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

Would it be possible to think noz's pitchfork piece in conjunction with this?
http://pitchfork.com/features/hall-of-game/8969-record-sales-and-digital-scales/

I've got to admit that I find it a bit more problematic than shipley's piece though.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are in the r&b top 5.

errr top 25, it ain't that bad.

but still, goddamn

can somebody explain the relationship between the genre charts and radio playlists? cause i feel like there's something crucial i'm still not understanding. like, if a genre chart gets swamped by crossover/pop megastars, what's the impact on, say, the playlist of a radio station that specializes in that genre? why does it have to have any impact at all?

I haven't seen anyone arguing that radio playlists are going to change as a result of the new chart methodology, but I suppose if stations are using Billboard charts as a tool to tell them what's hot in their genre then those charts could have an impact.

well, given that the change is a week old, it's hard to say what the long term effect will be on radio, if any. my fear is that a lot more stations will start to sound like the one awkwardly straddling urban and pop playlists in D.C. that i described upthread: Itunes, Billboard, and the marginalization of black music and black audiences in America

Some of Werde's tweets seemed to imply that he does not recognize, as was noted upthread, that r'n'b/rap radio stations receive calls and communication from their listeners; and that simply dismissing the old way as "radio" dictating, is not fully accurate. He also does not get into how itunes and spotify listeners make their selections.

http://www.spin.com/blogs/how-did-psys-gangnam-style-become-the-no-1-rap-song-in-the-country

yeah i saw that the other day, nice of brandon to give me a shoutout

i tweeted a bunch of follow-up questions to Werde (including about why the R&B/Hip-Hop chart includes any popular R&B of any kind but pop rap like PSY and Flo Rida is still excluded) but dude seems to be actively ignoring me while engaging w/ belligerent Carrie Underwood fans

i mean i have a lot of respect for what he and billboard do, and he seems to be friendly w/ some of my people (maura, whiney), so maybe i got off on the wrong foot w/ him, it's a shame

He seems to be defensive in general, so it might be hard for anyone to get him to address this further

NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/arts/music/billboards-chart-changes-draw-fire.html?pagewanted=1&ref=arts

Salt-n-Pepa's Legends of Hip Hop Tour featuring: Salt-n-Pepa, Doug E. Fresh, Big Daddy Kane, Right Said Fred, Kool Moe Dee and Kurtis Blow.

i mean i have a lot of respect for what he and billboard do, and he seems to be friendly w/ some of my people (maura, whiney), so maybe i got off on the wrong foot w/ him, it's a shame

It's not like you were abrasive.

The weird thing is that "Diamonds" is on the R&B chart while "Let Me Love You," which is right behind it on the Hot 100, isn't -- even though the latter, while having dancepop leanings, sounds much more in line with the R&B format. (The other night I heard a live version of it -- dude's band is unbelievably tight.) Would love to know how the decisions as far as which songs go on which charts are made.

Also I didn't realize that all the format-specific charts now use total radio airplay stats (hence "Diamonds" barreling up to No. 1 from No. 66 on the R&B chart and staying there and ugh I loathe that song so much, it's so DREARY). That seems to eliminate the need for genre-specific charts in my eyes. Or maybe it's a leading indicator in the way radio is going -- music formats that aren't top-40/Hot AC/primarily old songs are certainly on the wane here in NYC (the merger of Kiss-FM and WBLS so that ESPN Radio could get the 98.7 frequency, the recently resurgent alt-rock station at 101.9 FM imminently being taken over by sports chat). It's depressing, especially given that the discovery tools on digital-music services are for the most part pretty poor.

Six R&B (or "R&B") songs entered the R&B/Hip-Hop chart in October. Six.

Ciara - "Sorry"
Faith Evans - "Tears of Joy"
Whitney Houston - "I Look to You"
Rihanna - "Diamonds"
Avery Sunshine - "Ugly Part of Me"
The Weeknd - "Wicked Games"

did they randomly change their minds about including train on the rock chart or did it just drop so much that i can't see it on the online version of the chart? i am guessing it's not the latter considering some of the things located in the 10-25 region of the chart rn

lmao yup, looks like they removed the song from the chart after one week, when it debuted at peaked at #4. that they are actually changing their minds about what songs merit inclusion on a chart shows how much of a mess this shit is. shameful.

considering that I didn't see anyone else make the point about Train publicly before my piece, i'm very tempted to take some credit for that

i mean i have a lot of respect for what he and billboard do, and he seems to be friendly w/ some of my people (maura, whiney), so maybe i got off on the wrong foot w/ him, it's a shame

Twitter has basically allowed every semi-major dude to treat any legit critic of their actions as the equivalent of the worst twit-trolls they've encountered.

xp you changed chart history!

haha well actually nevermind, i thought Train went missing from the chart the week after my piece ran but it was the same week, so i rescind my pretending to take credit. still, pretty interesting to see clear evidence of them not being so sure of themselves w/ some of these genre distinctions.

the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart was just downsized from top 40 to top 25 on the main Billboard site, which is not a big deal but another thing pissing me off

damn

"Adorn" is currently #10 on airplay and #71 on digital.

The highest it's gone on the latter is #49.

Overall airplay, not r&b airplay, if that needs clarification.

#10 on Radio Songs is actually uncommonly high for a recent R&B radio hit w/ minimal pop radio crossover too -- "Climax" was probably the next highest this year and it peaked at #16

serious lols at the cover of miranda lambert's "over you" from the voice being #3 on the country chart this week

oh god yeah i didn't even think about what talent shows are gonna do to these charts now

shd have a talent show/glee covers chart imo

"Diamonds" is still number one on the R&B Songs chart.

Has anyone heard this song on an R&B station?

yeah it has actually climbed up the R&B airplay chart over time, is at #13 now, i hear it here and there. the Kanye remix helped, too.

also "we are never ever getting back together" has 'made chart history' by breaking the record for longest run at #1 on country songs

wish we were discussing Herb Alpert's "Diamonds"

sorry, for solo females

"Gangnam Style" is now 17th on the Billboard Latin Airplay chart

yeah sometimes somewhat unexpected songs do pretty well on latin (adele and lmfao placed a number of singles on it recently)

also "we are never ever getting back together" has 'made chart history' by breaking the record for longest run at #1 on country songs

― teledyldonix, Monday, December 10, 2012 8:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

one thing i love is that practically EVERY current country act's wiki page (besides Taylor's) now has Country Airplay added to its chart info to reflect the popularity of recent singles -- it's a shame fans of other genres whose charts got screwed with aren't as fired up about this as country fans.

"Thrift Shop" being in the top ten of the r&b chart is even more ridiculous than the "Diamonds" thing

It should be noted that after 13 weeks at the top of the roost, "Adorn" is the "greatest gainer" in r&b airplay.

it's also #10 on Radio Songs, which is easily the highest any R&B song has gotten w/o pop crossover all year ("Climax" got no higher than #16), so the extent of its playlist saturation is staggering.

billboard's year-end charts are out:

http://www.billboard.com/news/the-best-of-2012-the-year-in-music-1008045682.story#/news/the-best-of-2012-the-year-in-music-1008045682.story

as i'd hoped, they used the old methodology (pre-October changes) for the year-end genre charts:

http://www.billboard.com/news/the-best-of-2012-the-year-in-music-1008045682.story#/news/the-best-of-2012-the-year-in-music-1008045682.story?page=2

"Diamonds" obviously nowhere on the year-end R&B list

damn "love on top" was that big of a hit, huh

"lotus flower bomb" was the third biggest hit of THIS YEAR?

There was like a six- to eight-month period where I would turn on the radio and hear "Lotus Flower Bomb" within the first three songs.

I try not to speak of those days.

"Party" actually got airplay down here than LOT.

yeah "Lotus Flower Bomb" was pretty gigantic, and gotta remember these things go December to November, so things that broke wide late the previous year have an advantage (i'm betting in decade-end lists "Adorn" will triumph over "Lotus" easily)