Record Labels
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Why have so few major new pop stars emerged lately? The music-buying public has thoughts.
For the Aug. 2 Billboard story, “Pop Stars Aren’t Popping Like They Used To — Do Labels Have a Plan?”, reporter Elias Leight spoke with label executives and managers to try to understand the dearth of new superstars, with Olivia Rodrigo and Ice Spice cited as rare examples of new artists to have broken through over the past couple of years. Reasons given for the decline ranged from the practice of signing more artists at labels, to the lessening marketing power of radio, to increased competition for time and attention from video games and social media — with some sources concluding that expectations for mass market appeal should be lowered in today’s more fragmented media landscape.
Due in part to an Aug. 8 tweet by widely-followed pop culture account Pop Base, however, online chatter around the story exploded, with users on X (formerly known as Twitter) and Reddit offering their own opinions on the relative absence of new stars with the mass appeal of Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Harry Styles and Lady Gaga. Here are a few of the most prominent and interesting takes.
It’s All TikTok’s Fault
The most common reason given for the scarcity of new pop stars was TikTok, which was blamed for all but killing traditional artist development.
“They need to stop signing people based off of a couple viral tiktok videos, churning out fast food music and work with real artists with longevity,” wrote @internetmaeve on X. “like Olivia didn’t blow up overnight she was a disney kid?? s– takes time.”
The ephemeral nature of the short-form video platform — a significant change from a radio-dominated business, when songs in rotation on Top 40 stations were inescapable — was cited as a factor by Reddit user @anneoftheisland, weighing in on the r/popheads channel where the article was shared: “TikTok isn’t set up to boost artists, it’s set up to boost individual songs…In the radio era, if a hit broke out, labels had significant sway to get that artist’s second and third songs in front of you … they couldn’t force you to like those songs, but they could force you to listen to them. But that’s a lot harder to do in the streaming/TikTok era. If you hear a song you like on TikTok, there’s a large chance you won’t hear that artist’s second/third singles unless you seek them out yourself.”
On the same Reddit thread, @Interesting-Ad9838 said that artists who break through on TikTok simply don’t have the cross-generational impact as in previous eras, thereby limiting their influence. “The general audience don’t know who these artists are anymore,” they wrote. “If my grandparents know who you are, then you definitely made it.”
Record Labels Are Too Risk-Averse
Another common theme, which ties in with concerns about TikTok, is the complaint that labels are increasingly risk-averse, preferring to sign artists with preexisting fanbases rather than putting the time, energy and money into developing them from the ground up.
“Mind you there are artists on…labels right now probably begging to have full label support and funding for their projects,” said X user @waylojan. “The problem is they’re looking elsewhere instead of bolstering the talent they have.”
“The industry wants quick and fast and isn’t giving, in my opinion, some people who could really do this the right chance,” added Reddit user @moxieroxsox on the r/popheads thread. “It took Rihanna 3 albums before she skyrocketed. Taylor Swift wasn’t taken seriously until what? Speak Now? Red? Ariana did Broadway and TV before she started music and she has the voice of a literal angel. Beyoncé spent years tailoring her sound, not to mention all the years she spent developing her abilities in Destiny’s Child.”
Record Labels Are Doing This On Purpose
Provocatively, a Reddit user (who has a rather provocative handle we won’t name here for reasons of decorum) positioned the pop star drought as something engineered by labels to avoid paying the kind of money they gave superstars like Janet Jackson and Madonna in the old days.
“When you have stars that have a lot of momentum behind their career, and they have a lot of prestige, and they have a large and solid fanbase, they get to demand more from labels,” they wrote. “If you have stars with much shorter careers…and shorter reigns in public interest, you don’t have somebody who can walk into a negotiation, and demand more on their side of the deal with the label.”
Our Attention Is Too Fragmented
Audience fragmentation, precipitated in part by the rise of social media influencers, was also a theme hit upon by several commenters.
“It’s probably hard when everyone can be famous now on TikTok,” said X user @kariwarburgon. “It’s like that one quote from The Incredibles ‘Once everyone is super no one is.’”
With so many platforms to release and consume music now, Reddit user itsyagurlb says public attention has simply become more diffuse — making it more difficult for artists to achieve stratospheric levels of fame.
“As someone else here has mentioned, we no longer have ‘smash’ hits from major pop stars that are inescapable, and so even with the rise of streaming, it’s much easier for people to tune out of today’s ‘hit’ song,” they wrote. “We consume music differently now which also impacts how pervasive a song can be because of how individualized our streaming choices can be. Even in the age of iTunes, hits were more impactful because if you wanted to hear the hot new song, you might pay for it. Now? I can listen to a minute of the song on spotify without any real investment and move on if I dont vibe with it, and there’s been no ‘sale.’”
Added Reddit user @BronzeErupt, citing one of the most powerful promotional vehicles of the late ’90s and early ’00s: “There’s no modern equivalent of TRL where a song can be deliberately played and suddenly everyone knows about it.”
Music Is Boring/Bad Now
Predictably, some social media users slammed the state of modern popular music. “I want to blame TikTok for this, but truthfully I think the root of the problem is how boring, dull and unoriginal modern-pop music sounds like,” said Reddit user TuffyTenToes. “They aren’t popping off because there is nothing to be popping off for. Perhaps I’m doomposting but it truly feels like pop music is in an all time low, creatively speaking.”
“Too many people mistake tik tok earworms for musical talent,” added @LSX3399 on Reddit. “No albums anymore, no concepts, no risks. Over-saturation of mid.”
It’s Taylor Swift’s Fault
Is the real problem…Taylor Swift? According to Reddit user @LifeOfAWimpyKid, the uber-popstar of the 21st century is simply taking up too much space in the conversation for other artists to break through.
“I feel like Taylor Swift has singlehandedly saturated the pop market to the point where the entire industry has become boring as s— and not fun for other artists to participate in,” they wrote. “Taylor is not without merit, but now it’s just Taylor, Taylor, Taylor all the time. Her fans are very vocal and active too and dominate the conversation, and all the other opinions just get drowned out. This was hardly the case a decade ago, when you had multiple acts coexisting at the top, such as Rihanna, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, David Guetta, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Calvin Harris, and Eminem.”
This Is Actually a Good Thing
Breaking from the pack, X user @fromage_enjoyer couched the struggle to mint new pop stars as a positive development, marking a shift from the days when radio and MTV determined what people listened to: “The current generation is winning. We aren’t stuck with whatever big labels want to shove down our throats thanks to the internet. That has them scared since they lose profits, but for the artists and consumers it’s great,” they said, before hastening to add: “Streaming pay outs need to be talked about however.”
The orders are detailed and easily located on X, the app formerly known as Twitter: “We need to tackle Amazon, iTunes and [the French music service] Qobuz expeditiously.” For each platform, instructions describe a strict purchase regimen. “One copy per version with new card/payment method/new email, new IP address.” Anyone hoping to execute this plan properly must plan ahead. “You will need to have multiple new emails, prepaid debit cards like the Cash App card… eGift cards you can buy at different Wifi locations, cafes, gym[s], friends’ and neighbor[‘s] homes.”
Rotating through multiple burner emails, cards and IP addresses — this sounds like the stuff of an elaborate digital scam. In fact, it’s a plan to maximize sales of a recent single (that wasn’t named in the thread). Blueprints like this one, itemized and exacting, are increasingly common on social media and in fan forums, disseminated over the years by fans devoted to BTS, Nicki Minaj, Blackpink, Harry Styles, and more.
Their popularity demonstrates a fundamental shift in the role that charts play in the modern music landscape. Before the advent of social media, “the charts were primarily an industry concern,” says Adam White, who served as the Billboard editor in chief for a time in the 1980s. “And the industry — retailers, record companies, radio stations — were in a position to shape and influence those charts.”
But in recent years, superfans have commandeered efforts to boost their favorite acts’ chart performance. “Fans have become very savvy about how the industry is creating these metrics,” says Michelle Cho, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto who studies fandom and Korean culture. “They will take the time to try to figure out what they need to do to protect their artists from losing some of the visibility that they think their artists deserve.”
That impulse often sets passionate fandoms on a collision course with any music industry body charged with measuring listener activity. In recent months, zealous fans have individually bought a great many digital downloads of the same song — a splurge that actually doesn’t count towards the chart, because there is a limit on the number of purchases from a single consumer that are eligible each week. Still, the strategy in part prompted Billboard to change its chart rules earlier this summer: The rankings now exclude downloads from artists’ web stores, which usually operate with far less limitations than iTunes or Amazon.
Devout listeners also sometimes play their favorite artists’ songs in ways that run afoul of the streaming platforms’ rules. Last summer, for example, an internal SoundCloud email reviewed by Billboard noted that “Bad Decisions,” BTS‘ collaboration with Benny Blanco and Snoop Dogg, was the most popular track in the U.S. that week on the platform. But the same email noted that the song “exhibits suspect play patterns suggestive of abuse.” (SoundCloud declined to comment.)
“The DSPs have to regulate their platforms, cap streams per user, and it creates these battles with the fanbases,” says one former Spotify employee. “Various K-pop fanbases, for example, at most moments hate Spotify, because they think that Spotify is scrubbing too many streams off of the overall stream counts.” (Spotify did not respond to a request for comment. Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, declined to comment.)
Coming up with creative ways to manipulate listening platforms — and the charts they report to — used to be the specialty of record companies. Before 1991, Billboard‘s sales charts were compiled by calling up a panel of retailers and simply asking what titles were selling. “Record labels and distributors routinely used strong-arm tactics and bribery to sway the process in their favor,” The New York Times reported in 2001. Geoff Mayfield, then director of charts at Billboard, told the paper that “one distribution company president complained that some of his employees spent two and a half work days per week trying to influence how stores reported.”
The Soundscan system — now known as Luminate — was implemented in 1991, bringing a new level of rigor to chart-data collection by tracking the bar codes of CD sales. But that didn’t stop labels from attempting to tilt the charts in favor of their acts. “You build a better mousetrap and all of a sudden the mouse starts finding ways to get around your trap,” SoundScan co-founder Michael Shalett said in 1996.
At the time, fervent fans did what they could to impact charts, but their means of doing so were limited. They could buy multiple copies of a CD, though that quickly becomes prohibitively expensive. And for charts like the Billboard Hot 100 that combine sales and airplay, they could try to increase spins by calling into a radio station and requesting a song.
Fans’ leverage over the charts has increased exponentially since then. Social media makes it far easier to mobilize a large number of geographically dispersed fans around a common goal. And now that the charts incorporate streaming, everyone with access to a phone or computer can listen during every waking hour — and set a service to keep playing music when they’re asleep, too. “It enables each individual fan to intervene in different ways,” Michelle Cho explains. “You can use your time.”
Many modern fandoms are now doggedly fixated on — and vocally competitive about — commercial statistics. K-pop fans appear especially effective at organizing around achieving specific chart goals. “When K-pop came in, it was like nothing that any chart-juicing machine had ever done before,” according to the former Spotify employee. “Just on a completely different scale and level.”
Bernie Cho, president of DFSB Kollective, a Seoul-based artist and label services agency, says that, “for many K-pop acts, measuring ‘success’ has become a straight up numbers game.” He compares the “massive mobilization of top tier K-pop fan-clubs” to “the impressive precision of an elite military operation.”
This mobilization process can also resemble a music-industry version of the political action committees (PACs) that draw scrutiny in the U.S. every election year. Fans often raise money online to buy extra copies of albums or singles and then disburse the cash among other fans to make those purchases, usually with the explicitly stated goal of pushing a release up the chart. These groups routinely tweet that they have amassed pools of tens of thousands of dollars at a time.
There’s no way to tell where the funds originate, even when @JiminFunds tweets “we received [an] $18,420 generous donation from Chinese fans.” While there are rules dictating where PACs are allowed to raise cash, there are none governing the use of internationally-raised money for purchases impacting U.S. music charts. Still, using funds from abroad to signal demand domestically makes it hard to accurately judge the popularity of a given track Stateside.
It’s difficult to quantify the effect that the fundraising and donations have on a single’s chart position. However, it’s notable that when artists with passionate, organized fanbases debut high on the chart, they often do so on the strength of download counts that are wildly above the industry average.
While the Hot 100 takes into account downloads, streams, and airplay, downloads have not been the dominant driver of singles’ success since 2014. During the first half of 2023, the average Hot 100 entry owed less than 4% of its chart points to downloads. Nicki Minaj‘s recent top 10 hits, in contrast, generated between 25% and 41% of their chart points from downloads. Beyoncé and Britney Spears have also managed to reach download percentages comparable to Minaj’s within the last year on a release apiece.
These efforts pale when compared to top 10 debuts from K-pop, which routinely rely on downloads to account for more than 50% of chart points. Earlier this year, Jimin drew close to 80% of the chart points for “Like Crazy” from downloads. (In 2021, RM from BTS said that “if there is a conversation inside Billboard about what being No. 1 should represent, then it’s up to them to change the rules and make streaming weigh more on the ranking.”) No one has topped Jimin’s mark in recent history on a top 10 debut, though Jason Aldean came close, earning 76% of his chart points from downloads the week he debuted at No. 2 with the controversial “Try That in a Small Town.”
The music industry’s future appears increasingly wrapped up in those listeners who also happen to be big spenders. The growth of streaming is slowing. Superfans, however, shell out “80% more money on music each month than the average U.S. music listener,” according to Luminate’s recent mid-year report. A recent email from the company cited that 80% statistic again, adding that it “provides excellent opportunities for merch upsell to this valuable group.”
Labels have taken note. Earlier this year, prominent executives — including Michael Nash, Universal Music Group’s executive vp of digital strategy, and Robert Kyncl, Warner Music Group’s CEO — said that they hope a new streaming model will offer more ways to harness superfans’ spending power. In May, for example, Kyncl told analysts that he had assembled a team to focus on four initiatives, one of which was “evolving our products to better monetize the artist and songwriter superfan relationship.”
“It’s one thing to get into certain artists because you like their style,” Michelle Cho says. “It’s another where you feel a responsibility to caretake — your efforts are an act of reciprocal support. That idea, even if in some cases it’s illusory, is a really potent one for motivating more investment, engagement, and commitment on the part of fans.”
This can work out well for labels, especially if they can come up with new ways for fans to signal their allegiance that align with chart rules. It’s common now to see artists release multiple alternative versions of a song — often halfway through a week when they’re looking for a sales boost down the final stretch. A more extreme version of this takes place on the Billboard 200 albums chart, where artists are boosting their performance — and revenue — by releasing numerous variants of elaborate packages designed to encourage multiple purchases.
K-pop leads the way here, though other artists are quickly catching up. Take the group NewJeans, who recently debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 2nd EP ‘Get Up’. There are more iterations of the Get Up CD — 14, with different packaging individualized to different group members and randomized branded merchandise inside — than there are minutes of music on the disc, which runs 12:13. Fans who feel the urge to “caretake” will happily scoop up multiple copies, stimulating sales.
These developments mean that labels no longer have to spend half of every week trying to influence the charts, as they did in the old days. They just have to give the most hardcore fans more ways to spend money — money that might not even be theirs.
Warner Music’s affiliates in Canada and India are teaming up for 91 NORTH RECORDS, a joint venture with the aim of identifying and launching artists of South Asian heritage.
Said to be a first-of-its-kind JV, the new entity is guided by celebrated artist and producer Ikwinder “Ikky” Singh, who has chalked up more than two billion combined streams with such songs as Shubh’s “Baller”, Diljit Dosanjh’s “Chauffeur” and Sidhu Moose Wala’s “Bambiha Bole”.
Ikky, who launched his own label, 4N Records, in partnership with Warner Music and Coalition Music in 2021, serves as creative director for 91 NORTH RECORDS.
The venture launches to the public today (Aug. 23) with its first signings, Canadian-based Punjabi artists Karan Aujla and Jonita Gandhi, both of whom work closely with Ikky and A&R director Charlie B.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the blending of Indian and Western sounds into culturally impactful, innovative music,” Ikky comments in a statement. The new business “exists to elevate artists pursuing this fusion. Punjabi and South Asian music already competes worldwide, and I’m thrilled to collaborate with emerging talents, showcasing and amplifying what they have to offer. This is no experiment; it’s the future.”
91 NORTH RECORDS was presented Tuesday with a special event at Warner Music Canada’s offices in Toronto. Its name is a reference to India’s country code and Canada’s geographical location, and the logo is inspired by India’s national flower — the lotus.
“There is an incredible new generation of talent rising, influenced by their South Asian heritage, and we want to make sure these artists are represented both here and around the world,” comments Kristen Burke, president, Warner Music Canada. The label “allows artists to be truly authentic, and our global network gives us the opportunity to showcase their culture on a global stage.”
Adds Jay Mehta, managing director, Warner Music India: “This is certainly going to be a gamechanger initiative for artists who will now have global support from A&R, marketing, collaborations and more.”
Canada is home to almost 2.6 million people of South Asian heritage. Those expats have a “strong musical connection” with the subcontinent, reads a joint statement from Warner Music Canada and Warner Music India.
Punjabi-Canadian acts accounted for three of the top 10 tracks in India last year, according to data supplied by IFPI.
Producer and songwriter Gaby Music has signed a record deal with Universal Music Latino. Born Juan Rivera, the Puerto Rican hitmaker has produced and penned hits for an array of artists including Don Omar, Daddy Yankee, Rosalía, Bad Bunny and Ozuna, among many others. His partnership with Universal Music Latino marks his first record deal […]
Universal Music Group announced on Monday (Aug. 21) a partnership with YouTube to create a set of principles and best practices around the use of artificial intelligence within the music community, as well as a Music AI Incubator bringing together several UMG artists and producers to help study the effect of the technology, including Anitta, Juanes, Yo Gotti, Louis Bell, ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus, Ryan Tedder and the estate of Frank Sinatra, among others.
In announcing the new incubator and the three principles — which boil down to embracing the new technological possibilities while protecting creators and establishing content and safety policies — UMG chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge penned an op-ed for YouTube’s blog, in which he acknowledged both the possibilities and the potential dangers of AI.
“Given this tension, our challenge and opportunity as an industry is to establish effective tools, incentives and rewards – as well as rules of the road – that enable us to limit AI’s potential downside while promoting its promising upside,” Grainge writes. “If we strike the right balance, I believe AI will amplify human imagination and enrich musical creativity in extraordinary new ways.”
In reference to the collaboration with YouTube, Grainge points to the video streamer’s development of its ContentID system, which helps screen user-generated content uploaded to the service for copyrighted works, and helps get creators (and copyright owners, such as UMG) paid for their use on the platform. That type of collaboration between DSP and music companies is foundational to the work YouTube and UMG are beginning with respect to AI, Grainge says.
“The truth is, great entertainment doesn’t just reach audiences on its own,” he writes. “It also requires the global infrastructure, new business models, scaled distribution, innovative partnerships and effective safeguards that enable talented artists to create with freedom and receive fair compensation. … Today, our partnership is building on that foundation with a shared commitment to lead responsibly, as outlined in YouTube’s AI principles, where Artificial Intelligence is built to empower human creativity, and not the other way around. AI will never replace human creativity because it will always lack the essential spark that drives the most talented artists to do their best work, which is intention. From Mozart to The Beatles to Taylor Swift, genius is never random.”
Read his full op-ed here.
PULSE Records has formed a joint venture through Brent Faiyaz’s newly established creative agency ISO Supremacy, with Virginia artist Tommy Richman as the first signee, it was announced Monday (Aug. 21). Richman currently serves as the opener for Faiyaz’s F-ck the World, It’s a Wasteland Tour and has caught traction with his songs “BUNKER / PREROLL” and […]
YouTube announced a new initiative with artists and producers from Universal Music Group on Monday (August 21): An “AI Music Incubator” that will include input from Anitta, Juanes, Ryan Tedder, Björn Ulvaeus from Abba, Rodney Jerkins, d4vd, Max Richter, and the estate of Frank Sinatra, among others.
“This group will explore, experiment and offer feedback on the AI-related musical tools and products they are researching,” Universal CEO Lucian Grainge wrote in a blog post. “Once these tools are launched, the hope is that more artists who want to participate will benefit from and enjoy this creative suite.”
Grainge added that “our challenge and opportunity as an industry is to establish effective tools, incentives and rewards — as well as rules of the road — that enable us to limit AI’s potential downside while promoting its promising upside.”
In a statement, Ulvaeus said that “while some may find my decision controversial, I’ve joined this group with an open mind and purely out of curiosity about how an AI model works and what it could be capable of in a creative process. I believe that the more I understand, the better equipped I’ll be to advocate for and to help protect the rights of my fellow human creators.”
Juanes noted in a statement of his own that “artists must play a central role in helping to shape the future of this technology” so “that it is used respectfully and ethically in ways that amplify human musical expression for generations to come.”
This sentiment was echoed by Richter: “Unless artists are part of this process, there is no way to ensure that our interests will be taken into account,” the composer said in a statement. “We have to be in this conversation, or our voices won’t be heard.”
Neal Mohan, YouTube’s CEO, also published the company’s “AI music principles” on Monday. The company promised to “embrace” AI “responsibly together with our music partners” and noted that any AI initiatives “must include appropriate protections and unlock opportunities for music partners who decide to participate.”
YouTube’s “AI music principles” as posted:
AI is here, and we will embrace it responsibly together with our music partners.
AI is ushering in a new age of creative expression, but it must include appropriate protections and unlock opportunities for music partners who decide to participate.
We’ve built an industry-leading trust and safety organization and content policies. We will scale those to meet the challenges of AI.
Jim Guerinot, former general manager of A&M Records, who later managed Nine Inch Nails, No Doubt, Social Distortion and other bands, worked for A&M co-founder Jerry Moss, who died Wednesday (Aug. 16) at 88, and its president, the late Gil Friesen, for years in the 1980s and 1990s. The retired music executive saluted his former boss in a phone interview.
“We had an artist who was getting to release an album and had a capable manger. I put the whole plan together. When I ran the numbers, I saw that we were going to lose money. I said, ‘I’m not going to get hung,’ so I went to Jerry: ‘Here’s the plan, the manager has signed off.’ He goes, ‘Well, good, what’s your concern?’ I go, ‘Well, we’re going to lose money because the artist will not sell records to make that happen.’ I said, ‘Can I ask you a question? Why would we put this record out?’ He goes, ‘Well, that’s easy. Because it’s an A&M artist.’ It was very much like, ‘The ‘M’ is me, pal. If I want to, I do it.’
And that’s how he slept at night and that’s how he and [Herb Alpert, label co-founder] slept at night.
From time to time when I arrived at work at A&M, I’d pass the main guys’ doors: Herb might be painting, and would invite you in to see what he’s up to to; Gil Friesen, the label president, inevitably would push a book on me and expect a report within days; and Moss wanted to play a few hands of gin. Generally speaking, if you and I play gin, I’m going to beat you. I have friends who played in the World Series of Poker and I win at least half the time. I not only never beat [Moss] at gin, I never even won one hand. It was depressing.
This guy had a vision for the business that was beyond what normal people would see. He walked into a room and saw things we didn’t see. He walked into situations and businesses and saw things we didn’t see.
He knew everybody, for starters. Like, literally, everybody.
Where somebody might see an artist, he would see a network of what that artist represented, and relationships and history. It was just much, much deeper. What he saw wasn’t what I saw. He read people differently. He read people very, very well. He knew people who were going to be honorable and who would not be.”
Artists have long complained that streaming pays poverty wages — fractions of a cent per stream — and increases the difficulty of sustaining a recording career through a slow trickle of royalties. Some conservative-leaning artists are proving to be an exception to the rule with fans who still buy downloads at a time when streaming dominates music consumption.
Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” became a surprise hit — and could reach No. 1 on the Hot 100 — thanks to a confluence of two factors: As we’ve seen with several other songs recently, when a song gets caught up in — or leans into — the American culture wars, conservatives often buy downloads. “Rich Men North of Richmond” was an instant success: From Aug. 10 — the day with the first sales and audio streaming activity — to Aug. 15, daily U.S. streams went from zero to nearly 700,000 in just two days, according to Luminate, while daily U.S. downloads went from zero to more than 20,000 in each of the next four days. To put that in context, in a typical week the top track on the Hot 100 might sell 15,000 downloads.
In the seven-day period ended Aug. 15, “Rich Men North of Richmond” had 11.2 million on-demand audio streams that earned him roughly $40,000, Billboard estimates. But the track amassed an impressive 117,000 track downloads that netted Anthony about $81,000 — or 65% of the royalties earned from U.S. sales and streams. And because the track is distributed by DistroKid, which charges a flat fee for distribution, and owned by Anthony, he pockets the entire amount. Although the YouTube video hosted by radiowv has 21.6 million views, Luminate shows no video streams for the recording and Billboard does not know if Anthony is earning royalties from YouTube.
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Such high download sales make “Rich Men North of Richmond” an outlier in popular music. More often than not, a No. 1 track on the Hot 100 gets most of its revenue from streaming. Download sales have fallen precipitously in recent years and accounted for just 1.1% of U.S. track equivalent albums year to date, according to Luminate. On the most recent Hot 100, for the week of Aug. 19, Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping “Last Night” generated about 80% of its revenue from 20.8 million on-demand audio streams compared to just 5% from 5,000 track downloads. When Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” topped the chart for a week in July, 81% of its revenue came from 31.3 million on-demand audio streams compared to 6% from 9,000 track downloads.
Some people have speculated that the song’s instant success must be the result of astroturfing — the use of fake grass-roots campaigns to gain public awareness. The themes in “Rich Men North of Richmond” — it criticizes both tax-hungry politicians and poor welfare recipients — struck a chord amongst conservatives and almost overnight became a favorite of rightwing politicians, pundits and instigators such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Walsh and Kari Lake. While there’s no clear evidence of such a campaign at the moment, the track’s rise was quick even by the standards of today’s internet viral hits.
What’s clearer, though, is that “Rich Men North of Richmond” has a lot in common with K-pop tracks that soar to the top of the Hot 100 because fans buy downloads with the express purpose of getting the artist a good chart position. When Jimin’s “Like Crazy” topped the Hot 100 for a week in April, 241,000 track downloads accounted for 85% of its revenue. When his BTS bandmate Jung Kook hit No.1 with “Seven” in July, 59% of its revenue came from 138,000 downloads.
Conservative music fans act like K-pop fans when it comes to supporting a song. Track purchases helped Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” reach No. 1 on the Hot 100. In the week of Aug. 5, when the track sat atop the chart, 175,000 downloads accounted for 56% of revenue generated from streams and sales, according to Billboard’s estimate. Two weeks ago, “American Flags,” a patriotic song by rapper Tom MacDonald, sold 18,000 track downloads in the week — second only to “Try That in a Small Town” that week. The following week, the No. 11 most downloaded song was “Go Woke Go Broke” by Jokes on Woke, a country song that attacks recent villains in conservative culture such as Bud Light, CMT, Disney, Ford, Adidas and Barbie.
It’s not necessarily just fans voting with their money, though. The shopping habits of conservative-leaning music fans can help explain why Oliver, Aldean and the others have sold so many downloads. Notably, the country music market — which tends to lean conservative — was slower to adopt streaming (however, it has recently been catching up) and sees a higher-than-average level of purchases. Country music accounted for 35% of the top 100 track downloads in the week ended Aug. 10 — and six of the top 10 — while Christian/gospel accounted for 3%. Both genres have less representation on the Hot 100, which also incorporates streaming and radio spins. Country accounted for just 21% of the tracks on the current Hot 100 chart, while Christian/gospel was absent from the chart.
Whether it’s K-pop or country, songs typically can’t count on download sales alone to provide longevity on the charts. “Try That in a Small Town” sales fell 85% in a week, dropping the track from No. 1 to No. 21 on the Hot 100 in the week dated Aug. 12. Similarly, “Like Crazy” fell from No. 1 to No. 45 the week after its peak. As the culture wars quickly move onto the next issue, the lasting endurance of “Rich Men North of Richmond” depends on how many real fans Anthony has made in this time.
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Struggle rappers are now on high alert. Ebro says record labels are now deprioritizing signing rappers in favor of other genres.
As spotted on HipHoDX the media personality is back in the headlines for a reveal he made on social media. On Thursday, August 17 the on air personality shared a very interesting post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I got a call saying …. ‘It should be noted many major record labels have deprioritized signing Rappers,’” he wrote. “The focus is now African Music & Latin Music Rappers better stop being boring and talking about the same sh*t over and over, chasing TikTok success and comment sections.”
Naturally caused a stir amongst his peers, Rap fans, industry executives and more. Some where quick to point out that he and other radio jocks are partly to blame. “waiting on when you and other hiphop media will take responsibility for your role in its decline. Artists are not the only ones at fault. you “gatekeepers” opened the flood gates for social media personalities to pollute it. Artists that tried to speak out got labelled as bitter.” one use wrote.
While another was even more direct about his employer’s culpability. “So is Hot 97 about to rebrand with tag line Blazing Afro Beats & Latin Music? It don’t sound as smooth as Blazing Hip Hop & R&B”. In recent weeks Ebro has been very vocal on his criticism about the new generation of talent; specifically on rappers who failed to acknowledge Hip-Hop’s 50th anniversary. “Making all this $$$ because of HipHop and artists can’t even post a ‘Thank You’….,” he said. You can see him discuss Hip-Hop 50 celebrations below at the 17:50 minute mark.
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