This is really interesting, Rev. We've never really had high-stakes multiple charts and the US system has always seemed incredibly complicated to me, but then we're a million times smaller so it's a different proposition, I guess.
― emil.y, Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:43 (eleven years ago) link
well, they used to be lists of what music is actually being played and requested on the radio, too. but however they combine these different statistics always seems to heavily favor sales over overplay. (xpost)
― some dude, Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:44 (eleven years ago) link
I for one never liked the idea of airplay contributing to the charts here in the UK and I'm glad it remains sales based.
― Algerian Goalkeeper, Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:44 (eleven years ago) link
but I can see why it works better in the USA. You only ever got top 40 or oldies radio here and that was it until digital radio and 1extra.
― Algerian Goalkeeper, Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:45 (eleven years ago) link
Chris Mol@nphy wrote this column in ship's column last year:
All I'll add to the exhaustive data you offer is a hobby-horse I've been riding for a couple of years now: the need for Billboard to finally add digital-sales data to the R&B/Hip-Hop chart.
They've been resisting for years, on the (implied, not overtly stated) premise that it would ruin the character of a chart that has a long history with black-owned and oriented retailers. But with that segment (along with all brick-and-mortar music retail) at death's door anyway, the sales portion of Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs has been near-nonexistent for years, making it essentially a radio chart a la the deadly, predigital Hot 100 of 2000–05.
That's led to a problem where there's no longer a radio programmer-to-consumer-back-to-programmer feedback loop that makes for great charts. I'm sure there's a one-way influence from radio to the teen urban-music buyer who then downloads a Trey Songz MP3. But with that sale not reflected on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart, the loop ends there; programmers aren't given clear enough signals of how to reflect their most avid audience members' tastes (especially young audience).
In my ideal fantasy world, you'd be able to segment iTunes/AmazonMP3 song sales to pockets of the country that have large black populations or high urban-radio listenership, but that's probably impossible, or at least fraught. But at the very least, I think it'd be trivial for Billboard to set up a rule whereby a song eligible for R&B/Hip-Hop Songs would have to hit some kind of urban-radio threshold before their iTunes sales would count toward the chart.
― the ones that I'm near most: fellow outcasts and ilxors (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:46 (eleven years ago) link
here's an explanation of the changes, which affect all genre charts:
http://www.billboard.com/news#/news/taylor-swift-rihanna-psy-buoyed-by-billboard-1007978552.story
the rock charts are much less affected by this than R&B or country -- for instance this week fun.'s "Some Nights" went back to #1 after falling to #8, because it had started to run its course on radio but is still selling strong on iTunes.
― some dude, Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:47 (eleven years ago) link
ok lol i spoke to soon -- Philip Philips and Train are now big on the rock charts
― some dude, Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:48 (eleven years ago) link
wtf is philip philips?
― Algerian Goalkeeper, Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:49 (eleven years ago) link
Train are now big on the rock charts
chilling words in any context
― the ones that I'm near most: fellow outcasts and ilxors (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:49 (eleven years ago) link
also holy shit SIX Mumford & Sons songs in a row on the rock songs chart, because that was the last big album release so every song is getting bought individually on itunes
Phillip Phillips won American Idol last year
― some dude, Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:50 (eleven years ago) link
see that is bullshit with buying albums and the tracks being on a singles track
― Algerian Goalkeeper, Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:52 (eleven years ago) link
*chart
what i'm saying!
― some dude, Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:55 (eleven years ago) link
it's one thing that rihanna has the #1 R&B song now, but when her album is released she'll probably take up the whole top 5
you mentioned itunes sales in the other thread shipz - i'm guessing those are discounted albums rather than individual tracks?
apart from that and
economically privileged listeners, who are more likely to be white, are much more likely to purchase digital music
i'd be interested to know why r&b/rap/country etc might not be as digitally-driven...?
― lex pretend, Thursday, 11 October 2012 20:59 (eleven years ago) link
it's funny, you might've thought before this all happened that iTunes impacting singles charts might mean that new artists and grassroots successes that have been shut out by the radio industry might get a better shot at breaking through. instead, it feels like any song by the biggest stars is stomping out songs people love by less famous artists via the power of name recognition and fanatical fanclub followings.
― some dude, Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:04 (eleven years ago) link
Not discounted albums, people buy lots of album tracks individually from popular albums all the time. A hit album is almost guaranteed to have several album tracks enter the Hot 100 on its week of release because of this.
That isn't quite true of country, but white demographics are a lot more likely to have internet in their homes than black/latinos. And even if they do, the white listener is a lot more likely to have spare $$$ to spend on digital music.
― Cap'n Hug-a-Thug (The Reverend), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:04 (eleven years ago) link
i mean if you want to go by the stereotype that country fans are rural/poorer than the same would apply to them too
― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:07 (eleven years ago) link
seems pretty obv
ok...how does that square with the boom in free rap mixtapes?
also, i don't think i realised til now how airplay-driven charts would help songs specifically popular in demographics with no spare $$$ to actually buy them in whatever format.
― lex pretend, Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:07 (eleven years ago) link
Note that of the top 20-selling songs in the US during the first half of 2012, only two, #16 "Rack City" and #18 "The Motto" reached the top 50 of the r&b chart.
― Cap'n Hug-a-Thug (The Reverend), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:07 (eleven years ago) link
what genre of music dominates the US singles charts now?
― Algerian Goalkeeper, Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:09 (eleven years ago) link
― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, October 11, 2012 2:07 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I don't think this is as true as one might assume? A lot of well-off suburban country listeners. Or at least country seems to do fairly well on Itunes.
― Cap'n Hug-a-Thug (The Reverend), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:09 (eleven years ago) link
capital-p Pop -- Katy Perry, Rihanna, Gaga, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, One Direction, etc. although this year stuff like Gotye and fun. has mixed things up a bit. (xpost)
― some dude, Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:10 (eleven years ago) link
there's also the argument that buying your favorite song on iTunes (as opposed to just listening to it on the radio, streaming it on YouTube now and again, or buying the album) is a generational habit, and so things that skew younger benefit from this -- Taylor, Rihanna etc.
i mean it sucks because a lot of these formats had been fostering new stars and putting interesting songs at #1 lately, but you're never gonna see Miguel top the R&B chart or Eric Church top the country chart again after this
― some dude, Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:11 (eleven years ago) link
don't forget Maroon 5
― the ones that I'm near most: fellow outcasts and ilxors (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:12 (eleven years ago) link
interesting stuff. i don't have my head entirely around the numbers & methodologies here, but there's something about a "return to monoculture" either in real terms or as a measurement phenomenon.
― there is no dana, only (goole), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:12 (eleven years ago) link
is the pop domination due to itunes or changing of radio playlists/genre stations changing to top 40 or just one of those things that happens?
― Algerian Goalkeeper, Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:12 (eleven years ago) link
It's been happening on radio for a while. It's impossible to break the Rihanna-Goyte-Katy-Perry-Maroon-5 stranglehold on Clear Channel Radio. I mean, I hear "One More Night" every 45 minutes.
― the ones that I'm near most: fellow outcasts and ilxors (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:15 (eleven years ago) link
but you're never gonna see Miguel top the R&B chart or Eric Church top the country chart again after this
to be blunt about this, it's because, even though Rihanna makes club trance, she "is R&B" (because, you know), and Taylor Swift makes pop dubstep, she "is country" (again, because, you know). right?
in a way it seems like this is a identity/identification/musicalogical problem. almost.
― there is no dana, only (goole), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:16 (eleven years ago) link
Taylor Swift... makes pop dubstep?
― The Owls of Ja Rule (DJP), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:18 (eleven years ago) link
p much
― there is no dana, only (goole), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:18 (eleven years ago) link
well, it's because when five Rihanna tracks become available her fans will download them at once from iTunes.
― the ones that I'm near most: fellow outcasts and ilxors (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:18 (eleven years ago) link
SWIFTSTEP
― lex pretend, Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:19 (eleven years ago) link
What would an ideal modern chart system look like?
― wk, Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:19 (eleven years ago) link
I'll assume you don't want to hear her latest track.
― the ones that I'm near most: fellow outcasts and ilxors (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:19 (eleven years ago) link
"Adorn" and "Springsteen" topping every chart.
http://soundcloud.com/taylorswiftofficial/i-knew-you-were-trouble
― Algerian Goalkeeper, Thursday, October 11, 2012 2:12 PM Bookmark
Both of those things are happening. Another part of this phenomenon I wanted to get into is how specialized radio stations have been getting pushed off the airwaves. A few years ago another change that happened is how Arbitron, the company that measures radio station ratings (and thus, how much $$$ stations get from advertisers), changed their own system from one in which their sample listeners kept diaries of what they listened to to one in which an electronic device automatically records what radio they listen to. There have been arguments about their sampling methodology underrepresenting minorities and related issues, but the effect of this switch has been black- and latino-focused radio stations plummeting in ratings. A lot have switched formats and this is compounded by the fact that many talk, news, and sports stations have been ditching AM radio for FM, which has traditionally been the domain of music stations due to its higher fidelity. A few years ago, Seattle had three high-powered commercial stations that focused on black music - a rap/r&b station, an "adult rhythmic" station that focused on 80s-2000s dance & r&b hits, and a smooth jazz/adult r&b station. Today only the former is left, and it skews much more towards pop.
― Cap'n Hug-a-Thug (The Reverend), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:25 (eleven years ago) link
lol hell no
― The Owls of Ja Rule (DJP), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:27 (eleven years ago) link
this is a identity/identification/musicalogical problem
it has always been this way. R&B is just shorthand for "black", 'twas ever thus
― stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:29 (eleven years ago) link
The adult rhythmic station is now top 40 and the smooth jazz station is now sports, fwiw. KUBE, the r&b/rap station, used to be an unassailable ratings kingpin, but now lags behind both the newly-top 40 Movin 92.5 and the already existing top 40 station Kiss 106, which used to have very mediocre ratings.
― Cap'n Hug-a-Thug (The Reverend), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:30 (eleven years ago) link
xp to Rev: something like this happened in the twin cities too. there was a lone black oriented pop station up and running for quite a few years (B96). interestingly it was a new startup at the time (i need to look up exactly when but it was in the 00s) i could tell that the advertiser base was becoming increasingly reliant on only a few businesses as the years went by. and then one day it was done, changed to a pretty generic 80s-10s pop/rock station, a bit like the JackFM format.
xp idk how common this phenomenon was across black radio nationally but this station had its slice of white club pop: gwen stefani, justin timberlake, lady gaga, and right before the end, kesha.
― there is no dana, only (goole), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:31 (eleven years ago) link
for the last decade or so, there have been 3 contemporary R&B/rap stations in Baltimore and D.C. that all pretty much play the same things from the top of the R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart. in the last year, one of the D.C. stations began dropping Ellie Goulding and Katy Perry and Gotye and Flo Rida into their playlist. and they're the only R&B station i've heard Rihanna's now-#1 R&B hit "Diamonds" on.
― some dude, Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:31 (eleven years ago) link
xp to myself: er when i say "lone" that's not quite true, there's been a lower-powered black community radio station, KMOJ, on the air here for years. this was the only black radio station with broadcasting reach over the entire metro.
― there is no dana, only (goole), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:33 (eleven years ago) link
Until now, only country stations contributed to the Hot Country Songs chart, or R&B/hip-hop stations to Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs; the same held true for Latin and rock. The new methodology, which will utilize the Hot 100's formula of incorporating airplay from more than 1,200 stations of all genres monitored by BDS, will reward crossover titles receiving airplay on a multitude of formats. With digital download sales and streaming data measuring popularity on the most inclusive scale possible, it is only just the radio portion of Billboard chart calculations that includes airplay from the entire spectrum of monitored formats.
UGH.
― Cap'n Hug-a-Thug (The Reverend), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:33 (eleven years ago) link
I mean not what kind of music would make up the charts, but how would a properly designed modern chart system function?
I'm trying to wrap my head around how all of this works, but the idea that there was this beneficial feedback loop between radio and what the audience was buying is interesting and something I've never really considered. It makes sense that a chart that allows for some input from tastemakers would work better than one that strictly tracks sales. I always thought of that feedback loop in a negative way, as a pointless echo chamber, and a decade ago I would have thought that something like an itunes chart would end up being more diverse and interesting than a radio-driven chart, but obviously that's not the case.
So I'm kind of wondering what other kinds of gatekeeper or tastemaking factors could be input into the equation besides radio? Like in theory it seems like you could develop some kind of interesting combination of online sales and listening metrics (itunes, spotify listens, lastfm) and then add in something like hype machine data for the gatekeeper input. But that wouldn't really work in the same way and wouldn't result in the kind of beneficial feedback loop that existed between radio and retail.
― wk, Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:33 (eleven years ago) link
Boston's R&B/hip-hop station has been a ClearChannel property for years and has therefore already been on this bandwagon; the interesting thing happening here is the dismantling of all of the alternative stations
xp: goole I was gonna ask if KMOJ disappeared after this summer!
― The Owls of Ja Rule (DJP), Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:34 (eleven years ago) link
i think that the genre charts should have remained dictated by airplay on only stations of particular formats. the Hot 100 and various Digital Sales charts already did a good job of showing what was selling even if it wasn't getting airplay. MAYBE the genre charts could have digital sales factored in, but at a much lower rate than they are now, where it just feels like this trump card that overrides all other factors.
― some dude, Thursday, 11 October 2012 21:35 (eleven years ago) link
yes i've seen that link before + was thinking abt it when i wrote that her fans swear up and down that her fanbase does not consist overwhelmingly of white ppl. not sure why ppl showing up to her concerts doesn't line up w/ demographics of the surveyed 'avid' fans (other than maybe the absurd hoops ppl had to jump thru to even get a ticket)
point taken re: the beatles tho! i just named them b/c they had historically been on the r&b charts less frequently than, say, the rolling stones (whose recent giant concert that i attended incidentally also seemed to have an almost 100% white audience)
― dyl, Monday, 28 August 2023 00:11 (six months ago) link
'that link' being the demographic poll
― dyl, Monday, 28 August 2023 00:12 (six months ago) link
That survey is kinda weird because the piece differentiates between “fans” (53% of US adults) and “avid fans” (16%), but then only breaks down the demographics of the “avid fans.”
― Stoned Wheat Thing (morrisp), Monday, 28 August 2023 01:24 (six months ago) link
― dyl,
Sure! But Aretha, Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, EW&F, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, Nina Simone, etc. want a word!
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 August 2023 01:25 (six months ago) link
It is sort of interesting that the Beyoncé tour seems to be getting a lot less coverage than the Swift tour. Is that because it's the same set list every night and no special one-night-only guests, so there's not as much of a press hook for every single concert, or is it something else
Hmmm. Something else . Washington Post had a huge largely well written article by a writer who cover country music for them on Swift tour and its impact and importance but it had no mention of Beyonce at all. An editor should have encouraged her to drop something in there re Beyonce . Not good. Perhaps with less music coverage now in mass media, and only a small number of Black journalists and editors, the Beyonce tour is getting overshadowed despite it being close in size to Swift.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 28 August 2023 16:27 (six months ago) link
whether beyoncé's tour is being covered at the same rate as taylor swift's feels like the very definition of first world problems to me. engaging in race war by proxy of two extremely famous and rich touring pop stars who are barely tethered to reality just feels off... those two people have way more in common than they do differences, i have a hard time feeling invested in the idea of beyoncé being wronged by the amount of coverage given to taylor swift. i do think that barbie movie aside the taylor tour is the number 1 one central entertainment focus of the summer for white america and you can see that filtering down thru mainstream publications which are all majority white. i've seen a lot of tweets from older white media members who are admittedly suddenly waking up to the idea that taylor swift is hugely massively popular, it's a bit funny
anyway, from my POV i think part of the dynamic here is that beyoncé long ago was feted as the premiere cultural performer of her generation. what else could possibly be said about her live performances that wasn't already written after homecoming? there is of course coverage to be done of the renaissance tour, but that's more for people who are invested in beyoncé & the intricacies of her career -- how this show is different/better/worse than her previous tours. i think that coverage exists and is pretty thorough. but the kind of coverage the taylor tour is receiving -- zoomed out reckoning w/ the artist's cultural & historical relevance via the live performance -- has already happened w/ beyonce. there's nothing really left to say on that topic. similarly, all the stuff that's being written about taylor this summer won't be able to be written again, even on the occasion of her next stadium tour.
i also think beyoncé has been fairly open in the last 5+ years about her ambivalence towards mass mainstream cultural penetration ... she made a whole album that was explicitly for & in honor of marginalized communities whereas taylor has talked often about wanting to touch every waking soul thru the power of mainstream pop music. she could do anything she wants w/ her music but has pushed further into the direction of pure pop, mainstream radio, TV commercial syncs etc. beyoncé didn't even release a second single from renaissance, never followed thru on the visuals... i think the tenor in coverage also relates to the trajectories each artist has been plotting for years now (and more power to beyoncé for that, she's making way better music)
― J0rdan S., Monday, 28 August 2023 17:43 (six months ago) link
This is all very true. Beyoncé was inescapable a few years ago (something which I found very annoying at the time). Probably my mistake for thinking (fearing) that that would never end (it certainly seemed like it wouldn't at the time). Now it's Taylor Swift's "turn."
― read-only (unperson), Monday, 28 August 2023 17:49 (six months ago) link
fwiw, the Times has done multiple stories on Beyoncé's tour, including things in the style, food and business sections, in addition to music, and podcasts.
― bulb after bulb, Monday, 28 August 2023 17:54 (six months ago) link
xps that "something else" could maybe also that the Renaissance Tour is unabashedly, aggressively, unapologetically very, very gay
― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.), Monday, 28 August 2023 18:00 (six months ago) link
Which, tbh, also bears out in how much fewer units Renaissance moved than any of her other solo albums (yes, I know, "buying albums" doesn't happen anymore)
― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.), Monday, 28 August 2023 18:03 (six months ago) link
our favorite poor man south of richmond is spending another week at #1
― is he disgruntled adrian? (voodoo chili), Monday, 28 August 2023 18:15 (six months ago) link
finally a true song of the summer
― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes), Monday, 28 August 2023 18:21 (six months ago) link
Great post by J0rdan, but I think Renaissance had two more singles after "Break My Soul" ("Cuff It" and "America Has a Problem")?
― Stoned Wheat Thing (morrisp), Monday, 28 August 2023 18:31 (six months ago) link
oh yeah i forgot about "cuff it" but that sorta happened outside beyonce's control. and even then i'd point out that like, her response to the "cuff it" tik tok madness was not to do a remix w/ sza or lizzo or whatever but instead to do a slowed down R&B version based off a largely forgotten twista track. compare to taylor swift putting ice spice on the remix of "karma" and rolling it out like a summit meeting between two great nations. i just think taylor still consciously feeds the beast that is mainstream cultural omnipresence in a way that beyoncé doesn't
― J0rdan S., Monday, 28 August 2023 18:57 (six months ago) link
Yeah for sure
― Stoned Wheat Thing (morrisp), Monday, 28 August 2023 18:58 (six months ago) link
circling back to the rap/country/black/white representation on the hot 100 topic that triggered this revive ... i think it's hard to draw any real conclusions based on 3-9 months of hot 100 data. i think to some degree we've hit a cultural moment where rap has a pretty concrete set of stars who have been around for a while and very likely reached the peak of their cultural & commercial power -- future, lil baby, lil durk, travis scott, young thug etc. you could even rope post malone & the weeknd in there as major A list stars who are in/adjacent to rap culture and who appear to be on noticeable commercial downturns after years of invincibility. you have the ice spices, sexyy reds, destroy lonelys of the world who are new superstars & likely future commercial powerhouses but who are still at the very beginning of their careers. it also has to be mentioned that an entire generation of rap superstars from juice wrld to xxxtentaction to pop smoke to kay flock were all dead or in jail before the age of 22, and whatever commercial juice existed in their leftover catalogs has now been fully squeezed out.
comparatively i think country is just in a phase of the cycle w/ its current crop of stars where artists like morgan wallen, zach bryan, luke combs etc are in that sweeter spot of being established A listers who also still feel fresh & new -- being fans of those artists has, at the moment, the ever-shifting zeitgeist element, the feeling that you're apart of something culturally progressive that transcends the self. and that feeling is running off onto both newly minted stars -- bailey zimmerman, warren zieders -- and recent forefathers of less commercialized country such as chris stapleton. to make a generalization, i saw zach bryan in NYC this summer and it was a young, fratty type crowd -- if i had to guess these are kids whose older brothers were prob huge fans of future & young thug, along w/ the florida georgia lines and mainstream bro country of the time. do zach bryan fans just like rap less? maybe. obviously it's impossible to say. but if you talk to white country fans of that age, they look at all that bro country stuff -- sam hunt etc -- as corny shit that people older than them listen to. i do think that we might just currently be in a tiny sliver of the cultural timeline where, if you're a 15-22 year old white male, mainstream rap stars feel like your older brother's music whereas what's happening in country right now feels like "yours." if this is the case, things can/will shift in 2-3 years as a newer class of rap stars (the sort that i mentioned above) cement themselves culturally.
i think w/in the music industry people are looking at all of this less thru the lens of black/white and more thru the lens of mainstream/not, american/non-american. rap may be doing relatively poorly on the hot 100 right now but white mainstream pop isn't looking much better. taylor swift, dua lipa, billie eilish, miley cyrus etc can get their hits off but artists like sabrina carpenter and charlie puth -- young famous white artists w/ label machines behind them who are making quite good mainstream pop -- are having a hard time gaining any real footholds on the charts. let's say you had to put a mainstream pop artist on your artist's new single, but the true A listers were not an option -- who would you choose? i promise you its' harder than you think. fifty fifty just put carpenter on the remix of "cupid," which is one of the biggest new pop songs of the year. it's slim pickings out there. i would say the biggest new pop successes of this year are fifty fifty and newjeans -- not as relevant to our black/white dichotomy but very relevant if you're looking at the charts thru the lens of genre or nationality. K pop is absolutely taking up parts of the pie chart that used to belong to white american pop musicians and may not be giving it back. the biggest white pop breakouts of the year are guys like noah kahan and david kushner who are more serving the rock & AC spaces than they are true blue mainstream pop. the mid to up tempo synth based mainstream white american pop song -- the shadow of madonna that we have all lived in for 40 years -- is in a very endangered place, at the moment, if your name isn't taylor, miley, dua, billie etc
there is also the fact that a huge piece of this puzzle is the economics of purchasing a song from itunes vs listening to it on streaming & how billboard chooses to count a download versus a stream. conservatives absolutely discovered this summer that you can make a dent on the pop charts by purchasing songs when your "opponents," as it were, are largely streaming them. jason aldean went to number 1 w/ something like 230k single sales in one week -- that is a healthy number at any time, but it's way outsized in the current market. in 09 when 50 cent/dre/eminem went straight to number 1 w/ "crack a bottle" it set the one week itunes sales record w/ 420k downloads. so you can make the same impact now w/ half the sales. k pop fans have obviously been exploiting this market for years, as have nicki minaj fans who consistently send her new songs/remixes up the charts only for them to crash back down to earth a week or two later. if you take the view that black people at large have less purchasing power than white people and thus streaming had an equalizing effect post-itunes era by shifting the marketplace from multiple purchases to one monthly purchase (that granted access to an immense amount of data on listening habits), then i think it would be fair to say that a faction of white people realized they can tilt the playing field back the other way by once again making the rules of the game about individual purchases instead of the one time catch all (not in the least because you can generate a "controversy" via your sales and then also catch all the attendant streaming interest as well). there isn't a single mainstream black rapper in the top 80 of the digital sales chart as of this writing, but if you look at the apple music or spotify charts you will obviously not see that. you *will* see a lot more country, latin & k pop artists on those streaming charts than you typically did -- and thus less rap music, it is true -- but i do think people need to understand that a lot of what's happening w/ the hot 100 comes down to itunes sales vs streaming, and that says way more about the chart math employed by billboard than it does about people's listening habits or feelings towards entire genres of music.
it's obvious that a certain percentage of people buying up jason aldean and oliver anthony songs on itunes aren't actually fans of music per se -- instead they are either making pure political statements w/ their money (and here we connect to the bud light protests etc) or are just simply riding a fad in a less politically fraught sense ("lemme check out this new non-mainstream music everyone is talking about. i hate mainstream pop!"). so i think what we're seeing here is temporary -- either bcuz the conservative world will move on from sticking it to the libs by buying country music on itunes, or bcuz billboard will adjust its formulas so that itunes sales have less weight than they do now and the charts feel more reflective of what's actually happening out in the real world. billboard is frequently making tweaks to its chart formulas to reduce the purchasing power of small groups of people (i.e. announcing this summer that they were going to stop counting digital downloads made direct to consumer via in artist's website)
i think that the movement behind ppl like wallen, bryan, zimmerman etc is far more real, but also so much of why those artists are rising is because of rap, even as rap itself is impacted from a chart perspective. w/ wallen, you have a guy making direct musical overtures to rap music & doing some chart gaming by releasing 30+ song albums aka the rap streaming playbook. w/ zach bryan there is no musical connection, but you're nonetheless talking about an artist who blew up by releasing albums direct to soundcloud and then poured gas on the fire by feeding his fanbase an unending stream of new music. he is as much a mixtape rapper as he is a mainstream country musician. and what you're seeing w/ artists like zimmerman & warren zeiders & dozens of others kids nobody on this board knows is a lowering of the bar for the creation of what is now called country music. rappers have always just needed a beat to make rap music -- kids now don't even need to know producers, they can just rip free beats off youtube. there is no barrier to entry to become a rapper, artistically speaking. the same is now true for aspiring country singers -- you no longer need to move to nashville and get signed by a label and get a band together to record your songs and then have them pushed thru the radio to find an audience. all you need an acoustic guitar & a tik tok account. so part of what's happening is that the market is being flooded by new country artists in a way that wasn't previously possible when nashville as an industry had a complete stranglehold on the genre. perhaps the result of that is that the market share for country increases at the expense of rap music, but unless you work in the music industry i don't think that's really something to worry about. i think it means there will be more good country music being made than before but i don't think it means there will be less good rap music being made. there might be a direct relationship between how much country can be on a 100 song chart vs how much rap, but there is no such inverse relationship when you're talking about the creation & quality of music on the ground level.
ultimately i don't think rap music's status as the dominant musical cultural force in america is in peril. i mean, all this regional mexican rap that is blowing up is rap music. i think the winds of technology have been blowing in a way that has allowed other genres (and races, if we wanna put it in those terms) to catch up to the playbook rappers have been using for years. and i think rap has also stagnated a bit culturally as i outlined at the top. but i do think that rap music has always been a source of cultural & business innovation & that we'll be sitting here in a few years w/ a new crop of culturally dominant rappers aided by changes in technology (or innovations in how we use our current technology) looking back on the summer of 2023 as more of a blip in a hyper-specific period of time than the harbinger of a grand shift in the tectonic plates that undergird popular music
― J0rdan S., Monday, 28 August 2023 20:14 (six months ago) link
Great post, Jordan.
On the other hand, there's a new Ed Sheeran album coming out soon, so I expect that to rule the charts for awhile.
― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes), Monday, 28 August 2023 20:32 (six months ago) link
I was explaining to a friend last week that Zach Bryan released what are in essence two Drake-length mixtapes.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 August 2023 20:32 (six months ago) link
and great post, sarge
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 August 2023 20:36 (six months ago) link
― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes), Monday, August 28, 2023 4:32 PM (two minutes ago)
his album from earlier this year was a pretty big flop, this is basically his "i need to rescue my career right this instant or it's gone at this level" album. the last one had luke combs as the big "juice my streams" deluxe edition guest star reveal & it didn't even really work. which felt like the sign of something in a number of ways. i should've have mentioned him
― J0rdan S., Monday, 28 August 2023 20:38 (six months ago) link
which of these seems different than the others
This week's most-streamed songs:1. @AintGottaDollar Rich Men North of Richmond2. @MorganWallen Last Night3. @DojaCat Paint The Town Red4. @1GunnaGunna Fukumean5. @lukecombs Fast Car— billboard charts (@billboardcharts) August 28, 2023
This week's most-heard songs on the radio:1. @heisrema & @selenagomez Calm Down2. @lukecombs Fast Car3. @taylorswift13 Cruel Summer4. @sza Snooze5. @DUALIPA Dance The Night— billboard charts (@billboardcharts) August 28, 2023
This week's top-selling songs:1. @AintGottaDollar Rich Men North of Richmond2. @AintGottaDollar I Want To Go Home3. @AintGottaDollar Aint Gotta Dollar4. @Jason_Aldean Try That In A Small Town5. #PaulRussell Lil Boo Thang— billboard charts (@billboardcharts) August 28, 2023
― J0rdan S., Monday, 28 August 2023 21:03 (six months ago) link
ultimately i don't think rap music's status as the dominant musical cultural force in america is in peril
the freakout surrounding “rap’s cold streak” on the hot 100 always conveniently ignores “kill bill (remix)” (starts with a full 16 bars from doja) and latto’s duet with the bts guy
― is he disgruntled adrian? (voodoo chili), Monday, 28 August 2023 21:54 (six months ago) link
The Doja Cat version is not the one I hear on the radio.
― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes), Monday, 28 August 2023 22:12 (six months ago) link
yeah but the doja remix is what put the song over the top on the hot 100
― is he disgruntled adrian? (voodoo chili), Monday, 28 August 2023 22:16 (six months ago) link
the freakout surrounding “rap’s cold streak” on the hot 100
it also puts far more importance in the hot 100 than is warranted at a time when it means less than ever. there's this weird feedback loop happening where the hot 100 reflects less monoculture than it ever has -- and so understanding the charts requires more cultural literacy than perhaps it did before -- and yet its being used by people who aren't doing that kinda contextualization work to make grand monocultural statements about music
― J0rdan S., Monday, 28 August 2023 22:28 (six months ago) link
and by nicki minaj stans who believe that her “super freaky girl” being the last pure rap song to top the hot 100 is yet more proof of her perfection
― is he disgruntled adrian? (voodoo chili), Monday, 28 August 2023 22:38 (six months ago) link
Extremely anecdotally (on the Taylor/Beyoncé thing) – when Swift was coming to town (and then actually here), my work Slack was full of ppl trying to get tickets... now that the Beyoncé shows are coming up, there are many folks selling/trying to unload Beyoncé tix (including on behalf of others). Kind of strange, not sure what's behind that... there was plenty of Beyoncé buzz when her album came out (and I never saw anyone mention Midnights).
― Stoned Wheat Thing (morrisp), Tuesday, 29 August 2023 18:14 (six months ago) link
that lines up w/ my experience too ... at the beginning of the renaissance tour there were those articles about people flying to sweden bcuz it was cheaper/easier to buy airfare + that ticket than to get into one of the USA shows. meanwhile fast forward to now and i have multiple friends flying to new orleans because resale tickets for those shows were sub-$200 (upper deck but still). i just talked to a friend yesterday who decided on a whim to fly to LA for the shows this weekend bcuz the tickets had dropped like crazy on the secondary market. so it does seem like something is happening there but i also don't really know why. there were those early reports about how she wasn't moving/dancing as well as she typically does but i've heard glowing reviews from everyone who has seen the show. then again they all paid like $600 to get in so maybe not unbiased sources, but i don't detect any backlash to the shows so it's not clear to me why the enthusiasm seems to be waning
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 29 August 2023 18:42 (six months ago) link
in my mind taylor hadn't toured in years whereas beyoncé has been out on the road a lot. but i looked up their touring schedules from 2015 on and that's not really the case, they've done the same number of tours. but the demand feels very different. the only thing i can think of is that a. swift has released a lot more music in between her tours than beyoncé has b. perhaps the marketing/structuring of the show as comprising all of her "eras" is really genius marketing, ppl feel like they're seeing a career spanning megashow as opposed to simple a tour attached to a new album
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 29 August 2023 18:45 (six months ago) link
does it feel like the Beyonce resales are markedly more than any other non-Taylor Swift show? i guess that'd be the question. not that a Beyonce show isn't an "event", but these Taylor shows are essentially the most "can't miss" type gig to roll through, at least at this particular scale. it doesn't feel like the type of thing people are going to start to say "eh i don't really feel like going..." as it approaches.
― omar little, Tuesday, 29 August 2023 18:49 (six months ago) link
A couple things with Swift too was it seems like she was <this> close to announcing a Summer tour for 2020 when Covid happened, so there was pent-up demand from that, and it seems like she picked up a lot of new fans during the quarantine times. Like I know a number of people who were casual fans before then who are diehard Swifties now (dropping $$$ on tix, vinyl even though they don't own turntables etc.)
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 29 August 2023 18:57 (six months ago) link
xp I'm seeing resales for as low as $300 (that one's in Vegas, though); Row 2 of some "VIP" section for $750; Row 7 on on the field "Open to Best Offer (original price w/ fees is $1500 per tix)"... etc. Definitely on the higher side as concerts go, but not the crazy prices that Taylor tix were being offered at.
― Stoned Wheat Thing (morrisp), Tuesday, 29 August 2023 18:59 (six months ago) link
XPS I suspect the Beyonce resale market suffered from over-speculation from resellers hoping Eras lightning would strike twice.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 29 August 2023 18:59 (six months ago) link
(OTOH, a coworker told me about a friend who has literally gone bankrupt from seeing 7 or 8 dates on the Beyoncé tour, in locations ranging from New Jersey to Paris. The friend has a ticket for another, and my coworker says he's trying to convince him to sell it, so he can pay his rent...)
― Stoned Wheat Thing (morrisp), Tuesday, 29 August 2023 19:01 (six months ago) link
Beyonce is definitely not catering to the casual audience with her setlists, where Swift's tour seems like it's kind of the perfect greatest hits type tour for everyone?
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/beyonce/2023/allegiant-stadium-las-vegas-nv-33a50c75.html
no single ladies, halo, irreplaceable, baby boy etc....seems like she's trying a real specific vibe with this tour
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 29 August 2023 19:11 (six months ago) link
xxpthis whole convo reminds me of the old joke about a guy saying he thought he really wanted to be a boxer until he fought someone who REALLY wanted to be a boxer. I mean I thought I loved music until I got to ilm and heard anecdotes like flying across a country or even to another country just to see a gig, let alone falling into bankruptcy. insanity.
― oscar bravo, Tuesday, 29 August 2023 19:16 (six months ago) link
https://x.com/nytimesarts/status/1696611433641877507?s=46&t=u2ZSlsY3trRV36IPP6jNDQ
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 29 August 2023 19:59 (six months ago) link
On this week’s Popcast, conversations about the consonances between Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, the way Swift does (and does not) deploy dance and the thrills of seeing her perform for the first time.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 29 August 2023 20:02 (six months ago) link
could part of it be very simply generational. That median beyonce fans are slightly older
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Tuesday, 29 August 2023 20:55 (six months ago) link