The Urbanization of the Billboard Top Album and Singles Charts: How SoundScan Changed the Game

Abstract

IntroductionIt's been said anonymously, and repeated in many industry circles, music business is a game where you can't make a living, only a killing. The key is to try to have as many (successes) in a row as you can. Following that line of thinking, the reading, studying, and analyzing of Billboard magazine's weekly charts is a practice many music professionals engage in to make decisions on behalf of their companies, artists, clients, or associates in an attempt to create as many successive killings as possible. Every game has rules and regulations that have to be complied with in order for contestants to be successful. In addition to the rules, certain practices, procedures, and methods make the process of playing and chances of winning greater. Occasionally, certain rules, practices, and protocols undergo severe adjustments that may create controversy and redirect the course of the game. This article is written to both document and examine an adjustment in Billboard chart-ranking methodology that changed not only the genre make-up of the charts, but also influenced several elements of a burgeoning music industry during its peak period, the 1990s, and beyond.Billboard, the leading and sole surviving weekly music publication,1 has ranked music since 1942 under various designations including Race Records, Harlem Hit Parade, R&B, Soul, and music charts.2 In 1948, Billboard's chart manager, Jerry Wexler, coined the term Rhythm and Blues (R&B) to identify music that was marketed primarily to consumers and played on stations targeting listeners. Since that time, R&B music has had a significant impact on the popular music scene. Soultracks.com's Chris Rizak says:While its influence had been silently profound during most of the 20th century, in the 1960s music firmly established itself as the music of a nation. Motown called itself of Young America, and popular secular music derived from Gospel and Blues roots became the dominant creative and cultural driver-a role it would maintain for the next several decades.3Motown's promulgation of the Sound of Young America did accelerate the popularity of music among the general market audience. The influence of R&B/Soul music continues to this day with the recent rise of an Electronic Dance (EDM) genre that was born out of the musical stylings of the R&B/Disco music of the 1970s.Urban music initially was a term used to reference a musical genre of the 1980s and 90s defined by recordings by Rhythm and Blues or Soul artists with broad crossover appeal. contemporary began as an American format designed to appeal to advertisers who felt that black radio would not reach a wide enough audience.4 Rap/Hip-Hop music, also an urban art form, originated in the boroughs of New York City in the latter 1970s and 80s. As Rap/Hip-Hop music (an extension of R&B/Soul) grew during the last two decades of the twentieth century, the term Urban Music was employed to identify the aggregate genres.Billboard s change of methodology in determining Top Album and Hot 100 Singles chart rankings to include the use of actual point-of-sale information from SoundScan in 1991 led to a significant increase in the sales, amount, and frequency of music being programmed on Top 40 in the latter 90s and extending into the new millennium. It also gave rise to other significant changes in the music business in general that are worth noting.History of Billboard's Top Album and Singles ChartsOn March 24, 1956 Billboard inaugurated a weekly Best Selling Popular Albums chart in response to the explosion in sales of R&B influenced Rock & Roll music. Prior to that time, R&B music was relegated to only R&B charts that marginalized the significance of its actual market appeal. Ironically, the chart's first number-one album was Belafonte by Harry Belafonte. …