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

typical number of streams in a week for a big hit song: 3 million via subscription services + 7-8 million via youtube
typical sales in a week for a big hit song: 150,000

so an album with only one big hit on it would only have like 2-3 thousand weekly 'copies' added to the itunes/retail sales tally... unless youtube is also incorporated in which case it would add about 6-7 thousand. that's obviously not trivial in an industry where albums by artists with actual hits are now routinely debuting with less than 50k in sales and current albums are often selling less than 10 thousand weekly, but not enormously earth-shattering either? idk.

i wouldn't be surprised to see some annoyingly long runs at the top and fewer albums debuting at #1. and 'albums artists' not doing as well as before, lol.

I keep waiting for a mention of disposable income (people's lack thereof) in discussions about The Way We Consume Music Now and it never comes

^otm

there was some talk about this and a rather astute comment about access to credit upthread but I agree it is horribly underdiscussed

I'm not sure the level of disposable income has shifted that radically but the competition for that income has definitely increased. Teenagers spending, conservatively, $50 a month on phone contracts and maybe $500 - $1000 a year on new tech aren't going to have as much cash burning a hole in their pockets.

i really have no idea how young pop fans - the ones who actually buy music to support the artist, tickets to shows etc - afford it

Selling plasma

Part-time job at Hot Dog on a Stick and living with their parents?

Well, about the whole rap starting to do well on the Hot 100 again cause of viral streaming hits...

Also of note: Effective this week, the methodology for the Hot 100, along with Billboard's genre hybrid songs charts, has changed slightly to rebalance desired chart ratios for sales, airplay and streaming, as the chart's streaming component has often been above its desired average ratio, and download sales noticeably below, in recent weeks. Such adjustments to these multi-data pool charts are common (and have been implemented on the Hot 100 when, for example, sales had increased exponentially).

Bobby Shmurda tumbled 8 spots down the Hot 100 this week, but most of the other rap songs in the top 40 seem pretty unaffected by the changes

Ask Billboard: Why Is There No R&B/Hip-Hop in the Hot 100's Top 10?

Still … it's hard to pin R&B/hip-hop's recent exclusion from the Hot 100's top 10 completely on chart chance. Edison Research VP/music and programming (and Billboard contributor) Sean Ross has long theorized that pure R&B/hip-hop has been usurped by what he's dubbed "turbo-pop" (uptempo, R&B/hip-hop-leaning pop) as top 40 radio's go-to sound for rhythm.

"Top 40 long stopped looking to mainstream R&B/hip-hop stations for titles," Ross wrote early this year, as "Happy" began its run to No. 1. "A few years ago, 'turbo-pop' allowed Rihanna, Usher and Chris Brown to have a separate body of [top 40] hits [concurrent with singles released specifically for R&B/hip-hop radio].

Meanwhile, "Drake scored one hip-hop hit after another, but was welcome at top 40 only with his occasional ventures into R&B like 'Take Care' and 'Hold On, We're Going Home.' "

https://twitter.com/ernestbaker/status/553263768176984064

This probably has zip to do with anything, but I stumbled upon it while working on something and wanted to share:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-rolling-stone-interview-phil-spector-19691101?page=8

omg thanks for posting that interview it's amazing

definitely some worthwhile historical context in terms of the subject of this thread, and dude just dropped an almost 50-year-old bomb in my head re: "like a rolling stone"

the ask billboard link i posted in december mentions that billboard was preparing a feature on this topic for their print magazine. i wonder if that feature has since been published. idek if ppl still read the print edition of billboard anymore...

x-post off topic regarding Spector on ""Like a Rolling Stone"--Wow. "La Bamba" chord changes reworked! Is that right?

You can def sing the La Bamba chorus over the How does it feel? part...

Its a i iv v progression isn't it?

My style is that I know things about recording that other people just don't know. It's simple and clear, and it's easy for me to make hits.

Yeah it's a i iv v you could say it's also Bob Dylan's "Da Doo Ron Ron".

picked me up at seven, looked so fine, in your prime, doo ron

omg thanks for posting that interview it's amazing

co-sign

local hip hop & r&b station played "partition" today and a woman i work with who will almost always turn on one of the top 40 stations was kind of confused because she hadn't heard it before. like, she knows who beyonce is and recognizes her voice and asked me about it and all i could offer was "uh, beyonce doesn't really get played on those stations anymore." :(

shit

in my town I guess we don't even have a top 40 station--just a couple of "Hits" stations that are, I guess, Rhythmic. Anytime I go in for a haircut it's always Beyonce alongside Katy Perry, Lorde, T.Swift.

Pre-Grammys Azalea think pieces:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/white-echoes-rap-race-and-iggy-azalea/2015/02/04/992a93d2-abe9-11e4-abe8-e1ef60ca26de_story.html?tid=trending_strip_1

Chris Richards:

As for her delivery, it’s a needling imitation of a black Southern voice, with syllables that twang in the wrong direction and vowels that curve into sour shapes. It’s pantomime devoid of personality. An empty white echo.

As hollow as it feels, it’s important to remember that Azalea has every right to strike this pose. But when the industry-folk who draft the Grammy ballots sanctify that pose as an emblem of excellence, we should all feel a twist in our stomachs.

http://www.vulture.com/2015/02/please-dont-let-iggy-azalea-win-best-rap-album.html

Lindsay Zoladz: I believe we’re finally on the cusp of a moment in which female rappers are commanding unprecedented respect, and I would love a Rap Album win that feels in step with this shift. But the thought of Iggy Azalea being the first woman to reap the rewards of this transformation fills me with the same kind of dread I had in the darker days of the 2008 presidential campaign; Iggy Azalea is basically the Sarah Palin of rap. Next year’s list of eligible nominees is already looking promising and more female-friendly: Nicki Minaj’s Pinkprint and Azealia Banks’s Broke With Expensive Taste both deserve to be serious contenders — and how perfect would it be if Missy Elliott’s hopefully forthcoming comeback album nabbed the award? I’ve got my fingers crossed that a woman will finally win that golden shotglass soon. Just not this year.

Part of me feels like I should seek out and hear some IAz finally. The other part is fine with continuing on in blissful ignorance.

yeah, i'm okay with know her as the annoying part of "fancy" that isn't the other annoying part

Eminem won best rap album in an award given out before the tv portion. Kendrick Lamar won for best rap performance of I and best rap song for the same.

Thus we were spared the Iggyocalypse

somehow thought this was where the grammy discussion might be happening

Just on twitter.

Or maybe its on a metal thread cuz of this:

http://loudwire.com/2015-grammys-tenacious-d-best-metal-performance-award-dio-last-in-line/

i think twitter just killed off most ilx award show liveblog threads.

There was a Grammys thread last year iirc

Twitter feed taught me tonight that:

1. Everyone hates Iggy
2. Not enough people hate Sam Smith

did kanye actually do something objectionable or are ppl just being racist

He pretended he was gonna cut off beck and beck seemed sad he didnt

why is beck at the grammys

He won everything believe it or not

Because the Grammys have a history of awarding people whose heyday was 20 years ago.

i am horrified that not only did beyoncé not receive album of the year, but she also lost urban contemporary album to pharrell O_o

i didn't know beck was still around!

that pharrell album is decent iirc

on the one hand, an igloo australia shut-out; on the other, a bunch of results that are even grosser than igloo australia winning (and a bunch of white male winners who curiously have barely been touched by the whole appropriation discourse let alone made an avatar of it) (i assume giving the best rap album grammy to a white rapper who made an even worse album than azalea is trolling?)

exactly why this shambles is still considered a legitimate cultural institution i have no idea. every year people make valid points about its conservatism etc but no one ever seems to get to the logical conclusion that maybe who wins grammys is irrelevant to the quality of their art

and seriously, sam smith, america has been where so many local uk successes have gone to have their careers die, you were meant to do the same to this guy

Is it that curious? Didn't the whole appropriation debate around Eminem happen years ago? And Sam Smith is just another blue-eyed soul singer - nothing new there. Iggy's a target because she's (a) new (b) a woman (c) unoriginal and (d) not very good. She's lucky she didn't win.

it may not be new but if you're having any sort of conversation about race in the music industry it'd be completely remiss to overlook white soul/r&b singers selling truckloads of mediocre records while black soul/r&b singers seem to perpetually struggle. and i don't see why beck consistently pastiching black musical styles for two decades is unproblematic.

iggy's clumsiness about it (and newness, and shitness) makes her a visible target but there's a risk of this entire conversation being centred around a couple of high-traffic artists when it's much bigger than that.

I can see an argument against Sam Smith on those grounds but it would have to be an argument against George Michael, Hall & Oates, Simply Red, the Bee Gees and Joe Cocker as well. White people have been singing soul for 50 years now.

There is nothing black about Beck's boring album btw. He didn't win for Midnite Vultures.

If you think Beck has consistently pastiched black music then I'm guessing you've only heard a couple of Beck records.

this is the first year in my life that i actually know who most of the grammy people are. which is kind of horrifying, because it means i am officially an Old White Dude. was taylor swift not eligible, or did her people just not bribe anyone?

so the paramore song is a peter laughner cover and the carrie underwood song is a prince cover, right?