No, this is not a quote uttered on Saving Country Music by me or some other concerned country music fan, though similar sentiments have certainly been conveyed here on many occasions. This is the sentiment of the owner of an indie R&B label speaking on behalf of a genre under siege by the historic whitewashing of American music occurring at the hands of the massive radio consolidation and national syndication, and Billboard’s new chart rules that give extra credit to songs that stray outside their original genre.
All the fears, all the warnings sounded by concerned music fans and observers of media by the passing of the Telecommunications Act in 1996 and the revisions in 2003 that heavily laxed the laws regulating radio station ownership in America, and when Billboard changed their chart rules in 2012 to boost crossover songs, have now come to fruition. This is now not only a country vs. pop, or young vs. old problem. This is a man vs. woman problem as has been widely documented in country music coverage over the last year from the severe lack of women on country radio, and apparently from the perspective of many rap and R&B outfits and artists, it’s also a black vs. white issue. More and more, whether it’s labeled as country, hip hop, or R&B, if music is popular, it is probably being made by a white male, and it probably doesn’t sound like any genre specifically, but all genres generally.
Saving Country Music has been making the case for years that all popular music is heading to a mono-genre. Now concerned participants in music genres across the spectrum are clamoring about the watered-down encroachment of other genres on their music, worried their cultural identity and musical institutions are headed towards end times. When talking about the concert pairing of hip hop artist Nelly with pop country act Florida Georgia Line last week, Saving Country Music highlighted one concerned rap journalist that said that the rap genre was “more vulnerable than ever to interlopers and synthesists eager to run their sound through the Vitamix of popular music with such speed and force it’s impossible to determine the ingredients ”¦ Actual new rap songs are ceaselessly weighing down the genre itself with the junky detritus of other styles.”
Now artists and labels in the R&B field are noticing they’re getting a raw deal from the music industry, and are specifically laying the blame on the same radio consolidation causing the gentrification of country, and pointing their fingers at Billboard’s Hot 100 chart that for the first time in the chart’s 55-year history did not have one African American artist reach #1 at any time during the entirety of 2013. One of the reasons for this statistical anomaly is because genre-bending Caucasian acts like Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, who were hip hop’s big mainstream representation in 2013, and Robin Thicke, who was R&B’s big 2013 artist, have been dominating the music landscape, while the originators and innovators in the genre go more unnoticed.
Jeff Robinson, President and CEO of R&B outfit MBK Entertainment recently told Billboard, “With radio all playing the same songs by the same artists it’s difficult to break through. Even top producers are reluctant to work with new artists, preferring to take the easier way out to work with more established ones.”
This trend has made some question whether popular American music has turned their back on black performers, while at the same time co-opting their style and homogenizing it for a wider, and whiter audience. Co-opting traditionally black music and marketing it to a white audience is certainly the case in country, with top acts like Florida Georgia Line, Jason Aldean, and Blake Shelton performing chart-topping country rap songs. The trend sent one hip hop writer named Sebastien Elkouby over the tipping point, stimulating him to post a rant in late January, saying in part,
Dear Black Artists,
We regret to inform you that the need for your services will soon come to an end as we enter a critical restructuring period. Fortunately, after having spent nearly a century meticulously studying your art, language, fashion, and lifestyle, we have learned enough to confidently move forward without your assistance. We thank you for your contributions but have decided to make some necessary changes as a result of your decreasing value. Focus groups show that consumers are looking for more relatable images.
The topic of race and music also stimulated one well-respected financial adviser named Chris Rizik—the Chief Executive Officer and Fund Manager of the Renaissance Venture Capital Fund—to give his own detailed take on what is wrong with music. He lays the blame right at the feet of radio consolidation—not just from the perspective of a music fan or or one interested in preserving the diversity in popular music both sonically and racially, but as someone who very intimately understands how business works, and the cyclical nature of how firms rise and fall.
Chris Rizik
There is an age old problem in business that repeats itself, generation after generation. Small businesses become large ones by being aggressive, creative risk takers. But over time, tremendous size and power can slowly turn a business from an edgy risk taker into a monolithic institution whose approach changes from “playing to win” to “playing not to lose.” So instead of pushing the entrepreneurial qualities that made it grow, its culture becomes consumed with ways to simply keep what it already has.
This is most certainly the case with Clear Channel, Cumulus, and many other companies with big radio station holdings. For example, Clear Channel’s current model is one of trying to restructure their way out of massive quarterly losses of over $300 million not by being innovative, but through cutting costs by casting off local talent in lieu of big, national personalities. Despite research showing that radio needs to focus more on local talent to offer an alternative to upstart streaming services, Clear Channel sallies forth with their cost cutting measure as their revenue deficits continue to grow.
Chris Rizik continues:
Broadcast popular radio – which through consolidation is now controlled by a few major companies … is making all the wrong decisions. In its heyday, it was both the dominant form of music delivery and the place to find new music, with local program directors creatively duking it out to break new songs. But in 2014, facing alternative music discovery sources ranging from YouTube to Spotify to internet radio … And incredibly, its response has been to combat those aggressive upstarts by growing even more conservative. Unwieldy in size, its programming is now largely done nationally, and focuses on playing smaller, safer playlists filled exclusively with established hits … This narcissistic approach, which attempts to avoid any perceived risk in programming, yields both a less interesting product and a perverse effect with regard to race on radio.
Chris Rizik then goes on to predict corporate radio’s insistence on ignoring all the studies and all the signs that national syndication is not working will result in a churning over of the format.
In the end, while the “whitewashing” of pop radio is both frustrating and maddening, a historical perspective provides some solace: From the demise of once-mighty corporations to the fall of empires, history has consistently shown that those organizations that stifle innovation and creativity and instead fight to preserve the status quo end up accelerating their own fall. So at a time when broadcast radio could better survive by becoming more creative, more inclusive and more local, it is moving the other direction, laying down a welcome mat for every innovative competitor.
What all this spells out is that ironically, though country fans and artists, and hip hop/ R&B fans and artists have traditionally been considered at the polar opposites of the sonic spectrum, they can find consensus around the idea of preserving the sonic autonomy of their respective genres. It’s not the blending of the genres that is bringing certain country and rap fans together, it is the opposition to it. When you scrape off the top layer of the most popular artists of America’s major music genre’s, you’re left with a large disenfranchised majority that would prefer to see the preservation of diversity in American music and on radio, instead of one big amalgam of influences being performed by a handful of white guys with fake Ebonic accents, no cultural compass, and a creatively-vacant, caricaturist take on the true expressions of America’s vast, beautiful, and diverse musical lineage.
I think the connection/alliance between more traditional country fans and more traditional rap fans is quite an intriguing one. It’ll be interesting to see what that can do in preserving the identify of each genre.
With regard to radio consolidation, I think the points laid out above are exactly why I’ve noticed that small market country radio stations play a far greater diversity of music than major market stations. More local, more independent, more in tune with listeners, and less national influence.
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan, in the United States during the mid-to-late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno in reference to a specific genre of music was in 1988. Many styles of techno now exist, but Detroit techno is seen as the foundation upon which a number of subgenres have been built.
Ever been dancing in Europe? This is what you’ll hear everywhere you go.
It’s what they would like for us to listen to, but they can stick it up their wooly and smoke it.
The white-washing complaint does not consistently hold water if you look deeper at the chart. ‘Thrift Shop’ and ‘Can’t Hold Us’ both held sway mostly thanks to their hooks – which were both sung by black artists (Wanz and Ray Dalton). And ‘Blurred Lines’ would have been nearly as successful at least on crossover radio without Pharrell and T.I. on the track either – speaking as someone who reviewed the guy’s album, he wasn’t exactly a dynamic stage presence.
And if you go a little deeper, the complaint continues to lose substance – the big charting collaborations of Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake with ‘Suit & Tie’ and ‘Holy Grail’, Pharrell handling vocals for ‘Get Lucky’, Drake’s success with ‘Started From The Bottom’ and ‘Hold On, We’re Going Home’, Hell, if you go up the list of the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End list, fully a third of the list is either led by or features African American audiences, and that’s not counting Rihanna. And currently right now on the Billboard Hot 100, the leading singles have either featured or are led by African American artists for the past eight weeks.
Look, I’m not saying that there isn’t movements towards a blending of genres, marginalization of new talent, and increased homogenization on mainstream radio – it all boils down to the lowest common denominator, at least at first. But when you consider that the biggest two songs of the last two years both came from indie labels that defy pop-music programming, and that one of the songs was a flagrant message of social change and a rejection of commercialism tropes, you might need to look at the bigger picture and consider the content of the music on display, which is thankfully still relevant.
I think the argument can also be made that many of these white performers using black artists for guest appearances or to deliver hooks or add some element of legitimacy to their song or project speaks to the problem, not explains it away.
I personally am skeptical that popular music is becoming “racist” against black performers. I think if this is a deepening trend, it has to do more with the general homogenizing of culture as opposed to a concerted effort to exclude black performers.
However it all speaks to the fact that the core of music fans regardless of genre are being disenfranchised by the system. Whether it’s calls of sexism in country, or racism in rap, people are furious and feel their culture is being sold out from under them. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis might be great artists. I’m really not versed enough in rap myself to make that judgement call. But when only the very top artists of any genre are being represented on radio, the result is going to be the homogenization of the format, and that is what were seeing across music, regardless of genre.
“………while the originators and innovators in the genre go more unnoticed.”
This last phrase is so true in R&B and Rap. It has treading down this path since the 90’s. There a TON of really good artists (of all races too) but they don’t get the airplay. We only get this garbage like what I call the rape song of 2013 Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines.
Just a side note, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are a decent rap group. They also did not get played on urban radio and if you ask anyone who listens to ONLY urban radio, they don’t know who there are…They got lucky at the Grammy because good artist usually get overlooked..
I like Macklemore & Ryan Lewis in the most part, but Kendrick Lamar’s “good kid, m.A.A.d city” easily should have won the Best Rap Album (Macklemore himself believes Lamar was robbed and candidly admitted well prior to the Grammys telecast that if he won, there would be polarizing chaos and that Lamar deserves it more)………………and the reason it didn’t is because of the insatiable demographic-chasing itch on the part of the industry they refuse to scratch.
“good kid, m.A.A.d city” is a brilliant, primal and introspective album with plenty of thematic depth regarding the toils of being raised in Compton and observing the drug and gang culture that frequently transpired there. Front to back, it’s a true work of art. “The Heist”, in contrast, is a solid collection of songs that nonetheless has a little filler and appeal more to the monogenre in that they’re often more pop-influenced than straight-up rap (though still good).
As a big fan of R&B music, I have also noticed that in the last 5 or more years, the genre has been either been removed from Top 40 radio or turned into electronic dance music. It seems that electronic dance music is viewed as more acceptable to a larger audience than R&B, which tends to be favored by the black population, and thus EDM has pushed out R&B to (in theory) satisfy the larger audience.
The only R&B singers that have gotten huge airplay the last couple years are Timberlake and Thicke (with just one song). Radio groups probably figure they are more likely to be accepted by the mainstream than more authentic R&B acts that aren’t white, attractive men in suits.
I should mention that I’m not counting the throwback, retro style of R&B that Pharrell has popularized. I mean the kind of R&B you might have heard on urban radio formats in the ’90s and ’00s. I guess than I should count Ariana Grande, who’s Italian American but also has just one hit. Perhaps my thoughts are flawed.
Also, I don’t mean to imply that white people can’t sing R&B. I just think it’s strange that only white people that sing R&B get their songs played on Top 40 radio, when typically the genre is associated with African Americans.
The Billboard Rock chart is pretty pitiful as well.
Currently the top twenty consists almost entirely of slick pop-style songs, three of which are by pop artist Lorde, another is from Codlplay’s new elecro-pop style album, the rest only vaguely qualify as “pop-rock.”
I guess Lorde is about as “rock” as Florida Georgia Line is country (which is to say, not at all) but it seems like modern country is egregiously annoying wheras modern rock is simply absent.
I am also a huge rock fan and the state of rock music is incredibly disappointing.
Alternative radio doesn’t even play rock music. They play indie pop, folk or experimental dance music. Songs like “Royals”, “Safe and Sound”, “Somebody That I Used to Know” and “Too Close” became smash #1 hits on alternative radio despite the fact that they are pop songs, not alternative rock songs. When the chart changed it’s name from “Modern Rock” to “Alternative” in 2009 they stopped playing rock music.
Active rock is in even worse shape. The format has been completely left behind by the mainstream audience and fell apart. There are almost no new active rock artists that are engaging or interesting. The format is almost completely devoid of melody and hooks and relies solely on an aggressive attack of sound. The biggest stars of the format are mostly over ten years past their prime. The best thing that’s happened to active rock in the last few years is Pearl Jam releasing a new album.
Country radio is now America’s de facto rock station. It’s the only format based on electric guitars and drums that is also melodic and not electronic. Darius Rucker has said that country is today’s rock ‘n roll.
Until guitar rock makes a comeback to the mainstream, country will continue to have to serve the role as America’s rock station. Real country cannot make a comeback until real rock does.
Personally, I do not care what color is singing a particular genre of music, just as long as that music is in that artist’s soul. No one can argue that Emenem is a true rap singer despite being white. Or that Charley Pride is a true country music artist despite being black.
And many people might argue that crossovers is nothing new to the music industry and that is very much true. When a crossover is done creatively, it is way cool. Patsy Cline sounded like a combination of country and soul, how cool was that. Growing up just about every other older black person I knew had a Patsy Cline record. Hank 3 combined punk and country in his S2H CD and it introduced metal and punk listeners to Country. But the album S2H was/is still very much a country album and Patsy Cline was still very much a country singer and their music remained true to heir genre. They did not win over new/different audiences by watering down their genre or by trying to appeal to a mass of people.
Maybe I’m odd, but I don’t really understand the whole notion of crying racist when people don’t adhere to the segregation rules that music journalists decided to place upon music. It’s an insult to all musicians to say sound has racial ownership placed upon it. Origin is one thing, but once it goes into the world, it belongs to everyone. Look at the history of Stax, there was no racial divide in artists, songwriter nor performers. Same with many of the other pioneering areas of music. (i.e. – Muscle Shoals, etc)
Plus, it is horribly ridiculous to keep harping on what mainstream radio does. Perhaps it is because I grew up listening to music that existed out of, and in spite of, the mainstream music world, but I think it just reeks of laziness, short-sightedness and ignorance for people to whine about things like this.
Is homogenization in mainstream music bad? Yes, it is. However, as long as these corporations are banding together for media campaigns for various products, expect the airwaves to be filled with this swill. Pop music is no longer even music, it’s just long-form jingles for various products. Most of, if not all, of the top hits are in commercials, television ads, movie ads and the like. If they don’t appear there, they reference various items by brand name in the songs and usually have that brand sponsor their tour.
Having grown up in a world where the airwaves were overrun with R&B and hip-hop, it is unrealistic to believe non-black kids would be drawn to the music, just as non-white musicians play in country bands, rock bands, etc. Yelling ‘racist’ when people don’t adhere to segregation is just ignorant.
“when people don”™t adhere to the segregation rules that music journalists decided to place upon music.”
Though I and others in the music press corps might love to take credit for setting the rules of how music should be governed in the popular mindset, I think it is the artists and labels that make these decisions, and it is also many of them that are most up in arms. Music journalists just simply report the artists and label’s opinions, which is what I have done here.
I agree that calls of “racism” might be false, but I think they’re a symptom of people feeling disenfranchised by the current music system, and though the specific claims might be false, the sentiment behind them should be recognized and understood.
“The beauty of the internet is that all of that is beginning not to matter.”
It may not matter to you and me because we know we have choices. But one study after another shows that the vast majority of consumers still rely on radio as their primary outlet for listening to music, and for discovering new music. And since consolidation has put the power over that medium in the hands of a very few powerful tastemakers, one can make the argument radio has never been more important in its history.
14 months ago Bobby Bones was a local DJ in Austin, TX on a pop radio station. Now he commands the biggest audience in the history of country radio, swaying the opinions of millions with one quip, or one play of a song. That is why it matters.
I’ve spent my fair share of time as a music writer, so I know not all of these lines are created by the writing community, but they tend to be the most vocal advocates for musical segregation.
Hell, I covered a Macklemore & Ryan Lewis show back in November and Talib Kweli opened. He and Mos Def’s project, Black Star, was pretty groundbreaking in hip-hop back in the late-90s. He didn’t have to align himself with some like Macklemore if he felt he was whitewashing rap.
I do find it interesting that rap and country are the two genres with the biggest axe to grind since they are both the two genres that quickly became a caricature of themselves in the mainstream. I think the battle for mainstream is lost, sadly. We can bitch and complain until our dying breath, but unless anti-trust lawyers can break up the monopolies created and laws are altered, the battle is over. You have to be homogenized to save money. It’s all about putting as much canned, computer-generated music in there as possible, so you don’t have to pay for a real band to record and possibly make mistakes. Auto-tune it ALL so talent means less than looking like a model. Then, put it on every commercial, tv bumper, movie soundtrack, tv karaoke show, etc. Saturate it! Then, when it is used up, take the person who won the karaoke show, wash, repeat…
I actually think you’re a great guy, Trigger, you fight the good fight. I still try to, despite my cynicism here. They may have won, but I’m going to hit them in the shin while they stand on their pedestal.
I keep hoping the over-saturation will eventually ruin people to it all…here’s to hoping!
Ok, speaking of Bobby Bones, today I read that article from the news crawl about “Hey Brother” by Avicci appearing on the Country Airplay chart, which I know Bobby Bones was pushing for. Anyway, the article made my head spin. Talking about the song:
“Its vocal from Union Station’s Dan Tyminski, however, has helped spur its country inroads, most notably at Clear Channel-owned stations after the chain commissioned a new remix of it…. The company’s WSIX Nashville led with 21 plays for the song last week. ”
So, not only can Clear Channel single-handedly determine that the song is country, they can even specifically commision a remix to shoehorn it onto their playlist. I also think it’s telling that this is all originating from WSIX, I wonder if a certain flagship DJ has an influence over the decision to play the song? As a side note, it is also laughable that Dan Tyminski is potrayed as an arbiter of country music authenticity when typically country radio wouldn’t touch Tyminski or Allison Krauss & Union Station’s music with a ten foot pole.
Also:
“‘Hey Brother’ is a country song at its core,” says Clear Channel executive VP/GM of national programming platforms Clay Hunnicutt. “The moment I heard the song, it took me back to the ground-breaking sound of [‘Sorrow’], but in a 2014 style.”
Yes, this is exactly who we need as the gatekeeper for determining what is considered country music at this point, a Clear Channel executive. The fact that a single man has that kind of power in the first place is an illustration of the problem with the current system! And of course, I also have to poke fun at the idea that the sound of the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack needs to be updated with a new contemporary aesthetic, as if the musical styles depicted on that album originated in the early 2000’s.
I’m sorry for getting off-topic, I just wanted to get that off my chest!
Well, I’ll continue the tangent just a little more. It’s more than a little ironic that a Clear Channel executive would speak so reverently about anything to do with O Brother given that country radio seemed to be insistently ignoring even as its sold millions and millions of copies.
Once Pandora’s box was opened allowing the large radio conglomerates to form across the country, there was just no way to ever stop or reverse what they have done to programming. The previous rules limiting station ownership meant many stations were owned by smaller local organizations or even individual families and the market focus was naturally local.
After the rules changes the large corporations came in and made the local radio stations offers they couldn’t refuse while in the midst of bidding wars. The price of station acquisition became so unreasonable that no entities except the large corporations could be serious players and the whole face of music radio changed forever in a few short years. The only company to truly benefit from all of this b.s. was Sirius/XM as music fans turned to satellite radio to find quality programming they could no longer locate on local over the air broadcast stations.
Here in Los Angeles we have one of the most listened to Top 40 country radio stations in the USA named KKGO “Go Country” 105.1 FM. The station is owned outright by eighty something Saul Levine and he can do whatever he wants with that station! It is very unusual these days to have a popular, good sized major market station owned by an individual, so Saul is a bit of a dying breed. Since KKGO is a Mediabase reporting station it’s playlist is pretty standard Top 40 country fare but I’m sure Saul and his PD give the DJ’s more freedom than the typical Clear Channel or Cumulus country station.
I am pretty quick to disregard the crying ‘Wolf’ that is racism nowadays. Sure, it still exists, but I honestly don’t think to does on on this kind of a scale. I don’t buy into large corporations, music genres, public entities, being racist as a whole or as a concept. Maybe I’m ignorant. I think racism is/was an easy way to get heard when something wasn’t going your way. It’s capitalism. What sells is what is will be pushed. If people like white honky pseudo rap then that’s what CC, etc plays. To me, rap/ r&b as a whole is doing something very similar to country music. Overall, the culture and spirit of the art form is spiraling down the toilet, and there are a few good acts left that get recognition, but the majority of the talent resides in the underground. It’s going to take more an whining about it to fix it. Where are the people supporting real urban music? They’re probably out there, opining their frustrations amongst themselves just like we do.
The beauty of the internet is that all of that is beginning not to matter. When is the last time you listened to FM country radio? Probably the last time these guys listened to FM R&B radio. Go out and find artists who still do it the right way and buy their shit. That’s how it works. Don’t give up so easily!
Roy Hamilton’s “Hurt” was a gift to country – courtesy of Elvis Presley (and the blue-eyed soul of Timi Yuro, and Juice Newton). But country gave Whitney Houston her biggest hit. There’s a lot of popular rhythmic R&B music dating back to the rockabilly era or James Brown, but on the other side, there’s very melodic material going back to the era of Motown, the Supremes, the Four Tops, The Temptations. As a fan of old music, I like a great deal of it, but the hip hop and youth oriented stuff hasn’t interested me since the dawn of hiphop and rap in the 1980s. Maybe it’s an age thing, or maybe it’s harder for good music go hit the pop charts any more.
And yes, all this talk about whites singing black music goes back to Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis or Buddy Holly all scoring big hits on the R&B chart. The UK riffed on “blue eyed” soul with Dusty Springfield and Tom Jones (and the Righteous Brothers stateside). Saturday Night Fever spawned many R&B hits. This is not a new phenomenon.
Part of the Billboard complaint is valid, but you have to remember that hiphop (and black artists) began dominating the Top #10 charts since the dawn of the Soundscan era of the 1990s. It’s only in the past five years that melodic or crossover music (from white or mixed-race bands) has been climbing back. So yes, it’s not a good time now, but there was a solid run of two decades before the decline.
Let me get this straight… You don’t embrace rap and other black culture and you’re therefore racist. But if you do, you’re stealing their culture and gentrifying it and therefore racist. Just what the hell?
The charges of “racism” are at the extreme viewpoint of this issue, and don’t necessarily reflect the basis of the viewpoint, or the majority sentiment in any way on what is happening with contemporary black music. Of course, any time the term “racism” is uttered, some are going to kneejerk freak out and say it is completely unfounded. Do I think what is happening in popular music and the lack of black representation on radio right now is racism? No. But that doesn’t mean the fundamentals of the arguments being made are still not very viable and credible, and parallel the same exact arguments being made in country that artists that are not white and male are being excluded.
Don’t focus on the word “racism”. In fact don’t focus on race at all. Just focus on the fact that there’s a culture out there, and a demographic that generally speaking is more indigenous to that culture. Then recognize that this culture is being taken up by people who are not indigenous to it, homogenized, and then sold to the masses. This is what is happening in country, rap , R&B, rock, EDM, jazz, and pretty music every major American music form right now, fueled by radio consolidation, and Billboard’s new chart rules. The same exact arguments we have been making here for years about country music, are now being made by the rap community. Don’t get caught up in the specifics or the extreme viewpoints. Just like concerned country fans get painted as being “purists” or “wanting everything to sound like Hank Williams, over and over,” rap fans get painted as being overly-sensitive and crying racism where there is none. In the end the integrity of American music artforms is in jeopardy as corporations try to take control over it, and no matter what kind of music you like or make, this is happening.
You’re 30+ years late on this. You really need to look all the way back to the 1970’s to find variety on the FM dial. By the mid 80’s, the only alternative stations were the college stations in the 88-92 range, New music, both bands (U2, REM, Nirvana, etc) and genre’s (punk, grunge, techno, rap, hip-hop) were birthed and matured in the college stations. Back then, everything above 92 was dominated by ABC, NBC & CBS, rather than the new mega media corporations like Clear Channel, but the effect was the same. Everything above 92 has been and will continue to be played for commercial reasons, and only proven pop hits, or new music from established artist get played,
The problem has suddenly gotten much worse in the past year or so, when many “country” acts started adding and going pop and rap, country radio is playing it and Billboard changed their chart rules to help labels promote it. Until then I loved to listen to country radio all day. I don’t want to hear pure pop and rap and expect to hear more great country songs on country radio. Now they are playing pure pop, rap and EDM more than the best country artists and songs, and playing women making the best country less than ever. Ridiculous. Even this year’s CMA Fest has just ONE solo female LP Field main stage/TV show headliner in 20 acts. When was the last time that happened or is this a first? So we’ve got racism, sexism, and country music getting shafted.
“It’s killing our culture.”
March 24, 2014 @ 9:16 am
Excellent article, Trigger.
I think the connection/alliance between more traditional country fans and more traditional rap fans is quite an intriguing one. It’ll be interesting to see what that can do in preserving the identify of each genre.
With regard to radio consolidation, I think the points laid out above are exactly why I’ve noticed that small market country radio stations play a far greater diversity of music than major market stations. More local, more independent, more in tune with listeners, and less national influence.
March 24, 2014 @ 9:35 am
This reminds me of Pat Boone and the likes doing black music for the white market.
March 24, 2014 @ 9:43 am
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan, in the United States during the mid-to-late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno in reference to a specific genre of music was in 1988. Many styles of techno now exist, but Detroit techno is seen as the foundation upon which a number of subgenres have been built.
Ever been dancing in Europe? This is what you’ll hear everywhere you go.
It’s what they would like for us to listen to, but they can stick it up their wooly and smoke it.
March 24, 2014 @ 11:02 am
?
March 24, 2014 @ 10:11 am
The white-washing complaint does not consistently hold water if you look deeper at the chart. ‘Thrift Shop’ and ‘Can’t Hold Us’ both held sway mostly thanks to their hooks – which were both sung by black artists (Wanz and Ray Dalton). And ‘Blurred Lines’ would have been nearly as successful at least on crossover radio without Pharrell and T.I. on the track either – speaking as someone who reviewed the guy’s album, he wasn’t exactly a dynamic stage presence.
And if you go a little deeper, the complaint continues to lose substance – the big charting collaborations of Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake with ‘Suit & Tie’ and ‘Holy Grail’, Pharrell handling vocals for ‘Get Lucky’, Drake’s success with ‘Started From The Bottom’ and ‘Hold On, We’re Going Home’, Hell, if you go up the list of the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End list, fully a third of the list is either led by or features African American audiences, and that’s not counting Rihanna. And currently right now on the Billboard Hot 100, the leading singles have either featured or are led by African American artists for the past eight weeks.
Look, I’m not saying that there isn’t movements towards a blending of genres, marginalization of new talent, and increased homogenization on mainstream radio – it all boils down to the lowest common denominator, at least at first. But when you consider that the biggest two songs of the last two years both came from indie labels that defy pop-music programming, and that one of the songs was a flagrant message of social change and a rejection of commercialism tropes, you might need to look at the bigger picture and consider the content of the music on display, which is thankfully still relevant.
March 24, 2014 @ 10:56 am
I think the argument can also be made that many of these white performers using black artists for guest appearances or to deliver hooks or add some element of legitimacy to their song or project speaks to the problem, not explains it away.
I personally am skeptical that popular music is becoming “racist” against black performers. I think if this is a deepening trend, it has to do more with the general homogenizing of culture as opposed to a concerted effort to exclude black performers.
However it all speaks to the fact that the core of music fans regardless of genre are being disenfranchised by the system. Whether it’s calls of sexism in country, or racism in rap, people are furious and feel their culture is being sold out from under them. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis might be great artists. I’m really not versed enough in rap myself to make that judgement call. But when only the very top artists of any genre are being represented on radio, the result is going to be the homogenization of the format, and that is what were seeing across music, regardless of genre.
March 24, 2014 @ 10:28 am
“………while the originators and innovators in the genre go more unnoticed.”
This last phrase is so true in R&B and Rap. It has treading down this path since the 90’s. There a TON of really good artists (of all races too) but they don’t get the airplay. We only get this garbage like what I call the rape song of 2013 Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines.
March 24, 2014 @ 10:30 am
Just a side note, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are a decent rap group. They also did not get played on urban radio and if you ask anyone who listens to ONLY urban radio, they don’t know who there are…They got lucky at the Grammy because good artist usually get overlooked..
March 24, 2014 @ 11:19 am
I like Macklemore & Ryan Lewis in the most part, but Kendrick Lamar’s “good kid, m.A.A.d city” easily should have won the Best Rap Album (Macklemore himself believes Lamar was robbed and candidly admitted well prior to the Grammys telecast that if he won, there would be polarizing chaos and that Lamar deserves it more)………………and the reason it didn’t is because of the insatiable demographic-chasing itch on the part of the industry they refuse to scratch.
“good kid, m.A.A.d city” is a brilliant, primal and introspective album with plenty of thematic depth regarding the toils of being raised in Compton and observing the drug and gang culture that frequently transpired there. Front to back, it’s a true work of art. “The Heist”, in contrast, is a solid collection of songs that nonetheless has a little filler and appeal more to the monogenre in that they’re often more pop-influenced than straight-up rap (though still good).
March 24, 2014 @ 11:30 am
O I agree ..i like Kendrick Lamar as well and he also is not played here in Chicago that much. Its the same garbage on urban radio.
March 24, 2014 @ 10:31 am
As a big fan of R&B music, I have also noticed that in the last 5 or more years, the genre has been either been removed from Top 40 radio or turned into electronic dance music. It seems that electronic dance music is viewed as more acceptable to a larger audience than R&B, which tends to be favored by the black population, and thus EDM has pushed out R&B to (in theory) satisfy the larger audience.
The only R&B singers that have gotten huge airplay the last couple years are Timberlake and Thicke (with just one song). Radio groups probably figure they are more likely to be accepted by the mainstream than more authentic R&B acts that aren’t white, attractive men in suits.
I should mention that I’m not counting the throwback, retro style of R&B that Pharrell has popularized. I mean the kind of R&B you might have heard on urban radio formats in the ’90s and ’00s. I guess than I should count Ariana Grande, who’s Italian American but also has just one hit. Perhaps my thoughts are flawed.
Also, I don’t mean to imply that white people can’t sing R&B. I just think it’s strange that only white people that sing R&B get their songs played on Top 40 radio, when typically the genre is associated with African Americans.
March 24, 2014 @ 6:28 pm
The Billboard Rock chart is pretty pitiful as well.
Currently the top twenty consists almost entirely of slick pop-style songs, three of which are by pop artist Lorde, another is from Codlplay’s new elecro-pop style album, the rest only vaguely qualify as “pop-rock.”
I guess Lorde is about as “rock” as Florida Georgia Line is country (which is to say, not at all) but it seems like modern country is egregiously annoying wheras modern rock is simply absent.
March 25, 2014 @ 12:26 pm
I am also a huge rock fan and the state of rock music is incredibly disappointing.
Alternative radio doesn’t even play rock music. They play indie pop, folk or experimental dance music. Songs like “Royals”, “Safe and Sound”, “Somebody That I Used to Know” and “Too Close” became smash #1 hits on alternative radio despite the fact that they are pop songs, not alternative rock songs. When the chart changed it’s name from “Modern Rock” to “Alternative” in 2009 they stopped playing rock music.
Active rock is in even worse shape. The format has been completely left behind by the mainstream audience and fell apart. There are almost no new active rock artists that are engaging or interesting. The format is almost completely devoid of melody and hooks and relies solely on an aggressive attack of sound. The biggest stars of the format are mostly over ten years past their prime. The best thing that’s happened to active rock in the last few years is Pearl Jam releasing a new album.
Country radio is now America’s de facto rock station. It’s the only format based on electric guitars and drums that is also melodic and not electronic. Darius Rucker has said that country is today’s rock ‘n roll.
Until guitar rock makes a comeback to the mainstream, country will continue to have to serve the role as America’s rock station. Real country cannot make a comeback until real rock does.
March 24, 2014 @ 10:40 am
“”¦ a creatively-vacant, caricaturist take on the true expressions of America”™s vast, beautiful, and diverse musical lineage.”
It’s things like this that makes me love this site so much.
March 24, 2014 @ 11:42 am
http://i.imgur.com/nH7d2Xu.gif
There we go, all of entertainment summed up in one comic strip.
March 24, 2014 @ 12:14 pm
Nuh-uh.
March 24, 2014 @ 11:50 am
Personally, I do not care what color is singing a particular genre of music, just as long as that music is in that artist’s soul. No one can argue that Emenem is a true rap singer despite being white. Or that Charley Pride is a true country music artist despite being black.
And many people might argue that crossovers is nothing new to the music industry and that is very much true. When a crossover is done creatively, it is way cool. Patsy Cline sounded like a combination of country and soul, how cool was that. Growing up just about every other older black person I knew had a Patsy Cline record. Hank 3 combined punk and country in his S2H CD and it introduced metal and punk listeners to Country. But the album S2H was/is still very much a country album and Patsy Cline was still very much a country singer and their music remained true to heir genre. They did not win over new/different audiences by watering down their genre or by trying to appeal to a mass of people.
March 24, 2014 @ 2:13 pm
Maybe I’m odd, but I don’t really understand the whole notion of crying racist when people don’t adhere to the segregation rules that music journalists decided to place upon music. It’s an insult to all musicians to say sound has racial ownership placed upon it. Origin is one thing, but once it goes into the world, it belongs to everyone. Look at the history of Stax, there was no racial divide in artists, songwriter nor performers. Same with many of the other pioneering areas of music. (i.e. – Muscle Shoals, etc)
Plus, it is horribly ridiculous to keep harping on what mainstream radio does. Perhaps it is because I grew up listening to music that existed out of, and in spite of, the mainstream music world, but I think it just reeks of laziness, short-sightedness and ignorance for people to whine about things like this.
Is homogenization in mainstream music bad? Yes, it is. However, as long as these corporations are banding together for media campaigns for various products, expect the airwaves to be filled with this swill. Pop music is no longer even music, it’s just long-form jingles for various products. Most of, if not all, of the top hits are in commercials, television ads, movie ads and the like. If they don’t appear there, they reference various items by brand name in the songs and usually have that brand sponsor their tour.
Having grown up in a world where the airwaves were overrun with R&B and hip-hop, it is unrealistic to believe non-black kids would be drawn to the music, just as non-white musicians play in country bands, rock bands, etc. Yelling ‘racist’ when people don’t adhere to segregation is just ignorant.
March 24, 2014 @ 4:20 pm
Very well spoken.
Is NASCAR racist because there aren’t any black drivers? I am seeing more and more black fans at the tracks these days.
Is the NBA racist because most of its participants are black and they wear baggie shorts like black ‘bangers? I don’t know.
I grew up in Memphis during the 1960s liking Stax and Sun Records.
Who the hell cares?
Good music is good music, irrespective of the genre.
March 24, 2014 @ 5:10 pm
“when people don”™t adhere to the segregation rules that music journalists decided to place upon music.”
Though I and others in the music press corps might love to take credit for setting the rules of how music should be governed in the popular mindset, I think it is the artists and labels that make these decisions, and it is also many of them that are most up in arms. Music journalists just simply report the artists and label’s opinions, which is what I have done here.
I agree that calls of “racism” might be false, but I think they’re a symptom of people feeling disenfranchised by the current music system, and though the specific claims might be false, the sentiment behind them should be recognized and understood.
“The beauty of the internet is that all of that is beginning not to matter.”
It may not matter to you and me because we know we have choices. But one study after another shows that the vast majority of consumers still rely on radio as their primary outlet for listening to music, and for discovering new music. And since consolidation has put the power over that medium in the hands of a very few powerful tastemakers, one can make the argument radio has never been more important in its history.
14 months ago Bobby Bones was a local DJ in Austin, TX on a pop radio station. Now he commands the biggest audience in the history of country radio, swaying the opinions of millions with one quip, or one play of a song. That is why it matters.
March 24, 2014 @ 5:32 pm
I’ve spent my fair share of time as a music writer, so I know not all of these lines are created by the writing community, but they tend to be the most vocal advocates for musical segregation.
Hell, I covered a Macklemore & Ryan Lewis show back in November and Talib Kweli opened. He and Mos Def’s project, Black Star, was pretty groundbreaking in hip-hop back in the late-90s. He didn’t have to align himself with some like Macklemore if he felt he was whitewashing rap.
I do find it interesting that rap and country are the two genres with the biggest axe to grind since they are both the two genres that quickly became a caricature of themselves in the mainstream. I think the battle for mainstream is lost, sadly. We can bitch and complain until our dying breath, but unless anti-trust lawyers can break up the monopolies created and laws are altered, the battle is over. You have to be homogenized to save money. It’s all about putting as much canned, computer-generated music in there as possible, so you don’t have to pay for a real band to record and possibly make mistakes. Auto-tune it ALL so talent means less than looking like a model. Then, put it on every commercial, tv bumper, movie soundtrack, tv karaoke show, etc. Saturate it! Then, when it is used up, take the person who won the karaoke show, wash, repeat…
I actually think you’re a great guy, Trigger, you fight the good fight. I still try to, despite my cynicism here. They may have won, but I’m going to hit them in the shin while they stand on their pedestal.
I keep hoping the over-saturation will eventually ruin people to it all…here’s to hoping!
March 24, 2014 @ 7:08 pm
Ok, speaking of Bobby Bones, today I read that article from the news crawl about “Hey Brother” by Avicci appearing on the Country Airplay chart, which I know Bobby Bones was pushing for. Anyway, the article made my head spin. Talking about the song:
“Its vocal from Union Station’s Dan Tyminski, however, has helped spur its country inroads, most notably at Clear Channel-owned stations after the chain commissioned a new remix of it…. The company’s WSIX Nashville led with 21 plays for the song last week. ”
So, not only can Clear Channel single-handedly determine that the song is country, they can even specifically commision a remix to shoehorn it onto their playlist. I also think it’s telling that this is all originating from WSIX, I wonder if a certain flagship DJ has an influence over the decision to play the song? As a side note, it is also laughable that Dan Tyminski is potrayed as an arbiter of country music authenticity when typically country radio wouldn’t touch Tyminski or Allison Krauss & Union Station’s music with a ten foot pole.
Also:
“‘Hey Brother’ is a country song at its core,” says Clear Channel executive VP/GM of national programming platforms Clay Hunnicutt. “The moment I heard the song, it took me back to the ground-breaking sound of [‘Sorrow’], but in a 2014 style.”
Yes, this is exactly who we need as the gatekeeper for determining what is considered country music at this point, a Clear Channel executive. The fact that a single man has that kind of power in the first place is an illustration of the problem with the current system! And of course, I also have to poke fun at the idea that the sound of the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack needs to be updated with a new contemporary aesthetic, as if the musical styles depicted on that album originated in the early 2000’s.
I’m sorry for getting off-topic, I just wanted to get that off my chest!
March 25, 2014 @ 2:42 pm
Well, I’ll continue the tangent just a little more. It’s more than a little ironic that a Clear Channel executive would speak so reverently about anything to do with O Brother given that country radio seemed to be insistently ignoring even as its sold millions and millions of copies.
March 24, 2014 @ 4:45 pm
Once Pandora’s box was opened allowing the large radio conglomerates to form across the country, there was just no way to ever stop or reverse what they have done to programming. The previous rules limiting station ownership meant many stations were owned by smaller local organizations or even individual families and the market focus was naturally local.
After the rules changes the large corporations came in and made the local radio stations offers they couldn’t refuse while in the midst of bidding wars. The price of station acquisition became so unreasonable that no entities except the large corporations could be serious players and the whole face of music radio changed forever in a few short years. The only company to truly benefit from all of this b.s. was Sirius/XM as music fans turned to satellite radio to find quality programming they could no longer locate on local over the air broadcast stations.
Here in Los Angeles we have one of the most listened to Top 40 country radio stations in the USA named KKGO “Go Country” 105.1 FM. The station is owned outright by eighty something Saul Levine and he can do whatever he wants with that station! It is very unusual these days to have a popular, good sized major market station owned by an individual, so Saul is a bit of a dying breed. Since KKGO is a Mediabase reporting station it’s playlist is pretty standard Top 40 country fare but I’m sure Saul and his PD give the DJ’s more freedom than the typical Clear Channel or Cumulus country station.
March 24, 2014 @ 4:57 pm
I am pretty quick to disregard the crying ‘Wolf’ that is racism nowadays. Sure, it still exists, but I honestly don’t think to does on on this kind of a scale. I don’t buy into large corporations, music genres, public entities, being racist as a whole or as a concept. Maybe I’m ignorant. I think racism is/was an easy way to get heard when something wasn’t going your way. It’s capitalism. What sells is what is will be pushed. If people like white honky pseudo rap then that’s what CC, etc plays. To me, rap/ r&b as a whole is doing something very similar to country music. Overall, the culture and spirit of the art form is spiraling down the toilet, and there are a few good acts left that get recognition, but the majority of the talent resides in the underground. It’s going to take more an whining about it to fix it. Where are the people supporting real urban music? They’re probably out there, opining their frustrations amongst themselves just like we do.
The beauty of the internet is that all of that is beginning not to matter. When is the last time you listened to FM country radio? Probably the last time these guys listened to FM R&B radio. Go out and find artists who still do it the right way and buy their shit. That’s how it works. Don’t give up so easily!
March 24, 2014 @ 8:19 pm
Roy Hamilton’s “Hurt” was a gift to country – courtesy of Elvis Presley (and the blue-eyed soul of Timi Yuro, and Juice Newton). But country gave Whitney Houston her biggest hit. There’s a lot of popular rhythmic R&B music dating back to the rockabilly era or James Brown, but on the other side, there’s very melodic material going back to the era of Motown, the Supremes, the Four Tops, The Temptations. As a fan of old music, I like a great deal of it, but the hip hop and youth oriented stuff hasn’t interested me since the dawn of hiphop and rap in the 1980s. Maybe it’s an age thing, or maybe it’s harder for good music go hit the pop charts any more.
And yes, all this talk about whites singing black music goes back to Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis or Buddy Holly all scoring big hits on the R&B chart. The UK riffed on “blue eyed” soul with Dusty Springfield and Tom Jones (and the Righteous Brothers stateside). Saturday Night Fever spawned many R&B hits. This is not a new phenomenon.
Part of the Billboard complaint is valid, but you have to remember that hiphop (and black artists) began dominating the Top #10 charts since the dawn of the Soundscan era of the 1990s. It’s only in the past five years that melodic or crossover music (from white or mixed-race bands) has been climbing back. So yes, it’s not a good time now, but there was a solid run of two decades before the decline.
March 24, 2014 @ 9:53 pm
Let me get this straight… You don’t embrace rap and other black culture and you’re therefore racist. But if you do, you’re stealing their culture and gentrifying it and therefore racist. Just what the hell?
March 24, 2014 @ 10:22 pm
The charges of “racism” are at the extreme viewpoint of this issue, and don’t necessarily reflect the basis of the viewpoint, or the majority sentiment in any way on what is happening with contemporary black music. Of course, any time the term “racism” is uttered, some are going to kneejerk freak out and say it is completely unfounded. Do I think what is happening in popular music and the lack of black representation on radio right now is racism? No. But that doesn’t mean the fundamentals of the arguments being made are still not very viable and credible, and parallel the same exact arguments being made in country that artists that are not white and male are being excluded.
Don’t focus on the word “racism”. In fact don’t focus on race at all. Just focus on the fact that there’s a culture out there, and a demographic that generally speaking is more indigenous to that culture. Then recognize that this culture is being taken up by people who are not indigenous to it, homogenized, and then sold to the masses. This is what is happening in country, rap , R&B, rock, EDM, jazz, and pretty music every major American music form right now, fueled by radio consolidation, and Billboard’s new chart rules. The same exact arguments we have been making here for years about country music, are now being made by the rap community. Don’t get caught up in the specifics or the extreme viewpoints. Just like concerned country fans get painted as being “purists” or “wanting everything to sound like Hank Williams, over and over,” rap fans get painted as being overly-sensitive and crying racism where there is none. In the end the integrity of American music artforms is in jeopardy as corporations try to take control over it, and no matter what kind of music you like or make, this is happening.
March 25, 2014 @ 2:16 pm
You’re 30+ years late on this. You really need to look all the way back to the 1970’s to find variety on the FM dial. By the mid 80’s, the only alternative stations were the college stations in the 88-92 range, New music, both bands (U2, REM, Nirvana, etc) and genre’s (punk, grunge, techno, rap, hip-hop) were birthed and matured in the college stations. Back then, everything above 92 was dominated by ABC, NBC & CBS, rather than the new mega media corporations like Clear Channel, but the effect was the same. Everything above 92 has been and will continue to be played for commercial reasons, and only proven pop hits, or new music from established artist get played,
March 25, 2014 @ 3:46 pm
The problem has suddenly gotten much worse in the past year or so, when many “country” acts started adding and going pop and rap, country radio is playing it and Billboard changed their chart rules to help labels promote it. Until then I loved to listen to country radio all day. I don’t want to hear pure pop and rap and expect to hear more great country songs on country radio. Now they are playing pure pop, rap and EDM more than the best country artists and songs, and playing women making the best country less than ever. Ridiculous. Even this year’s CMA Fest has just ONE solo female LP Field main stage/TV show headliner in 20 acts. When was the last time that happened or is this a first? So we’ve got racism, sexism, and country music getting shafted.
https://twitter.com/JasonIsbell/status/433525012973117440
http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-615/5892801/carrie-underwood-women-in-country-music-fairness-kellie-pickler
https://twitter.com/dmarsh1045/status/446773932964601856
https://twitter.com/jadynnbrooke/status/445947766104006657