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

Part of the problem may be in thinking of pop stations as mainstream and urban stations as something lesser, when they're actually both just niches. (Even if one niche is say 40 percent larger in its reach than the other.)

So what are the demographics on all of this? I have a totally anecdotal sense that the top 40 station in my town is mostly targeted at 25-45 year old white women, which would definitely explain a lack of hip-hop crossover. Their morning DJs are in their 40s and spend a lot of time talking about their kids.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, December 18, 2018 9:55 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

music played in public spaces and offices

I think some suburban white kids listen to top 40 stations in the car

damn kids

Is there any campaign to, at least, stop radio stations editing out black musicians' verses? It's such a shit petty thing to do.

(Or maybe a campaign to ban Maroon 5 like China did)

i'm not aware of any organized campaigns to improve radio programming decisions (obv i'm not counting label promotions promo campaigns or online stans' requesting campaigns)

lol i actually wrote an email to one of the two top 40 stations in my city when it aired an edit of fifth harmony's "work from home" with ty dolla $ign edited out. (the edit just replaced his section with eight bars of the girls going "work. work. work. work. ...") basically i said that there was no logically consistent rationale that could explain the conscious erasure of his voice from their programming other than his proximity to (black) hip-hop culture + said that was very shitty and says a lot about what they think of their audience (in more eloquent words lol).

they forwarded it to one of the music directors (who i think is now assistant pd) who actually wrote back. basically she gave a canned response of 'thank you for the thoughtful criticism, we make all of our programming decisions on a case-by-case basis and respond to listener feedback' but also said things specifically about hip-hop that made it clear that she actually read/sorta-understood where my argument was coming from lol

that was two years ago when "work from home" was big

basically top 40 is doing all the things today that used to be expected from hot ac stations: editing out rap (or just black) guest vocals, playing more songs that make labels little money thru direct consumer behavior (downloads + streaming) but still 'test well' in passive audience research while accepting less black crossover, formulating a mix that mom and daughter can both listen to in the car or that can be put on in a waiting room, etc.

of course hot ac still does all these things as well which means that lately sometimes the only way to tell the difference between stations of each format is the taglines, lol

Soooo...it feels like this week is some kind of landmark for 21st century whiteness on the Hot 100

1. Oliver Anthony- Rich Men North of Richmond
2. Luke Combs- Fast Car
3. Morgan Wallen- Last Night
4. Taylor Swift- Cruel Summer

Ugh

Holy shit, that song made #1(??)

https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100/

That's fucked up!

https://thenewinquiry.com/blog/american-sajaegi/

I hope this makes his life harder

Good article. At the GOP debate the moderator said that Rich Men song was #1 on Billboard, and I assumed it was a digital download chart. This is way bigger and crazier.

Soooo...it feels like this week is some kind of landmark for 21st century whiteness on the Hot 100

1. Oliver Anthony- Rich Men North of Richmond
2. Luke Combs- Fast Car
3. Morgan Wallen- Last Night
4. Taylor Swift- Cruel Summer

seems weird to lump Luke Combs and Taylor Swift in with Oliver Anthony and Morgan Wallen in this context

I knew that "Rich Men" was #1, I didn't realize that a four-year-old T-Swift song had made a resurgence.

xpost not really. Luke Combs is a country artist and Swift started in country music. We've had a summer where a white superstar's tour has overshadowed everything else.

xp agree, Swift doesn't really seem relevant here (and #5 is Rema & Selena Gomez, fwiw)

20 years ago this week the top 10 was:

Beyonce- Crazy in Love
Chingy- Right Thurr
Nelly- Shake Ya Tailfeather
50 Cent- PIMP
Fabolous- Into You
Lil Jon- Get Low
Pharrell- Frontin'
matchbox 20- unwell
The Black Eyed Peas- Where Is the Love
Lumidee- Never Leave You

This week the only Black artists in the top 10 are Rema, Gunna & Nicki Minaj (featuring Ice Spice)

the year of chingy

On the plus side, Jason Aldean's "Try That in a Small Town" (which also reached #1 a couple weeks back) is plummeting like a stone

Beyonce- Crazy in Love
Chingy- Right Thurr
Nelly- Shake Ya Tailfeather
50 Cent- PIMP
Fabolous- Into You
Lil Jon- Get Low
Pharrell- Frontin'
matchbox 20- unwell
The Black Eyed Peas- Where Is the Love
Lumidee- Never Leave You

would poll

xp it may have fallen far from its perch at the top, but it is gaining a lot in airplay at the country format (where it had been struggling pre-controversy) and in general seems likely to stabilize + do much better in the long run than a jason aldean song otherwise would have in 2023

xposts ok i didn't realize that by "21st century whiteness" you meant "country music"

Not sure I understand your quibble. Is Taylor Swift not white?

This is a thread about how white artists have supplanted black artists at the top of the charts. It’s been going on for awhile now, but the invasion of country acts is a fairly recent thing.

I think I just misunderstood your post - I thought you meant "whiteness" as in white supremacy because "Rich Men" and Morgan Wallen are on there

The world-conquering Korean boy band BTS has spoken out directly against sajaegi in the past, and it’s easy to see why. The group’s fans like to view them as insurgent underdogs fighting for truth and virtuousness against a corrupt, dishonest world. In the Korean market, this means viewing them as true artists operating in an industry that revolves around manufactured groups. In America, it means seeing them as freedom fighters who seek to overcome the racist, nationalist gatekeeping that keeps the pop mainstream white and English-speaking. In both cases, it is of paramount importance to both fans and the group themselves that their chart victories are seen as legitimate.

The New Rockism

xp Fwiw, I did too (as opposed to this being the first time four white artists have occupied the top 4 slots, if that is the case/point)

oliver anthony being able to sustain across multiple songs what jason aldean could not does not surprise me

Obviously having a number 1 by a white guy bitching about welfare is a bit different than having the top spots filled with Miley, Timberlake, Katy Perry and Adele or whoever.

the tweet i saw on another thread where OA claimed that the welfare line was about trump -- this was a joke?

Dude probably wasn't remotely prepared for the level of scrutiny and is trying to play it down the middle now

i don't think it's entirely inappropriate to include taylor in an observation abt 'whiteness' at the top of the charts. sure, she is remarkably popular and not rly a 'country' musician anymore... but being white is clearly not entirely irrelevant to her current moment. i hope i am not coming off as disrespectful or rude to say this, but in all the talk recently about how she's enjoying a level of pop superstardom not seen since mj and madonna, the elephant in the room for me has basically been the fact that those two artists had significant numbers of black fans that swift simply seems not to. to me, it would also be accurate to say she's enjoying the biggest level of pop superstardom while also inspiring indifference or worse among most black americans since the beatles

i know some swift fans are a bit insecure about this topic and swear up and down that her fanbase is almost exactly as diverse as the general population so i'll add some qualifiers: yes, of course some black people like taylor swift, certainly casually but also even a lot. i've met a few who like her music much more than i do. but literally all of those i've met have told me, without my having to ask, that the revelation that they like her so much has inspired mockery and other negative judgment from other black people, whereas i've never heard anyone suggest that they felt embarrassed to say they liked madonna because other black people would make fun of them. i don't know what it is -- maybe the country background, maybe all the lyrics about blue eyes in her old music or other lyrical content that some have criticized as a 'preening white princess' routine, but idk, it seems to be real. her audiences at her huge tour dates (including in cities like atlanta and detroit!) appear to be nearly as white as that of an always-and-forever country artist. maybe the american industry just spent the past decade quietly resegregating its audiences and this is the most obvious result of it

it could be that her music fucking sucks!

Dude probably wasn't remotely prepared for the level of scrutiny and is trying to play it down the middle now

Ask him if the Jews did 9/11.

the elephant in the room for me has basically been the fact that those two artists had significant numbers of black fans that swift simply seems not to...maybe the american industry just spent the past decade quietly resegregating its audiences and this is the most obvious result of it

You don't go multiplatinum without having a majority white audience. True for Taylor Swift, true for Beyoncé, true for Kanye West or any other artist you care to name.

If the idea is that Swift embodies a certain kind of whiteness, I guess I would think the week she occupied the entire Top 10 may say more than a week when she happens to have a random old song at #4.

Well, whiteness gets multiple days in sun

Yes but, say, Amy Grant had several big hits in the early ‘90s; Faith Hill in the early ‘00s (just to pick a few rough analogs); and then Taylor herself started racking them up in the late ‘00s / early ‘10s (even pre-1989). So whatever changes happened in 2012 (when this thread started) to push white artists higher on the charts, they surely are not exemplified by someone like Taylor having a hit, that’s not new.

(But sorry I’m also not sure why I’m quibbling over this point)

Taylor doesn’t just have a hit record though. She owns pop music culture basically.

It does support your point (and not mine) that she got a random old song to #3

i don't think one artist owning the whole top 10 on the generally stagnant american singles chart the week her anticipated album came out means that much about anything beyond the fact that that was the week of the album's release. arguably, w/ few consensus hits + the machinery that's putatively meant to bring them to ppl's awareness moving more slowly than ever, a chart based on just a single week's data tends not to 'mean' much nowadays. (yes, i am suggesting that the hot 100 would be improved by using a 2- or 4-week data collection period, even if it were still published weekly.) sometimes all the songs toward the top are actual 'hits' (in the conventional sense) that will actually stick around, but just about as often there are songs taking up space that'll be there only briefly

but yes taylor is obviously huge right now, tho the stronger evidence of that is on the albums chart

+ her touring receipts, etc.

shit, dyl, since you're still here, can you give us a few bullet points on the 5-yr thread gap starting in late 2018? this thread died right around the time streaming became the all-conquering monster--any good pieces out there on Spotify & the marginalization of black music & audiences in the US?

Taylor doesn’t just have a hit record though. She owns pop music culture basically.

Beyonce's stadium tour is doing pretty well also

oliver anthony doesn't just have a hit either. hes connecting across his catalog

Yes, Beyoncé is still a major star, but Taylor has nine albums in the Top 30.