Biggest Crimes in Music

[K.]

What in your opinion are the greatest crimes in music? E.g., Lauryn Hill going crazy? Some song not being released as a single? Some single flopping?

[think pink.]

Billboard changing their ruling the last minute and dethroning Blackout from it's rightful #1 spot.

[Deleted]

LOL I understood it literally, and so I thought about Richard Marx's "Hazard".

Who the hell killed Mary??????????

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I think the Mariah/Destiny's Child scandal for discounting singles to reach #1 was tacky.
Another crime is that Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" only reached #42 on the Hot 100 because of the changing of rules.
"I'm Your Angel" is never credited as a big Hot 100 jump to number one, nor it is given credit as a #1 debut.
The Milli Vanilli scandal was not really fair because they took all the blame, and several other artists were using models to lipsynch and were still riding high up the charts. Also, their Grammy was taken away, so it should have been given to the runner-up, and they didn't.

[K.]

The blacklisting of the Dixie Chicks

[when the pawn...]

The absolutely ridiculous late-career/meaningless Album of the Year wins during the 2000s - Steely Dan over Eminem & Radiohead, O Brother Where Art Thou over Outkast, Ray Charles over Green Day & Kanye West, Herbie Hancock over Amy Winehouse, Robert Plant/Alison Krauss over Radiohead & Lil Wayne.

[Lahey's Lucky Star]

Conor Maynard not taking off here like he should.

Sandy Hook killing the Warrior era and then Kesha got a hit with "Timber" and that's why people say Pitbull saves careers

[Deleted]

Billboard's chart ruling in the 90's, not allowing Airplay only songs to chart, and ruining the Hot 100 with that, giving the notion that people were only listening to rap and R&B for the most part during that decade, and song reaching #1 on the Hot 100 not meaning anything.

[Deleted]

Billboard allowing "We Are Never Ever..." to chart as a Country song & thus breaking records in that genre

"Cruise"

Blacklisting of the Dixie Chicks

Bro Country

[HolidayGuy]

The Grammys in general would be guilty of a lot of music "crimes" over the years, if the intent was to honor the best (or perceived as the best) in music.

[Relaxing Cup]

blacklisting of Janet Jackson

Phylis running over Cricket and them never mentioning it ever again

[maine]

Lorde winning rock categories...

[Green Baron]

AFI's 17 Crimes.

[Deleted]

This, This, and This occurring. The other one is that R&B records not selling.

[Lahey's Lucky Star]

"Sail".

[H.]

Katy Perry and Iggy Azalea.

[sabre14]

Tim McGraw's Let It Go album era.

Perpetrated by Mike Curb. 

The End.

[MiniMusic]

Michael Jackson's albums after "Bad" being labelled as disappointing or flop. [Dangerous sold 30 million copies, HIStory 25 million & the quality of music slayed]

"Invincible" being labelled as one of the worst albums of all time and biggest flop ever. [Great album & sold 8 million copies with one single]

[Deleted]

"Chinese Democracy" being labeled a flop/horrible album...99% of the people who say that probably haven't heard a single song from it

The breakup of The Civil Wars

Carrie Underwood not nabbing an Entertainer nomination because she's a female

[halo19]

Crunkcore ever existing
Most snap hits

[Glove Slap]

Always.

[Green Baron]

Sept 21, 2014 18:47:04 GMT -5 Glove Slap said:

Always.

oh god don't remind me

[Disco🌶️📖]

• I didn't like how the Hot 100 excluded singles that had no commercially released physical 12", CD, or cassette single. It's weird looking back at the charts and seeing massive hits like "Don't Speak", "Head Over Feet", "To Love You More", and "Torn" never chart, or the latter charting only when the rules were changed to allow radio only tracks. It was hilarious how labels then released 12" singles for their singles that were really hard to obtain but allowed the singles to chart without that rule regarding a certain minimum placing on the airplay chart. That still allowed them to be radio only and sell the albums.
• In the same vein as the previous one, the lack of a physical single prevented some singles from charting higher than they did after the Hot 100 rules allowed radio only ones.
• Amy Winehouse being unable to overcome her addictions and personal demons leading to her tragic, early death.
• The whole Black Box, C+C Music Factory, and Seduction episodes using Katrin Quinol, Zelma Davis, and the other girls lip syncing Martha Wash's vocals in the music videos and not crediting Martha for the vocals. (Robert Clivilles, one half of C+C Music Factory claims that the C+C Music Factory and Seduction mess was caused more by the label versus a shady attempt to pass off Martha's vocals as someone else's because she didn't fit the typical mold of a popstar).
• The death of Disco music and the subsequent backlash permanently making it harder for Dance music to get any type of long-term acceptance in the U.S.
• The way Warner Bros. handled Alanis Morissette, Madonna and Prince's careers. It was ridiculous how they would do everything right initially then everything fell apart later on.
• How Toni Braxton was treated at all her record labels.
• Everything surrounding JoJo's promising career and then being held hostage by a label that wouldn't do anything for her.

Sept 21, 2014 11:42:06 GMT -5 MiniMusic said:

Michael Jackson's albums after "Bad" being labelled as disappointing or flop. [Dangerous sold 30 million copies, HIStory 25 million & the quality of music slayed]

"Invincible" being labelled as one of the worst albums of all time and biggest flop ever. [Great album & sold 8 million copies with one single]

After the massive success of Thriller, anything short of that level of success would be called a "flop" within that context, but 30, 25, and 8 million copies is nothing to sneeze at (it makes me crazy that such albums were seen as disappointing despite them all being representative of the ups and downs of his life at that time and they had some incredible singles, album tracks, and iconic music videos).

[die Lotterie]

The cancelled Born This Way Ball tour dates resulting from Lady Gaga's tour dates. I lost a part of me not being able to witness one of my all time favorite songs Scheiße live and missing out on the epic choreography.

[halo19]

Oh yeah @ Hot 100. Then by the time airplay only was allowed, singles were coming far and few between and virtually anything got enhanced in peak greatly because of a CD single.
That includes many American Idol songs we didn't hear much or care about.
The thing is that otherwise they got things right with the chart by like 2005 when digital singles were part of sales.

[ant]

Mutt Lange cheating on Shania Twain, ending their marriage and musical partnership.

Carrie's label not sending/promoting any of her songs to pop radio.

[Deleted]

The fact that half Ciara's discography could have been HUGE chr/pop smashes (i.e. Overdose, Turntables, etc) but have always gone unreleased.

Leona Lewis never releasing 'Glassheart' as a US single

Tyra Banks not having any success with 'Shake Ya Body'

Armney continuing to prevail over Danceney since the breakdown

[allow that]

The blacklisting of Janet Jackson by radio, media, and government figures after Nipplegate, negating her three decades of contributions to music and philanthropy, all while letting the perpetrator Justin Timberlake off the hook completely.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Definitely agree with the Hot 100 example Disco🌶️📖. They really dropped the ball with that, waiting literally years to decide to change things up to reflect the changing times and manipulative record labels.

Regarding the C+C Music Factory thing. Isn't that somewhat of a common thing among dance acts from around that time? I was reading about Real McCoy a few weeks back and how they had a third member added in for the album and videos and stuff but the vocals were actually just one of the women. I often wondered why Casey referred to them as a duo on Casey's Top 40 yet the CD clearly mentioned them as having three members. Their next album in 1997 was as a trio, however one of the girls left and another member was added in.

The Alanis thing is definitely mindboggling as well (you gave good examples!) Unsent, as much as I love the song now, was such a headscratcher as a second single and I think probably played a big role in Alanis' presence at radio than any other factor at that point. The third album's singles were right (Hands Clean and Precious Illusions) but by that point, it was too late. Then having Everything as the lead single from So Called Chaos? No.

Regarding Jojo - any example of a record label holding an artist hostage, unable to release anything is criminal (re: Michelle Branch, Amanda Marshall). I don't know the politics behind it but it seems like such a douchey thing to do yet it's quite common. I can understand artists have contracts and record labels have certain expectations that must be met but at some point, something's gotta give. I'd be curious to know more about those instances and the background of them from the label's perspective if there's any written material out there about it.

[Disco🌶️📖]

Sept 21, 2014 22:55:10 GMT -5 Devil Marlena Nylund said:

Regarding the C+C Music Factory thing. Isn't that somewhat of a common thing among dance acts from around that time? I was reading about Real McCoy a few weeks back and how they had a third member added in for the album and videos and stuff but the vocals were actually just one of the women. I often wondered why Casey referred to them as a duo on Casey's Top 40 yet the CD clearly mentioned them as having three members. Their next album in 1997 was as a trio, however one of the girls left and another member was added in.

It did happen more often than it should have, but this was one where lawsuits were filed by Martha Wash. Black Box had also tried the same mess when they sampled from Loleatta Holloway's "Love Sensation" to make their first hit "Ride On Time". Sampling was nothing new. But they were passing off the sampled parts as a recording by their model Katrine. This also resulted in a lawsuit, and the vocals had to be re-recorded by another vocalist, this time it was Heather Small who went on to sing for the group M People. Marky Mark (actor Mark Wahlberg had a brief recording career as a rapper) had a hit with "Good Vibrations" which also sampled the Loleatta song, but him and his label credited her, and they put her in the music video, and she joined him for some live performances. Around that same time, SNAP! (Of "The Power" and "Rhythim Is A Dancer" fame) sampled some vocals from a Jocelyn Brown song for "The Power" and it was only recently that the lawsuit was heard.

Real McCoy had numerous vocalist and member changes. Alice Deejay, another short lived dance act had two different girls record the backing vocals for the album, with the actual lead vocalist who was the face of the group staying the same. The other two members who were on stage and in the videos never sang on the album. Those two singing girls were credited in the album's notes.

Acts like Corona, Playahitty, and JX all used the same vocalist and had three different women miming to that singer's vocals for videos and live performances. In that case, the singer didn't want to be all that famous so she was okay with letting other girls mime to her vocals. Only recently did she start to allow her own name to be used.

[Disco🌶️📖]

Some more.

• Record labels being too slow to adapt to the new digital music market when iTunes opened their store. Also, there was Billboard not modifying and adapting their chart formats to include digital single sales which may have propped up and helped many singles.
• Radio becoming so corporatized that most formats have become homogenized and generic and serve more as advertising platforms with some music that is a coincidental element of the platform.
• Bro-country happening and thriving.
• The Country/Rap crossover remixes.
• The double standard about male artists being praised and elevated for sexual songs but female artists are shamed and vilified.