Quote:
Originally posted by Rico Shameless v2
Race is an attribute but NOT that much. It's simplistic.
People like Madonna & Britney won't get played on Urban because they are White Pop female artists. Music has a play in it as well as white artists like Fergie or Justin create Rhythmic-leaning music that gets them higher on those radio charts. But that's still not fair since artists should be able to make the music they want and get the same advantage as other music. This goes for Alternative/rock/AC bands and artists who can't get all this bigger play either, further showing the music is also a major factor.
Then you have black artists have a radio advantage because they are automatically welcomed on Urban or Rhythmic. But that's the problem at times because the music can be clearly something but still get a lot of play because of the artist being black. Beyonce is the biggest example. She can make the poppiest song and it will get the excess format play because she's black. Madonna, Shakira, or Britney can record the exact same song and be stuck on Pop.
Then there is radio DJ's personal vendettas. Some won't play artists for whatever reason. Personal life, age, etc. And the problem with this is the song can be doing great elsewhere and it will still get ignored.
That's why I think digital should be a larger part of the charts. It shows a general outlook of what's popular. Radio is so controlling and has so many holes that it shouldn't have as much power as it does. Digital is the altogether advantage for everyone. That's why you see international charts with lots of diversity in their regions because sales is an important part in their charts.
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i understand what your saying but your leaving out some other important facors, one being the issue of PERCEPTION.....Britney and Madonna are not shunned at urban/rythmic radio for being white women who do pop music, rather they are ignored becaused it's just assumed that their music does not appeal to that particular audience since when they became HUGE they were known for doing very straightfoward PURE pop....as a result, people will always put them in that one single category, despite a drastic change sonically.........
Another prominent factor is "PRODUCTION"..... traditional pop records become more accepted with the urban/rythmic audience if they have a "hard hitting" sound to them... or prominent base (think gaga and red-one collabo's)
Another facor that is never mentioned is the "TONE" of the singers "VOICE" .... traditionally pop favors high pitched voices which urban does not... it's just a taste differential in what the audiences find appealing.
so in essence it's not just race.........and anybody black/white/other who honestly believes race is the sole factor for this "phenomenon" is just being lazy and thinking in the most simplisitc way immaginable. And clear examples of people who prove my points are those already mentioned above like fergie, nelly furtado,x-tina, and justin timberlake, and most recently Lady Gaga...all of which are pop artists but through a combination of factors have a very obvious urban "appeal"......
lastly, i will admit that Rihanna is probably the ONLY case in which a "black" artist receive's major support from urban radio while having a distinct POP sound.....Beyonce IS NOT treated in the same way because BEYONCE STATRED HER CAREER IN R&B MUSIC........ so in a sense she's continually evolved into a pop artist but has been able to maintain the support of the urban musical community.... a fair comparison would be if Britney were to slowly eveolve into an r&B/POP artist she would ALWAYS retain the support of pop radio.....
but the difference is that it's much easier to crossover to pop radio as an established artist of ANY other genre...... with urban, you need to be r&b/hip-hop from the start (eception - rihanna,)otherwise your chances are minimal. anyways, it's much more complicated than simply being a color issue....lets not take the easy, uninspired, and illogical method of deducing every one of these factors as a result of where an artist skin tone lies on the color wheel