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

i'm not trying to make a "see, this isn't the first year the top of the chart was predominately dancin' white people, so stop worrying and the love the bomb" argument because you can't dismiss that this has been a really extreme example of that and that it happened to come with some dramatic changes to the chart's metrics. however, a look at pre-mtv/pre-rap 1980's #1s is worthwhile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number-one_singles_of_1980

pink floyd and billy joel even bringing the "questionable class pride over dance beat" heat

wait it was my understanding that genre charts take airplay from related format stations but sales (and i guess youtube if they factor that into the subcharts) are undifferentiated cuz it's much more difficult to distinguish between markets w/ itunes than it was when you had brick and mortar specialized stores. good lord if what you're saying is write than i can't imagine the charts having any value to any potential market - radio or labels (or nerds). and yeah that immediate post-disco pre-mj era is crazy lilywhite - radio and mtv were pretty openly racist (seriously check out immediately before 'billie jean' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number-one_singles_of_1982)(and mtv's already having an impact there - hello human league)(hall and oates as robin thicke!).

from wikipedia:

The Hot Country Songs chart methodology was changed starting with the October 20, 2012 issue to match the Billboard Hot 100: digital downloads and streaming data are combined with airplay from all radio formats to determine position. A new chart, the Country Airplay chart, was created using the previous methodology (airplay exclusively from country radio stations). Following the change, Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", a pop song whose country remix had been falling from its peak in the mid-teens on the country chart when the change took effect, shot up to number one on the new chart due to the success of the pop version on non-country stations; it would begin the longest run at #1 on the country chart since the 1960s. However, its length of stay at #1 was soon surpassed by Florida Georgia Line's "Cruise". It has likewise remained buoyed by a pop remix featuring Nelly, long after the song fell into recurrent status on country radio); it has had the longest stay at number one of any song in the country chart's history.[3]

and yeah even though those early 80s charts are after the disco bubble popped there's still disco all over them (including yes pink floyd). anyone who's ever read chuck eddy knows it never actually went away but that doesn't mean 'disco' wasn't a joke by the time reagan got shot and the bee gees had to farm their songs out cuz they knew radio wouldn't go near them.

Bill Werde is out, Janice Min is in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/business/media/new-leader-at-billboard-sees-future-in-visuals.html

I doubt this will lead to a reversal of the genre charts policy but it looks like they'll be big changes ahead, judging by her track record.

*there'll

MEDIUMS

yeah, i don't think there's much in the way of hesitation about recent changes, it is what it is.

in my limited interactions on twitter with Werde regarding this stuff, he did not seem to care for my opinion, but he was definitely a music guy and I respected his opinion -- replacing him with someone from the Hollywood Reporter and US Weekly is a bit worrying, but there's still a lot of smart nuts-and-bolts music people over there.

wait, i don't see anything in the article about him leaving his position at billboard tho

like, he is the editorial director and this article says janice min will be co-president and chief creative officer

oh never mind i just checked his twitter feed and he is indeed leaving billboard

yeah -- everything on their and his end is worded very carefully and he's implying that the company is going to find something else for him to do, but there's clearly a regime change going on

CHRIS MOLANPHY FOR OVERALL GURU

Couldn't you argue though that being a "music guy" is sort of what caused these changes in the first place

Like the adherence to rigid music-nerd 'genre' definitions over demographic considerations

Just spitballin here I don't know Werde at all

i dunno, maybe? those were huge decisions that must've taken dozens of people agreeing, i dunno how much he personally was really behind them. i'm just saying he seem to come to the job as a music lover, not as someone who had fixed US Weekly and was now going to fix Billboard.

Ha yes I particularly like when Werde waxes nostalgic for his days as a '90s raver.

Chris Molanphy talking about this topic on a Slate podcast today (starts at minute 23):

http://player.fm/series/slates-culture-gabfest/the-culture-gabfest-from-now-on-this-gabfest-is-a-space-for-silent-reflection-edition

ugh

http://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/no-black-artists-number-one-2013

i knew when i saw perpetua in the link

The backlash to bling is finally upon us.

The only changes to the charts that bother me are the genre chart changes. The inclusion of iTunes and YouTube stuff was inevitable because the chart first and foremost operates for music industry insiders and iTunes and YouTube are huge sources of income for the music industry right now. Still absurd that they counted 30 second "Harlem Shake" video views though.

new interesting chart case to arise from all this: "royals" is now #1 on the urban radio format (first white female to top it since...) but billboard won't count it on the r&b chart. now I'm no fan of the song but isn't it entirely self-defeating for billboard to arbitrarily decide something shouldn't count on a chart when it's a number one radio song amongst its actual audience. that feels sort of unprecedented

^^^^

I mean... what is actually the point of any of their chart tinkering if they're not actually going to follow the results it gives them? Why not just make up a list of songs you think should fit wherever and publish that?

wow that article. does he even really look at the charts much? like yes, the fact about #1s has been the most obvious effect of the trend, but it should be VERY obvious from looking at the hot 100 from top to bottom (or ANY of the genre charts that now use its formula), so fuck his sample size quibbles

wow, that article. Perpetua, if you still come through ILX, I've enjoyed a lot of what you've written in the past, and you've given me a lot to think about with regard to a lot of things - but what the hell? The insistence on the #1 as the "sample size" is your choice and you could easily expand it to reveal what's actually going on, which is precisely what this thread's title suggests. Why give yourself the job of defending Billboard anyway?

Yikes, the comments on that article.

:\ people are so terrible

embrace a sense of working class pride that’s been largely absent from the mainstream for a very long time

can i

just remember, Perpetua is the dude who tweeted that someone doing an overearnest, mocking rendition of Ice Cube's "It Was A Good Day" was better than the original

literally throw garbage at this man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evUWqpfyuiM

im not gonna play that vid. i assume he sat on his guitar and then put "the predator" on his stereo. bc that is how u play "it was a good day"

embrace a sense of working class pride that’s been largely absent from the mainstream for a very long time

can i

― can't believe people like things (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, January 21, 2014 8:03 AM Bookmark

This is the point at which I almost threw my laptop. Because it's only working class pride when white people exhibit it?

When you throw it, Rev, aim east.

wow that article. does he even really look at the charts much? like yes, the fact about #1s has been the most obvious effect of the trend, but it should be VERY obvious from looking at the hot 100 from top to bottom (or ANY of the genre charts that now use its formula), so fuck his sample size quibbles

― dyl, Tuesday, January 21, 2014 7:45 AM Bookmark

He says this as if the highest song by a black artist on the Hot 100 this week isn't way down at #16.

Ha, I just re-read his attack on me five years ago for panning Animal Collective. He called me an "out-of-touch crank"!

Because it's only working class pride when white people exhibit it?

of course! also, if you talk about material wealth or symbols of consumer status in your work then you're clearly not working class

I'm firmly pro-Royals but wow, that's an astoundingly dumb statement re: "working-class pride". Incorrect on every level.

Nina Smith · Top Commenter · Cheif Director of nap times & cracker breaks. at Little Hands Gucci Knockoff Sweatshop.
This article does a huge disservice to the MANY hugely talented black jazz blues artists of our time. Pop is fluff, junk food for the brain. There is so much more to the musical experience.

Lol DL how can you think that and new pro-Royals, that's the message of the song

No, it's about money and pop culture, not class. She's not working class and doesn't claim to be. Often I'm as annoyed by misreadings from people who like it as I am by ones from people who hate it. It's not a simple binary at all.

how is "counting dollars on the train" or w/e not working class?

i must admit i hate the song and everything that it represents with the white hot heat of 1,000 suns but i think it's pretty fucking convenient that it seems to be so widely "misinterpreted"...like literally every time it pops up on facebook or i see youtube or comments on an article that's how people are interpreting it, and that's how i interpret it....but somehow it's defenders want to believe that everyone else is wrong with the simplest and most obvious answer is that everyone, the haters and the mass of its fans, are interpreting it exactly as it is.

This is interesting: "Drunk in Love" is now the #1 streaming song, but that's only good for #12 on the big chart.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/01/22/lordes-royals-the-go-go-version/

xp Money is not the same as class. Simple. I grew up without much money of my own, very much counting my pounds on the train, but I'm still middle class. I'm addressing Perp's miscategorisation there, not your hatred of the song.

wasn't there some poll not long ago that found that like 80% of ppl considered themselves middle class?

Plus, middle and upper class folks may be more likely to dismiss the trappings of money and pop culture as did Lorde, as they have always had more than working class folks

also maybe bc they can signal status in more subtle (+ often more expensive, eg 60 grand graduate degree mannerisms) ways

I've always read it as about being the listener rather than the performers, ie "I wish I heard different messages on the radio" (cf the Smiths: "The music that they constantly play says nothing to me about my life") as opposed to "Rappers shouldn't buy themselves nice cars". But yes, it's a lower-middle-class bohemian POV.

the brute-force Importance of new sites that just happen to have a lot of money and the ability to throw it around in ways that generate traffic is maybe my least favorite development of this decade. like, why should people care about such a wrongheaded and ignorant argument? well, because lots of people read buzzfeed. because it has audience manipulation science on its side. just, ugh, gahhhh.

(you too grantland)