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

personally i think any argument for this move just highlights how silly it was that they never made MTV and other video channels a factor

― D4y0 (some dude)

too true, ridiculous at the time but even more ridiculous now when '20 million views' can have chart impact and '20 million views' would've been what a heavy rotation video would've pulled on a friday night way back when. they may have just been reflecting the prerogatives of their readership (radio lobbying for mtv to be excluded would be plausible to me). not that the record industry was blind to the power of the huge, popular national radio station, the mtv oral history has many tales including label interns and flunkies attempting to stuff the ballot box w/ 1-800-dial-mtv, etc.

personally i think any argument for this move just highlights how silly it was that they never made MTV and other video channels a factor

the major difference being that mtv was basically just a promotional outlet that actually cost the labels money (to make the videos, etc) while youtube is actually a revenue stream. gangnam style probably made about $1 million from youtube, which is the equivalent to selling a million singles. why shouldn't that be factored in pretty heavily?

there's no such thing as greater accuracy

surely the data that youtube collects is much more objectively accurate than whatever voodoo nielsen does with radio.

too true, ridiculous at the time but even more ridiculous now when '20 million views' can have chart impact and '20 million views' would've been what a heavy rotation video would've pulled on a friday night way back when.

I think you're vastly overestimating the size of a typical friday night mtv audience when they were playing music videos. 2011 vmas were mtv's biggest audience ever with only 12 million viewers http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1669953/vma-2011-ratings-history.jhtml

it speaks volumes that PSY had to get a billion views to generate income comparable to a million single sales

defining their terms doesn't make it more acccurate because 'popularity' isn't something that can be accurately judged. the numbers they plug into their formula can be more or less accurate but the number it spits out is never going to have anything to do w/ accuracy. if they had a clear idea of what they mean by popularity they wouldn't be radically changing that number crunching machine multiple times in a year.

there *isn't* some clear idea of popularity because the way media is consumed is changing basically year to year. spotify was barely a thing fairly recently. it could be replaced by something different soon. etc. that doesn't mean these things shouldn't be included, it just means billboard won't be able to come up w/ some magic formula that lasts a decade unless the way people consume media stops changing so quickly.

xps

it speaks volumes that PSY had to get a billion views to generate income comparable to a million single sales

how many radio plays or mtv views do you think it takes to convert into a single sale?

gangnam style probably made about $1 million from youtube

thought it was $8 million

http://www.wallsave.com/wallpapers/1920x1200/chalkboard/2768651/chalkboard-tags-equation-theorem-math-image-resolution-x-2768651.jpg

hmm lemme get back to you on that one (xp)

even more ridiculous now when '20 million views' can have chart impact and '20 million views' would've been what a heavy rotation video would've pulled on a friday night way back when

and again, back to the intentionality argument, 20 million youtube views is way more meaningful than 20 million passive views or listens on radio or TV. if someone watches a video 3 times on youtube that means a lot more than if they happen to hear it on the radio 3 times.

I'm gonna throw this in as a data point: I work for a label doing online content/digital marketing, and have been told that the person at the top of the pyramid is very interested in giving more and more latitude and encouragement to the online department to promote stuff and come up with ideas to build awareness of artists, because she thinks the cost/benefit ratio w/r/t pushing songs to radio in the old school way isn't what it once was.

hmm lemme get back to you on that one (xp)

btw, I meant that in a curious way. it's a interesting question I think. wasn't posing it to you as a challenge or anything.

haha yeah i would just feel foolish trying to confidently deliver any kind of answer to that question in a couple minutes or something

impact seems like it may be greater than introduction of itunes, not as drastic as soundscan. guessing that it will have similar impact to soundscan in terms of greater democratization, dissimilar in terms of actually changing music ie if rise of gangsta and grunge in nineties can be tied to soundscan (for the sake of argument), i'm not sure any similar change (certainly nothing on that scale) happens here - there's no new information here (ppl knew 'harlem shake' was a phenom), it's just now being reflected in a big, old media outlet. most i would guess is that certain niche genres (k-pop an obv candidate) get larger chart presence, increased likelihood of (another) breakout hit. i could imagine labels and artists being less likely to have tracks deleted from youtube, also maybe more resources devoted to music videos?

I don't think it's a question with an answer. every case is different. xp

So when will there be a viral video as expensive as November Rain?
I demand more videos of guitar solos from on top of pianos!

yeah my hard numbers for mtv v youtube might be off, but doesn't change that a video shown every 2-3 hours on mtv way back when was gonna reach a greater portion of the population, be more unavoidable, ie be popular than all but yr biggest youtube hits now.

i mean if you really want to make the argument that actually we have more of a monoculture now than 25 years ago feel free.

if rise of gangsta and grunge in nineties can be tied to soundscan (for the sake of argument), i'm not sure any similar change (certainly nothing on that scale) happens here -

I don't know, if the change had happened earlier, gangnam style would have been the first foreign language #1 in I think 18 years. Harlem Shake is the first instrumental #1 in 28 years. It and Thrift Shop are the first #1 hits on an indie label since what, Baby One More Time maybe? so about 13 years.

there's no new information here (ppl knew 'harlem shake' was a phenom), it's just now being reflected in a big, old media outlet.

but being reflected in billboard gives access to the rest of the big old media outlets like broadcast tv. there's still a big gap between the quirky viral video and being a guest on the today show or something. maybe now the charts can be a conduit for that to happen more often with artists who are outside of the major label system.

forgot to finish my first though above, but I think this change could definitely lead to more diversity in pop music

I think it's more that 'pop music' doesn't mean the same thing

like the diversity is already there

watching old david fincher madonna videos this week made me wonder if music vids could ever be that kind of incubator for movie talent again (or easy way for indie filmmakers to garner a check). means of production and distribution are easier now, entry level lower but the market itself has shrunk so much, the stakes are so low, that's it very very hard to imagine a label blowing the kind of cash that some of those huge propaganda films videos routinely got.

there's still a big gap between the quirky viral video and being a guest on the today show or something.

maybe you mean something by this that i'm not getting but doesn't pretty much every viral video star on a certain scale of popularity start hitting the network talk show circuit?

the major difference being that mtv was basically just a promotional outlet that actually cost the labels money (to make the videos, etc)

I thought the labels billed the band for the videos...? I just read in the Tom Petty Q&A book that this fact was what most irritated him: the band got the bill while the label and MTV made millions in sales of the band's product getting promoted.

it's funny to me when people say "maybe it's time to come up with an alternative to Billboard!" cause like, AV Club just started doing their own 'power rankings' of TV ratings that feed the actual Nielsen numbers through this and that funhouse mirror in order to proclaim Community one of the top 10 shows of the week.

but being reflected in billboard gives access to the rest of the big old media outlets like broadcast tv. there's still a big gap between the quirky viral video and being a guest on the today show or something. maybe now the charts can be a conduit for that to happen more often with artists who are outside of the major label system

yeah this is true, psy was internet huge pretty quick but it was only when he got that schmuck who represents bieber on board that he gained entry to old media, actually started to race up the chart. this could remove that need for major label seal of approval, end up fostering interesting stuff. old media is still so weirdly clueless w/ the internet though, i think it's a generational thing.

bieber is new media too tho

i remember thinking pfork should've come up w/ an alternative to cmj, this was when cmj had their weird scandal w/ their charts and pfork was small enough that supplanting cmj would've been a coup. in retrospect it would've been more work than it was worth (and redundant considering how much college radio ends up reflecting pfork's whims anyway)(and possibly how little college radio matters now though that's pure speculation on my part there) and pfork decidedly supplanted cmj anyhow within a couple of years.

bieber's barely more new media than tevin campbell was. youtube got foot in the door and provided numbers to show there was an opp there but usher connection, etc got him thru the door to radio, often quite literally - first i'd heard of him was usher on the bert show (morning radio show on big pop station in atlanta) talking up his discovery, dropping the word 'viral' every other sentence for old media to lap up. in some ways 'youtube sensation' has worked the same way the past few years something like 'england's new sensation' did for a couple of years in the mid sixties.

does anyone miss that month when 'myspace sensation' was the big thing?

Hollywood Undead does

I don't think bieber got big cause 13 y/o girls were listening to the radio - even if his push was ultimately via white guys in suits, it was via new media

some dodgy metal labels do. (the shitty ones who signed all that awful deathcore pish for a start)

yeah Bieber caught on pretty slow with radio -- nothing in the top 20 of the Radio Songs chart until "Boyfriend," after he was super established and had sold a ton of albums and had some big sales-fueled Hot 100 hits

So when will there be a viral video as expensive as November Rain?
I demand more videos of guitar solos from on top of pianos!

Well this video has over 150 million views on YouTube, but I don't think that's what you meant.

ha yeah the other day i looked through YouTube's top 100 music video chart or whatever and was surprised to see "November Rain" in there, may have been the only '90s MTV staple in there

9,861 couldn't take the time to lay it on the line

9,861 pianists

ok how many records did bieber sell and how well did he chart before raymond braun got on board? cuz by feb 2009 they were working him to radio - was he selling millions to 13 yr old girls in 2008? major label muscle was a factor, the potential now is that this change diminishes that factor and that something like psy (or bieber) could gain entry to old media w/o the need for industry soa. vox populi etc.

the bigger point is 'how many records did bieber sell and how well did he chart' are things that matter less than ever

downplaying that potential is that viral stars hardly have had too hard a time gaining entry to the today show, ellen, even snl w/ karmin or whatever the fuck their name is, so when we're saying gaining entry to old media we mean radio, which has shown resistance to viral/niche charting acts before - bieber initially, glee thankfully.

we're getting close to "how can science begin to quantify how popular chief keef is?" territory here

if only there were a scientist itt

the bigger point is 'how many records did bieber sell and how well did he chart' are things that matter less than ever

― iatee, Friday, February 22, 2013 4:41 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well i was contrasting the fact that "Baby," which before "Gangnam Style" was the most viewed music video in YouTube history, was not much of a radio hit, and noting that its chart peak came primarily from internet-driven metrics like iTunes sales.

lol there's a bieber lookalike here at the DMV right now

I think it's more that 'pop music' doesn't mean the same thing

like the diversity is already there

I guess I'm operating under the assumption that the hot 100 still has some sort of an influence on the industry and that there's an echo chamber kind of effect where the music on the charts effects the kind of music and artists that labels invest money into and that the media deems worthy of attention. maybe that's not the case.

point taken that viral video stars get access to the mainstream media anyway. I do still feel like there are opportunities for which "top 10 on the billboard charts" means more than "got 1,000,000 views on youtube this week" or whatever. but I could be wrong. maybe it's a subtle change but at least it shifts the discussion away from "oh those songs are just gimmicks" to "this is now what pop music means."

Biebs just old enough to get learners permit

big champagne's "ultimate chart" which came out in summer 2010 and was briefly hyped for including streaming data (including youtube) that billboard didn't at that time, has baaeur at #4 on its chart, which covers the same tracking period as billboard's (i think). the song's "online watching & listening" score is just 10, significantly lower than many other songs' scores. i wonder what's different about how they incorporate youtube data vs the way billboard is doing it

kind of feel like comparing bieber to psy is comparing apples to oranges, or at least apples to crabapples

the bigger point is 'how many records did bieber sell and how well did he chart' are things that matter less than ever

man, people on the internet say this all the time, not trying to beef w/you iats but it's a lefsetz-y thing to say when really the way you tell MSG what they have to pay you before you'll even show up is: 1) what kind of numbers did you do at comparable venues in other cities, or last time you were there? and 2) sales/charts. If you were at #1 for six weeks instead of bubbling under for a while, that's going to make an actual big difference in terms of both your guarantee and your percentage. And while tours/live engagements are probably a smaller % of Bieber's overall money picture than they would have been in a bygone age, they're still a cash cow, especially given the ridiculous amounts of merch that moves at those big stadium shows. So while it's true that record sales and chart positions matter much less than they did in the seventies and eighties, they're still pretty important to your overall business picture if you're a big player, and how you charted and what you sold is going to be a question promoters will be asking for some time to come, because they'd like to keep as much of the gate as they can, and "your charts were weaker than last time" will remain an effective bargaining chip in those negotiations.