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

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?

Taylor's eligible next year because of the stupid eligibility window which rules out late autumn releases. Likewise D'Angelo. It means that the Grammys always seem to miss the big success stories of the moment.

incidentally, since people keep talking about this, my take on it is that pop music reflects (and i'm not saying this as a slam) the lowest common denominator, and its biggest problem in the 21st century is that it exists in a culture that has no common denominators at all. in america, right now, the lowest common denominator is white. america is, in practical terms if not by explicit design, a systematically racist country, and it doesn't terribly surprise me to find that fact reflected in its popular music.

how is L. Ron Hubbard reflected in Beck's music?

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

― the fuckin catalina wine mixer (sleepingbag

he keeps making McCartney relevant

http://pitchfork.com/news/58392-kanye-west-beck-needs-to-respect-artistry-and-he-should-have-given-his-award-to-beyonce/

I would have loved to see Kanye try to pull this shit the year Steely Dan won AOY

Taylor's eligible next year because of the stupid eligibility window which rules out late autumn releases. Likewise D'Angelo. It means that the Grammys always seem to miss the big success stories of the moment.

On the positive side, at least they still have a tendancy to recognize albums released in that time.

The time "My Heart Will Go On" won Record of the Year in February of 1999.

x-post

the year Steely Dan won AOY

― ancient texts, things that can't be pre-dated (President Keyes),

Pres. Keyes, what does this mean?

2001, the year Steely Dan won Album of the Year at the Grammys for Two Against Nature

Taylor's eligible next year because of the stupid eligibility window which rules out late autumn releases. Likewise D'Angelo. It means that the Grammys always seem to miss the big success stories of the moment.

On the positive side, at least they still have a tendancy to recognize albums released in that time.

― MarkoP, Monday, February 9, 2015 10:49 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah...it's not like the Oscars where projects released at the beginning of the eligibility window have virtually no chance of getting big nominations.

x-post--Some Dude, what I mean is so picking on Fagen and Becker in 2001 would have been uncool? Huh?

Is Keyes prez of their fanclub?

any major some dude will tell you, my friend

xpost yes i am. I just believe their reaction would have been amusing, especially since no one would have known who Kanye was at the time, except liner notes nerds.

also iirc SD's win was similarly controversial, but it was because they beat Eminem.

they also beat Beck!

the circle completes

Gonna be pumped when Iggy beats Steely Dan for best rap album in 2025

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/the-two-grammys/385156/

•A non-white artist hasn’t won Best Album since jazz legend Herbie Hancock took the award in 2008 for a record of Joni Mitchell covers; one who could conceivably be called “contemporary” or “relevant” hasn’t won since OutKast in 2004 (2005 went to a posthumous Ray Charles release).
•Aside from Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers' featured work on Daft Punk's "Get Lucky," the Record of the Year winners have all been white since 2005, when Ray Charles won the award with Norah Jones. A rap song has never taken the trophy in that category.
•Song of the Year went to Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" in 2010; other than that, the winners were all white after Luther Vandross in 2004.
•The two Best New Artist winners of color in the past 10 years were Esperanza Spalding in 2011 and John Legend in 2006.