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

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.

ok lol i spoke to soon -- Philip Philips and Train are now big on the rock charts

wtf is philip philips?

Train are now big on the rock charts

chilling words in any context

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

see that is bullshit with buying albums and the tracks being on a singles track

*chart

what i'm saying!

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...?

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.

you mentioned itunes sales in the other thread shipz - i'm guessing those are discounted albums rather than individual tracks?

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.

i'd be interested to know why r&b/rap/country etc might not be as digitally-driven...?

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.

i mean if you want to go by the stereotype that country fans are rural/poorer than the same would apply to them too

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.

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.

what genre of music dominates the US singles charts now?

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, 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.

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)

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

don't forget Maroon 5

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Taylor Swift... makes pop dubstep?

p much

well, it's because when five Rihanna tracks become available her fans will download them at once from iTunes.

SWIFTSTEP

What would an ideal modern chart system look like?

Taylor Swift... makes pop dubstep?

I'll assume you don't want to hear her latest track.

What would an ideal modern chart system look like?

"Adorn" and "Springsteen" topping every chart.

http://soundcloud.com/taylorswiftofficial/i-knew-you-were-trouble

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, 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.

I'll assume you don't want to hear her latest track.

lol hell no

this is a identity/identification/musicalogical problem

it has always been this way. R&B is just shorthand for "black", 'twas ever thus

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"Adorn" and "Springsteen" topping every chart.

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.

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!

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.

if you look at Billboard's Radio Songs chart, which is all airplay from all formats, you can see that there's clearly just way more pop stations than anything else right now. the 10th biggest pop song on it often outperforms whatever the biggest song on urban radio is.

DJP: i can't/don't listen to it at all really but it's still around afaik: http://kmojfm.com/

I share most of the above concerns about these changes. But is it possible this move could actually prove a good thing by allowing stations to rely less on the charts? Stations still ultimately have agency over what they play, so I don't think urban stations are going to start playing Rihanna just because her songs appear on their charts as a technicality, and if these charts really do become as messy and random as we're predicting here, isn't it possible that could make them such unreliable barometers that stations begin ignoring them?

I don't know how you break the interdependence of stations and the charts tbh

that's a nice thought, but generally anytime some shit happens that makes me hope "maybe this is the breaking point and from here on out things will get more regionalized and freeform and open-minded!" i'm wrong. (xpost)

jeez

I dont understand that article. can someone find the '''nut graf''' for me i think im too dumb

"Since the purchase [of Nielsen], Luminate has purged its indie retail accounts. The rules, regulations, the gerrymandering, the onboarding process, it has all throttled our ability to report. It’s the corporate equivalent of redrawing a district map when you don’t like what the voters have to say. Walmart and Target are still reporting, but are they really record shops? Amazon is a reporter. As is Spotify and any streaming service that provides full-length albums. How that is reported on a subscription service, I have no idea."

also:

"Luminate recently stated that 95% of independent retail is being accounted for on their charts. I am one of the owners of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores. We represent over 40 of the top independent record stores around the country. I can tell you there isn’t a storefront in our coalition that is reporting to Luminate. "

^are those things really contradictory? I thought SoundScan didn’t claim to catch all sales, but weighted the sales they did sample or something (like a survey).

RTFA

also maybe think about how every single time something like this comes up, your kneejerk response is to be an apologist for late-period capitalism

Damn(!)

the point is that soundscan has apparently recently purged independent record stores from its tracking completely, so what is reported about physical sales is going to be pretty skewed. the independent stores hate this, of course

This article gets a little more into the details (like, why more stores don't report): https://www.joyofvinyl.com/luminates-decision-could-hurt-the-vinyl-record-industry/

It's not exactly that they've purged them, it's that they are no longer using mathematical extrapolations from the ones who do report to estimate the ones who don't report. So only the ones that do report will be counted.

Thanks, that answers my question…

(If it matters, I was trying to figure out how they may have been weaseling the “accounts for 95%” claim, but sounds like it’s unclear to that other writer as well)

ah not extrapolating the data seems equally bad yeah

but good to have that clarity

Yeah it's all murky. I took it to mean that the biggest stores account for an outsize share of the indie market. But I don't see any reason to believe any of the numbers they're throwing around. Definitely a transparency problem with the charts and the data collection being owned by the same company.

FWIW, I ran this article privately by someone I trust when it comes to chart calls. I won't speak directly for said person, but the response was pretty clear that 1) reporting of physical items IS indeed terrible this year but 2) there's no simple solution and the article has blown things up into a near-conspiracy-theory level narrative.

It doesn’t change the fact that Green Day was ROBBED of a number one

Having famously never charted at all over decades now. A shame, really.

I took it to mean that the biggest stores account for an outsize share of the indie market.

i spoke to someone who knows a bit about this stuff bcuz that article confused me too and one thing they mentioned is that along w/ stopping the practice of extrapolation luminate is also requiring indie stores to provide a lot more data when reporting than before i.e. not just "we sold x copies of y album" but further information about the purchases or purchaser that may be beyond the capabilities of many small indie stores. so a net result of that is that larger or more corporate indies i.e. rough trade, amoeba etc who are willing or able to report now have outsized influence in that data tabulation.

i'm not being vague about the "data" to shroud what i'm actually trying to say here, my convo w/ this person didn't get into the specifics of the nature of that data. how much of this dynamic is ideological vs technological (i.e. needing to integrate a certain software or something) i can't really say. but it is alluded to in that guy's statement when he mentions "the rules, regulations, the gerrymandering, the onboarding process." he compares it to redrawing of a district map to box out true indies; perhaps that's true i don't want to undersell the cynicism of a large company just as a rule. but i would point out that luminate is ultimately a company that monetizes data and billboard is not its only client. luminate is used by all record companies, publishers etc anyone whose business is staked on or involved w/ the accurate reporting of streaming and music sales is or may be a customer. those clients are constantly pushing luminate to provide as much data as possible on the consumer. that's not to excuse luminate in any way i'm just trying to provide some context for the utility of this data beyond just the tabulation of charts, historical records etc i prob don't personally buy the more grand ideological conspiracies here i would view it more so thru the lens of tech and data collection. that may be cold comfort or perhaps worse than wanting to destroy indie music depending on your POV but yeah

or i guess luminate/billboard/MRC are all one company now which actually puts a finer point on what i'm saying. billboard isn't even a client for luminate, chart data is useful to them almost as like a loss leader bcuz it generates interest in charts and of course billboard makes some level of money but i'd imagine a much larger and more profitable part of their business is selling subscriptions to clients in the music industry (people like me!) who need their data in order to their jobs. it's essentially bloomberg-ian

Billboard has revised its system of removing songs from the Hot 100 singles chart once they've gotten too old to qualify as contemporary hits. The measure, intended to shorten the amount of time successful songs spend on the Hot 100, knocks 10 tracks off this week's chart — including Swims' "Lose Control," which spent more than two years on the Hot 100 — and in the process cements a record that could take a decade to surpass.

Interesting

https://www.npr.org/2025/10/22/g-s1-94489/billboard-hot-100-chart-changes-songs

Relevancy to this ilx thread is in here I guess--
So be sure to take a moment, light a candle and pause to reflect on such once-immortal, now-vanquished eternals as… [lights dim as a screen bears the words "In Memoriam"] Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars' "Die With a Smile" (60 weeks), Benson Boone's "Beautiful Things" and "Sorry I'm Here for Someone Else" (89 and 32 weeks, respectively), Morgan Wallen's "I'm the Problem" and "Just in Case" (36 and 29 weeks, respectively) and Kendrick Lamar's "Luther (feat. SZA)" (46 weeks), as well as songs by sombr and BigXthaPlug. We'll never know how long they might have lasted under the old system — except in the case of "Lose Control," which we can state with virtual certainty would have left the Hot 100 sometime after the next Ice Age.

Should’ve been done years ago.

i thought this bump was gonna be about the recent articles abt how there were no rap songs in the hot 100's top 40 for the first time since 1990

chartwatchers will celebrate these new rules as they nudge the chart slightly closer resembling those from the times when they enjoyed watching the charts and most of the music on them. at the end of the day tho the changes will do very little to fix the underlying problems causing hits' glacial movement into and out of public consciousness, particularly but not exclusively in the stagnating american market

x-post-- re no rap songs in the top 40 songs of the hot 100 is related to the Billboard change re how long songs can be in that chart as Kendrick Lamar w/ SZA song "Luther" got removed

https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/alchemist-no-rap-songs-hot-100-top-40-since-1990-1236103005/

Billboard article above referenced this 2023 article with reasons why there's less rap on top of charts

https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/hip-hop-no-number-one-albums-singles-charts-reasons-why-1235350404/

Also this 2022 paywalled article

https://www.billboard.com/pro/hip-hop-music-most-popular-genre-dominance-slipping/

From above current Billboard article-

In 2023, there weren’t any rap albums to top the Billboard 200 or rap songs to top the Hot 100, until Lil Uzi Vert‘s third album the Pink Tape in July and Doja Cat‘s song “Paint the Town Red” in September, respectively. Right now, the highest-charting rap song is “Shot Callin” by NBA YoungBoy at No. 44, followed by Cardi B‘s “Safe” (featuring Kehlani) at No. 48 and BigXthaPlug’s “Hell at Night” (featuring Ella Langley) at No. 49.

And from the other Billboard October 2025 article-

At its peak in 2020, hip-hop as a genre accounted for nearly 30 percent of U.S. music consumption. That number dipped to just over 25 percent by 2023 and has hovered around 24 percent through October 2025. For comparison, the same chart week in 2020 featured 16 rap songs in the Top 40; two years ago, there were eight.

One reason might that songs by Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen, Sabrina Carpenter and anime characters make up 50 percent of the top 40.

the Wallen and Kpop Demon Hunters albums came out in May and June, respectively, it's not like they're new releases.

there are still a few dozen rappers that can reliably get a top 40 hit anytime they put out an album or lead single, but it feels like barely any of them have released an album in the last few months besides Cardi B, and her album really hasn't had the staying power of her debut.

I just mean that if artists could only have one song in the Top 100 (yeah, I know) then there would be about 7 rap songs in the top 40. Diversity gets crowded out by these big albums that dominate the singles chart.

I'm just disappointed that no one has been able to make a viral video out of Bring in the Katz.

― MarkoP, Wednesday, 18 December 2013 23:53 (twelve years ago)

people are doing line dances to it on tiktok!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTTlBETjliJ/?igsh=MTV6YzA5NTdtdzUycQ==