R&B hit that actually sat in the Hot 100 top five for a while.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, January 24, 2014 6:53 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Adorn" actually did break "Be Without You"'s record for weeks topping the R&B airplay chart, but since the main chart stopped being mostly airplay in the middle of "Adorn"'s run it's not reflected as a Billboard record. the real difference is that "Be Without You" was also #1 on Pop Songs (and all-genre Radio Songs chart). "Adorn" peaked at #35 on Pop Songs and #9 on Radio Songs.

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?

i don't think billboard has answered this question specifically yet, but they did count basically every view of those harlem shake videos, most of which were only 30 seconds long, so yeah, it would seem that 30 seconds is sufficient

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

"Pretty Wings" too, number one R&B for 3 months in '09 (second only to "Be Without You") but only made it to 33 on the Hot 100.

MASSIVELY important new post here:

http://dtownsteez.tumblr.com/post/75090773209/some-charts-i-thought-might-be-important-reference

Just came here to post that.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/eee0dc1afb0cd496550ef2bbdc46da4c/tumblr_n07equ8WkQ1rk11n7o1_1280.png

http://24.media.tumblr.com/ac7ee002f404a6b17d50fa5589168cd8/tumblr_n07equ8WkQ1rk11n7o2_1280.png

yeah, that's pretty interesting. curious what that looks like if you go back further. also wow at 1993, i would not have guessed that that was the peak year (might've guessed 2004 though). bottom drops out well after hot 100 includes itunes data (not that that couldn't be a lagging indicator or something). curious what happens w/ 2008 - is it just edm? i can remember over a decade ago britishes wondering why dance music couldn't break thru, why didn't american kids go to clubs and dance and arguing that american kids did go out to clubs and dance, it's just that over here dance music is (or was) hip-hop and uptempo r&b. maybe edm was a disruptive innovation.

well, 1993 will look bigger because Soundscan had really kicked.

i guess but seems like soundscan's effects would be tempered by the way hot 100 is calculated (though i'm guessing we're seeing some delayed effect of radio reacting to the discovery of just how popular hip-hop actually is)(ie most of the last top 40 holdouts had yielded and you could have ice cube and snoop on pop radio, not just hammer). i still think >70% of yr pop chart to be composed of hip-hop/r&b is a ridiculous norm to expect but i have to admit i had thought that that early 00s moment of hip-hop/r&b dominance was a bit of an anomaly and that the recent trend was if not a regression to the norm, then perhaps not as drastic a turn historically as some of the thinkpieces would have it but no, that's some kind of paradigm shift going on there and it's weird cuz when you look at the huge systematic things that have effected pop music in the past twenty years - telecommunications act of 96, the death of music videos on television, itunes and the rise of mp3s, the rise of streaming, general billboard hijinks - none of them seem to be the easy thing you can point at here (not that they aren't or couldn't be factors, just you can't point at them as some sort of extinction level event in the fossil record or whatever). not sure how much was a shift in fashion toward a genre w/ not a ton of african american artists in it or how much is white kids having a number of their own shitty white rappers they can listen/relate to instead now (ie benzino was right!) or really what you can point at. the elephant in the room of course is the first thing anyone thinks of when asked 'ok what happened in america in 2008?'

haha THANKS OBAMA

hey guys it's david (the guy who wrote that billboard hot 100 trends post). somebody pointed this thread out to me. anyways, if you have any questions about my methods or w/e feel free to ask.

welcome! you did excellent work! (this is al shipley btw)

yeah really interesting graphs. (shakira counting as a POC but not aguilera seems a bit arbitrary to me - because she's not american she's "more" latina than an american latina woman? - but as you say it wouldn't make a huge difference to the data.)

i get the impression that the crux of this lies in stuff which is subtly unmappable: genres like rap and r&b only finding crossover success via white artists (doing either safe, retro iterations of it or trying to distance themselves from it) while black megastars like rihanna chart with dance and pop...

Shakira is half Lebanese, half latina so idk about calling her "white", but that's a minor point in a really interesting analysis.

FWIW America recognizes 'Hispanic white' and 'non-Hispanic white' (the latter of which is closest to just generic 'white')

the Rihanna factor is noteworthy because the biggest reason no black artist had a #1 in 2013 is that she had no solo #1 (only the second year that's happened since "Umbrella").

Hey there David, glad you're here on this thread. Glenn McDonald posts here too and I hope he sees this but he had a comment on my feed about this: "Hmm. Using only the top 20 makes this subject to very big apparent shifts based on just a few songs one way or another. Need more data." Given he knows his data in turn and all, just wanted to throw that in.

There could always be more data but I think the top 20 songs of the year is still a pretty useful sample size. in every previous era of the Hot 100, you wouldn't have to look far to find a Supremes or Marvin Gaye or Prince or Boyz II Men or 50 Cent song among the very biggest hits of a given year. Now it's just R&B by Thicke and Timberlake, rap by Macklemore and Eminem, and the occasional Rihanna track (but not the ones urban radio plays, like "Pour It Up" or "Loveeeeeee Song"). Huge shift from the previous 50 years.

the elephant in the room of course is the first thing anyone thinks of when asked 'ok what happened in america in 2008?'

ever since the world financial meltdown, pop fans have awaited the coming of lorde and macklemore to speak truth to power! fuck you lehman brothers!

Loved the graph article.

Am I right that with digital-era sales trends we have no frame of reference to say, meaningfully, that the Eminem chart-topper, despite its wallowing all over the Hot 100, is measurably not that popular? I mean, I guess that's what Billboard tries to measure in the first place, but it just seems particularly unjust and out of balance that history is marking down these "huge" "hit" songs whereas, like, "Adorn" was actually a song everybody was listening to and loved. But I may just be very heavily biased by my tastes and my neighborhood etc.

it has replaced 'holy grail' as the official Rap Song By An Old on the top-40 station up here

read the comment by "A" at the bottom of this post: http://www.cocaineblunts.com/blunts/?p=7507&cpage=1#comment-2301912

for more context on rhythmic radio's abandoning black radio

fuckit

"A Says:
January 30th, 2014 at 10:57 pm
102 JAMZ definitely has one of the best playlists in the country, not only jumping on Southern records quick but also the “ratchet” records emerging from the West. They were early on TeeFlii’s “This D,” The Finatticz’s “Don’t Drop That Thun Thun” and Sage The Gemini’s two hit singles.

Speaking of out West, since the surge of Top 40 radio’s dominance on iTunes, Billboard and every other chart known to man, Rhythmic radio stations have cut back on Rap titles so they can play more Zedd/David Guetta/Calvin Harris 100 times more than the other Top 40 station in the market. Believe it or not, there’s Rhythmic stations that haven’t played YG “My Hitta” more than 10x a week. When the biggest straight ahead (now Platinum) rap record in the country can’t get played more than 10 times on the de facto Hip Hop station in your city, it’s a major problem (KUBE 93 in Seattle doesn’t even have it in rotation).

As HOT 97 finds itself lagging behind its sister station Power 106 in terms of musical influence for the first time in forever, you can hear HOT adding more Pop records (recurrents like Bruno Mars “Treasure” and newer songs like Pharrell’s “Happy” which is being promoted to Pop radio) that have been staples of Power 106′s playlist for the last 7 years. HOT 97 is historically a Rhythmic-Crossover outlet while its crosstown competition Power 105.1 is a Mainstream Urban, targeting Blacks-then-Latinos not the other way around (which is Hot’s approach). Aside from the customary Macklemore record, Power 105.1 stays away from Pop records (can’t intrude on sister station Z100′s fiefdom).

The world needs more 102 JAMZ and less stations like Seattle’s KUBE 93, which has regressed from a balanced Rhythmic Crossover outlet to the terrestrial version of Macklemore’s Pandora station. It’s stations like the latter that keep rap records from becoming legitimate hits that can permeate mainstream pop culture."

hey guys:

@lex: absolutely agree with you about the whole xtina/shakira thing. as i said: it's tricky territory (and one that, as a white dude, frankly im pretty underqualified to make judgment calls on so yes callouts are important here.) as a side note, i was working off the idea--have i seen any racist bullshit about any of these artists--and i remember these madtv skits that made fun of her for supposedly speaking english poorly. though i now remember, way back in the day, when i heard "genie in a bottle" on the radio for the first time i asked my friend who was singing and he said christina aguilera in a faux spanish (ugh) accent.
also, just so you know, these are the songs in question when it comes to those aforementioned classification issues:

"genie in a bottle" (1999)
"what a girl wants" (2000)
"beautiful" (2003)
"hips don't lie" (2006)
"promiscuous" (2006)
"say it right" (2007)

@Ned: agree with glenn on the sample size issue (because obviously with statistics the bigger the sample size the better). however, like i said on twitter (@dtownsteez), i think this should be thought of as a conversation starter more than it should be thought of as a final say on the matter. additionally, i also noted the issue with considering the ENTIRE year-end hot 100 because of the double dipping of some songs (although maybe considered over a long period that's not really an issue?)

Am I right that with digital-era sales trends we have no frame of reference to say, meaningfully, that the Eminem chart-topper, despite its wallowing all over the Hot 100, is measurably not that popular?

sometimes yes, sometimes no. "Crack A Bottle" is perhaps the most extreme example of a #1 driven almost purely by downloads, only got to #20 on the airplay-only Pop Songs chart. but "Monster" and "Love The Way You Lie" and "Not Afraid," those are all huge radio hits as well as big sellers.

but it's notable that "Love The Way You Lie" is the only post-comeback Eminem hit that urban radio has really embraced, even with Rihanna again "Monster" stalled outside the top 20 of the R&B airplay chart (and urban radio only played about half of his early pop hits to begin with). it's always seemed to me like a lot of hip-hop fans dutifully pay lip service to Eminem's talent but don't really listen to his music.

Am I right that with digital-era sales trends we have no frame of reference to say, meaningfully, that the Eminem chart-topper, despite its wallowing all over the Hot 100, is measurably not that popular?

I dunno...on my Clear Channel station this thing gets round the clock play.

Yeah, but does anybody actually want to hear it?

actually the other person ive found prevalent on urban radio (aside from rihanna) is...chris brown? dude's having something of a comeback there ("it won't stop," "show me," "love more," "fine china"). in fact, in my research i found rihanna and breezy to be maybe the strongest name brands in the r&b world since edm (or whatever you want to call it) became a chart phenomenon.

i say urban radio, btw, because that was the meat and potatoes of the hot r&b/hip hop songs chart pre-chart changes.

Chris Brown isn't on a comeback, he's been a non-stop presence on urban radio for the past 3 odd years since "Deuces" gave him his first big post-controversy hit.

Can't imagine they would be playing "Monster" so much if people didn't want to hear it. They are in business to make money.

yeah it's a popular song. people love it. we're better off not second-guessing the sincerity of one fanbase vs. another.

i would argue that eminem is possibly more popular now than he was pre-retirement, even if critics (except xgau lol) have moved on completely.

actually think limiting to top 20 is extremely justifiable (esp when you consider just how limited playlists are at pop radio). i could imagine some kind of weighed sample might reveal more but i suspect it would just confirm the above. curious to see 80s data, esp early 80s, cuz that was a time when r&b acts could have a difficult time crossing over to pop (esp more than once) and obv hip-hop acts could have a very difficult time getting on the radio. and yet even then yr freddie jacksons and stephanie mills would manage a pop hit, a gregory abbott would have a 'shake you down'. even luther vandross, who got alot of the 'why isn't this guy crossing over to pop?' thinkpieces before he finally really broke thru around 1990 would managed to have an occasional crossover hit (just nothing sustained and befitting a talent like luther vandross). suspect this might be due to smaller playlists also or just more fractured market possibly. curious if there's been any evidence of major format changes in radio, the kind of thing you might expect when a genre completely dies in the marketplace. in atlanta there's been a definite rise of edm/rhythmic friendly pop stations (probably the second most notable development locally after the rise of fm talk radio) but it has been at the expense of what was left of rock and altrock radio. i could imagine in a city w/ different demographics than atlanta that might not be the case though. curious about how and why the bottom fell out of r&b/hip-hop sales so dramatically (eg even w/ the high profile and tv appearances and critical acclaim and domination of r&b radio that last miguel album has yet to even go gold). suspect also that if you really want to look at a systematic root of this the general downsizing of music industry is going to be a primary cause, lex and some dude know more about this than me but the past whatever years is just littered w/ debut albums or followups that never got released or recorded or promoted really. country has seen it's pop presence erode as well (unless you want to include taylor swift post-'o wait, i'm a yankee - why am i singing w/ this accent?' as country) but it obv had a much larger base demographically and its infrastructure has always been separated from the rest of the music industry (geographically even).

also xina totally codes as white. maybe not as white as say britney but whiter than say ted cruz, nevermind shakira.

Country still crosses over, but the singles stall. Keith Urban and Miranda Lambert just scored a top 30 crossover, but I'm sure that's sales-driven.