Billboard Hot 100: 4/28/2018

[velaxti]

Apr 24, 2018 5:55:30 GMT -5 jebsib said:

Regarding the biggest shifts in eras, it's funny - you rarely see the shift in the beginning. It's generally only clear with the hindsight of a few years.
(It is not as obvious as a "Hey! The Beatles are here! Hey! Disco 'died' last month!")

I wonder when this current shift started… When the EDM sound started dying and the Katy / Gaga coalition stumbled in 2014…?

Mid-way through 2012. I actually did notice it at the time. And was very happy about it because it was becoming infuriating.

You could tell from the performance of:

Rihanna - Where Have You Been
Nicki Minaj - Pound The Alarm
Chris Brown - Don't Wake Me Up
Ne-Yo - Let Me Love You

All of these songs were massive under-performances. Lots of people thought Where Have You Been and Pound The Alarm in particular were likely #1s, and they got nowhere near. Infact, they're almost the same as We Found Love and Starships and did nowhere near as well. And the Chris Brown and Ne-Yo songs under-performing as well, when they would've been massive if released a couple of years before.

Remember that songs like Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz used to be able to get to #1 lol. If it was released in the 2nd half of 2012 or onwards, it wouldn't have been a hit.

At the start of the trend, the opposite happened. The songs used to always massively over-perform. A tiny bit of airplay and they would ALWAYS go shooting up iTunes. As a rule, with electronic dance songs, they would ALWAYS perform much better on iTunes than on radio, even back in 2004 to be honest, but all the way to about 2011. Then for about a year they performed roughly equally on iTunes compared to their radio performance, and in mid-2012 was the 1st time we saw electronic dance-pop songs start to under-perform on iTunes compared to their radio airplay. And it didn't happen to just one song, it happened to basically all of them from then on. I used to joke that Starships and Sexy And I Know It killed off dance music lol.

Nowadays the "EDM" hits are mid-tempo pop ballads like Roses, Something Just Like This and The Middle lol. They would simply be called pop songs if the artists on them weren't DJs, so I don't count that part of the dance trend with synth-heavy, upbeat, 120+ BPM, 4/4 kick drum beat songs like The Way I Are, I Gotta Feeling, Dynamite, Sexy Chick, We Found Love, Disturbia, Starships, Firework, Tik Tok etc.

By the way, the trend didn't END in mid-2012, it started dying then, which is what you asked for. I feel like someone is going to point out that Gangnam Style, Clarity, Scream & Shout or The Fox were hits afterwards as if that disproves my points. Or Summertime Sadness even though it was getting about half of its sales and some streams from the original version, and wouldn't have gone top 10 if only the dance version existed.

Anyway, it's about the trend. 5 EDM hits in 2014 vs. 30 EDM hits in 2011. If people think listing 2 or 3 dance songs that were hits in 2015 or something disproves my point then fine, I think it's undeniable it was halfway through 2012 when its decline started.

Katy Perry knew this and didn't release Walking On Air as a single. If that album was out in 2011 Walking On Air would have been a single (maybe the lead single!), and Dark Horse might have never been released at all.

The electronic dance trend seemed to get replaced by things such as DJ Mustard-style songs (Show Me, Fancy, 2 On, etc.), the bunch of retro disco/funk sounding songs (Get Lucky, Uptown Funk, Blurred Lines), the brass over-a-hip-hop-beat songs (Talk Dirty, Problem, Worth It, Thrift Shop), and of course the "Songs that sound like Lean On" trend like I Took A Pill in Ibiza as well as every song promoted on Spotify.

[renaboss]

2015 was absolutely the first new year that was huge for hip-hop, I'd say. And it's been increasing every year since.

[velaxti]

Apr 24, 2018 6:32:41 GMT -5 renaboss said:

2015 was absolutely the first new year that was huge for hip-hop, I'd say. And it's been increasing every year since.

I would say it's been increasing ever since we had that trio of big hip hop hits (N*ggas in Paris, Rack City, The Motto). For example in 2013 they were doing better than in 2012, and in 2014 they were doing better than 2013, and so on.

I can't be bothered to write up another long post about this lol. But I think 2011 or 2012 was the absolute low-point for hip hop in the charts (in terms of success, I thought songs like Motivation, Look At Me Now and I'm On One were brilliant, so I'm not knocking the quality). So I would probably choose 2012 or 2013 as the year when it started to make a comeback. Also, the week where they added On-Demand Streaming to the chart saw all the hip hop songs jump about 10 places on the Hot 100, so that helped a bit too lol.

[Sherane Lamar]

Apr 24, 2018 6:43:07 GMT -5 velaxti said:

Apr 24, 2018 6:32:41 GMT -5 renaboss said:

2015 was absolutely the first new year that was huge for hip-hop, I'd say. And it's been increasing every year since.

I would say it's been increasing ever since we had that trio of big hip hop hits (N*ggas in Paris, Rack City, The Motto). For example in 2013 they were doing better than in 2012, and in 2014 they were doing better than 2013, and so on.

I can't be bothered to write up another long post about this lol. But I think 2011 or 2012 was the absolute low-point for hip hop in the charts (in terms of success, I thought songs like Motivation, Look At Me Now and I'm On One were brilliant, so I'm not knocking the quality). So I would probably choose 2012 or 2013 as the year when it started to make a comeback. Also, the week where they added On-Demand Streaming to the chart saw all the hip hop songs jump about 10 places on the Hot 100, so that helped a bit too lol.

2014 was easily the worst year of this decade for Hip-Hop. 


The combined inv score for every Hip-Hop artist within the Top 100 artists of each year: 


2010: 56,966 (BEP #4, Drake #5, BOB #6, Eminem #9, Timbaland #17)
2011: 53,730 (Lil Wayne #4, Nicki #6, Drake #15, BEP #18, Wiz #20)
2012: 46,057 (Flo Rida #2, Drake #4, Nicki #7, Kanye #20, Tyga #30)
2013: 44,081 (Macklemore #1, Drake #8, Wayne #18, Cole #22, Eminem #23)
2014: 30,406 (Iggy #3, Drake #22, Nicki #23, Eminem #25, Kid Ink #31)
2015: 54,811 (Fetty Wap #3, Drake #4, Nicki #9, Wiz #16, Silento #18)
2016: 64,018 (Drake #1, Desiigner #11, Future #14, DJ Khaled #24, Flo Rida #29)
2017: IDK the number, but I know it's higher than that. 
2018: And it'll be higher again. We currently have about 44% of chart points this year given to Hip-Hop artists 

[lazer]

Apr 24, 2018 6:43:07 GMT -5 velaxti said:

Apr 24, 2018 6:32:41 GMT -5 renaboss said:

2015 was absolutely the first new year that was huge for hip-hop, I'd say. And it's been increasing every year since.

I would say it's been increasing ever since we had that trio of big hip hop hits (N*ggas in Paris, Rack City, The Motto). For example in 2013 they were doing better than in 2012, and in 2014 they were doing better than 2013, and so on.

I can't be bothered to write up another long post about this lol. But I think 2011 or 2012 was the absolute low-point for hip hop in the charts (in terms of success, I thought songs like Motivation, Look At Me Now and I'm On One were brilliant, so I'm not knocking the quality). So I would probably choose 2012 or 2013 as the year when it started to make a comeback. Also, the week where they added On-Demand Streaming to the chart saw all the hip hop songs jump about 10 places on the Hot 100, so that helped a bit too lol.

I personally thought that Hip-Hop did well in every year but from late-2015 to now is when it's stronger than ever.

[lazer]

Apr 24, 2018 6:30:14 GMT -5 velaxti said:

Apr 24, 2018 5:55:30 GMT -5 jebsib said:

Regarding the biggest shifts in eras, it's funny - you rarely see the shift in the beginning. It's generally only clear with the hindsight of a few years.
(It is not as obvious as a "Hey! The Beatles are here! Hey! Disco 'died' last month!")

I wonder when this current shift started… When the EDM sound started dying and the Katy / Gaga coalition stumbled in 2014…?

Mid-way through 2012. I actually did notice it at the time. And was very happy about it because it was becoming infuriating.

You could tell from the performance of:

Rihanna - Where Have You Been
Nicki Minaj - Pound The Alarm
Chris Brown - Don't Wake Me Up
Ne-Yo - Let Me Love You

All of these songs were massive under-performances. Lots of people thought Where Have You Been and Pound The Alarm in particular were likely #1s, and they got nowhere near. Infact, they're almost the same as We Found Love and Starships and did nowhere near as well. And the Chris Brown and Ne-Yo songs under-performing as well, when they would've been massive if released a couple of years before.

Remember that songs like Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz used to be able to get to #1 lol. If it was released in the 2nd half of 2012 or onwards, it wouldn't have been a hit.

At the start of the trend, the opposite happened. The songs used to always massively over-perform. A tiny bit of airplay and they would ALWAYS go shooting up iTunes. As a rule, with electronic dance songs, they would ALWAYS perform much better on iTunes than on radio, even back in 2004 to be honest, but all the way to about 2011. Then for about a year they performed roughly equally on iTunes compared to their radio performance, and in mid-2012 was the 1st time we saw electronic dance-pop songs start to under-perform on iTunes compared to their radio airplay. And it didn't happen to just one song, it happened to basically all of them from then on. I used to joke that Starships and Sexy And I Know It killed off dance music lol.

Nowadays the "EDM" hits are mid-tempo pop ballads like Roses, Something Just Like This and The Middle lol. They would simply be called pop songs if the artists on them weren't DJs, so I don't count that part of the dance trend with synth-heavy, upbeat, 120+ BPM, 4/4 kick drum beat songs like The Way I Are, I Gotta Feeling, Dynamite, Sexy Chick, We Found Love, Disturbia, Starships, Firework, Tik Tok etc.

By the way, the trend didn't END in mid-2012, it started dying then, which is what you asked for. I feel like someone is going to point out that Gangnam Style, Clarity, Scream & Shout or The Fox were hits afterwards as if that disproves my points. Or Summertime Sadness even though it was getting about half of its sales and some streams from the original version, and wouldn't have gone top 10 if only the dance version existed.

Anyway, it's about the trend. 5 EDM hits in 2014 vs. 30 EDM hits in 2011. If people think listing 2 or 3 dance songs that were hits in 2015 or something disproves my point then fine, I think it's undeniable it was halfway through 2012 when its decline started.

Katy Perry knew this and didn't release Walking On Air as a single. If that album was out in 2011 Walking On Air would have been a single (maybe the lead single!), and Dark Horse might have never been released at all.

The electronic dance trend seemed to get replaced by things such as DJ Mustard-style songs (Show Me, Fancy, 2 On, etc.), the bunch of retro disco/funk sounding songs (Get Lucky, Uptown Funk, Blurred Lines), the brass over-a-hip-hop-beat songs (Talk Dirty, Problem, Worth It, Thrift Shop), and of course the "Songs that sound like Lean On" trend like I Took A Pill in Ibiza as well as every song promoted on Spotify.

Isn't that Tropical House?

[jebsib]

Not to take anything away from Sherane's superb (and time consuming) inverse point exploration, but velaxti, your analysis was superb and succinctly described exactly what happened to the Pop EDM sounds of the last 10 years as seen through the Hot 100. I'd be interested by a more in depth view of the recent Hip-Hop phenom.

I was astounded how fast the 2013 retro r&b trend coalesced. It was as if JT arrived Jan 14th with the early 70s Suit & Tie and suddenly we had Blurred Lines, Get Lucky, Treasure… almost coordinated.

[Glove Slap]

When The Time (Dirty Bit) came out, I remember someone here saying that if it became a hit in the US, it meant that Dance music had finally arrived as a mainstream force stateside. There may be a bit of hyperbole there, but it was notably different in structure than the Dance-pop songs out at the same time (Only Girl, We R Who We R, Raise Your Glass, Firework, Like A G6, etc.), and that had been released over the prior two years, along with having a jarring drop instrumental break as one of the intended hooks. Even though it had a softer performance stateside than internationally, it was the first sign of actual Dance track finding success in the mainstream fashion (healthy digital sales (over 3 million), top 10 on Pop radio). The closest prior example was Sexy Bitch, which continued the same instrumental as during the vocal hook, rather than utilizing the drop method like The Time (Dirty Bit).

[Au$tin]

Apr 23, 2018 16:02:49 GMT -5 Gary said:

List of artists with #1 hits on country airplay and Pop songs

Backstreet Boys
Kelly Clarkson
Tim McGraw
P!nk
Maren Morris
Taylor Swift
Bebe Rexha

Taylor Swift is the only one on that list to do it with the same song. But these can't be the only ones. What about Shania? Surely she has #1s on pop and country. LeAnn Rimes?

[Au$tin]

Apr 24, 2018 10:22:41 GMT -5 Codex said:

Apr 24, 2018 10:21:09 GMT -5 Au$tin said:

Bebe Rexha has never been #1 in pop airplay. Meant to Be has only peaked at #2 there. The Middle is still #1.

Me Myself & I was #1 on pop according to wikipedia.

Ah, okay. That one didn't pop up under her history for some reason.

[badrobot]

Apr 23, 2018 20:00:25 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Katy sounds like herself. "Swish Swish" and "Bon Apetit" are "fun" songs. They just didn't resonate well with her intended audience. And on top of that, audience for Pop music seems to be shrinking at the moment.

This is a good point. I could easily see "Swish Swish" as being a #1 if it had been on the Teenage Dream album. She just didn't evolve enough to keep people interested.

[ry4n]

Apr 24, 2018 10:21:09 GMT -5 Au$tin said:

Apr 23, 2018 16:02:49 GMT -5 Gary said:

List of artists with #1 hits on country airplay and Pop songs

Backstreet Boys
Kelly Clarkson
Tim McGraw
P!nk
Maren Morris
Taylor Swift
Bebe Rexha

Taylor Swift is the only one on that list to do it with the same song. But these can't be the only ones. What about Shania? Surely she has #1s on pop and country. LeAnn Rimes?

Nope, Shania's highest peaking song on pop was You're Still The One at #3. LeAnn's was How Do I Live at #4. Those are Mediabase peaks but I don't imagine Billboard is much different.

[renaboss]

I don't even remember Rihanna having a song called "Right Now"... I remember "What Now", that one was kinda cool.

Anyway I had to google the meaning of "esskeetit" and came up with this:

"Lil Pump's retarded way of saying "Let's get it!" because he dropped out of harvard med. Also he yells it to act cool."

Well okay then.

BTW, I am shocked by the low views that both videos for "The Middle" have on YouTube. (I like that song now)

[kcdawg13]

Apr 24, 2018 11:06:26 GMT -5 renaboss said:

I don't even remember Rihanna having a song called "Right Now"... I remember "What Now", that one was kinda cool.

Anyway I had to google the meaning of "esskeetit" and came up with this:

"Lil Pump's retarded way of saying "Let's get it!" because he dropped out of harvard med. Also he yells it to act cool."

Well okay then.

BTW, I am shocked by the low views that both videos for "The Middle" have on YouTube. (I like that song now)

The Middle is one of those songs where you hear it on the radio all the time but you don't actively seek it out.

[Verisimilitude]

Dolly Parton was very close with "9 To 5" peaking at #2 on pop radio (R&R) & #1 on country (R&R).

[Au$tin]

Apr 24, 2018 11:32:59 GMT -5 kcdawg13 said:

Apr 24, 2018 11:06:26 GMT -5 renaboss said:

I don't even remember Rihanna having a song called "Right Now"... I remember "What Now", that one was kinda cool.

Anyway I had to google the meaning of "esskeetit" and came up with this:

"Lil Pump's retarded way of saying "Let's get it!" because he dropped out of harvard med. Also he yells it to act cool."

Well okay then.

BTW, I am shocked by the low views that both videos for "The Middle" have on YouTube. (I like that song now)

The Middle is one of those songs where you hear it on the radio all the time but you don't actively seek it out.

Its on-demand streams and digital sales seem to disagree with you.

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

Apr 24, 2018 11:06:26 GMT -5 renaboss said:

I don't even remember Rihanna having a song called "Right Now"... I remember "What Now", that one was kinda cool.

Anyway I had to google the meaning of "esskeetit" and came up with this:

"Lil Pump's retarded way of saying "Let's get it!" because he dropped out of harvard med. Also he yells it to act cool."

Well okay then.

BTW, I am shocked by the low views that both videos for "The Middle" have on YouTube. (I like that song now)

Right Now featured David Guetta and charted just before What Now in the Hot 100 if that helps.

[iHype.]

Lots of people love to say Dance music didn't  get popular in America til the second half of 2000s, but I think it started moderately for a bit in 2002.

These were hits in 2002:
DJ Sammy - Heaven (#8 Hot 100, #4 Pop Radio) [2002]
Dirty Vegas - Days Go By (#14 Hot 100, #7 Pop Radio) [2002]
Daniel Beddingfield - Gotta Get Thru This (#10 Hot 100, #3 Pop Radio) [2002]
Madonna - Die Another Day (#8 Hot 100, #4 Pop Radio) [2002]

They all sound very much like Dance/Euro-Dance to me.

And there was also Kylie's Can't Get You Out of My Head & Love At First Sight, more regular Pop hits, but still very Dance sound.

[Sherane Lamar]

Damn, "Gotti" debuting at #99 has me shook.

Maybe it'll be a lot higher next week or something.

[jebsib]

Yeah, but Dance Music was very big in the 90s though:

Snap's "Rhythm is a Dancer", Real McCoy, Culture Beat, 2 Unlimited, Captain Hollywood Project, Robert Miles, all those Le Click & La Bouche singles…

It just didn't DOMINATE like in Europe.

[badrobot]

Apr 24, 2018 13:29:11 GMT -5 iHype. said:

Lots of people love to say Dance music didn't  get popular in America til the second half of 2000s, but I think it started moderately for a bit in 2002.

These were hits in 2002:
DJ Sammy - Heaven (#8 Hot 100, #4 Pop Radio) [2002]
Dirty Vegas - Days Go By (#14 Hot 100, #7 Pop Radio) [2002]
Daniel Beddingfield - Gotta Get Thru This (#10 Hot 100, #3 Pop Radio) [2002]
Madonna - Die Another Day (#8 Hot 100, #4 Pop Radio) [2002]

They all sound very much like Dance/Euro-Dance to me.

And there was also Kylie's Can't Get You Out of My Head & Love At First Sight, more regular Pop hits, but still very Dance sound.

I think people are referring specifically to the EDM sound, probably best characterized by Calvin Harris (and although it wasn't a big Hot 100 hit, I'd say his song "I'm Not Alone" was actually the inspiration point for that whole wave).

The "dancey-ness" of pop radio has come and gone in waves over the years in different manifestations.

There was a time period in the late 90s/early 00s where there always seemed to be one (and usually *only* one) high-tempo dance song, often by a one-hit wonder, that got heavy radio play at any given time. It's like pop stations had just one "slot" for a dance song. DJ Sammy "Heaven," Cascada "Everytime We Touch," DHT "Listen to Your Heart," Nicki French "Total Eclipse of the Heart," etc.

[renaboss]

Apr 24, 2018 13:07:53 GMT -5 Baby Yoda Hot100Fan said:

Apr 24, 2018 11:06:26 GMT -5 renaboss said:

I don't even remember Rihanna having a song called "Right Now"... I remember "What Now", that one was kinda cool.

Right Now featured David Guetta and charted just before What Now in the Hot 100 if that helps.

It doesn't lol I just remember "Who's That Chick". That one was also cool.

[Deleted]

Apr 24, 2018 14:06:07 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Damn, "Gotti" debuting at #99 has me shook.

Maybe it'll be a lot higher next week or something.

Let's not imagine such nightmariah things plz
It's already a nightmare to have one of this guy's noise labelled as a "song" take up spots that can be occupied by a real song

[felipe]

Apr 24, 2018 10:41:10 GMT -5 badrobot said:

Apr 23, 2018 20:00:25 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Katy sounds like herself. "Swish Swish" and "Bon Apetit" are "fun" songs. They just didn't resonate well with her intended audience. And on top of that, audience for Pop music seems to be shrinking at the moment.

This is a good point. I could easily see "Swish Swish" as being a #1 if it had been on the Teenage Dream album. She just didn't evolve enough to keep people interested.

But what does Evolve even mean? Is Drake evolving to keep his music relevant?

Someone says Katy Perry is flopping because she doesn't sound like herself anymore. Someone says Katy Perry is flopping because she hasn't evolved and still sounds exactly like she always has. You can't win.

[willapted33]

Apr 24, 2018 17:58:46 GMT -5 @mirza said:

Apr 24, 2018 14:06:07 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Damn, "Gotti" debuting at #99 has me shook.

Maybe it'll be a lot higher next week or something.

Let's not imagine such nightmariah things plz
It's already a nightmare to have one of this guy's noise labelled as a "song" take up spots that can be occupied by a real song

at least he's not taking up top 10 spots like FGL & Bebe Rexha

[badrobot]

Apr 24, 2018 20:44:03 GMT -5 felipe said:

Apr 24, 2018 10:41:10 GMT -5 badrobot said:

This is a good point. I could easily see "Swish Swish" as being a #1 if it had been on the Teenage Dream album. She just didn't evolve enough to keep people interested.

But what does Evolve even mean? Is Drake evolving to keep his music relevant?

Someone says Katy Perry is flopping because she doesn't sound like herself anymore. Someone says Katy Perry is flopping because she hasn't evolved and still sounds exactly like she always has. You can't win.

I think “evolving” is specific to pop artists. When you look at pop stars with longer careers, they usually succeed because they change. Madonna, Janet, Mariah, Michael Jackson, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake — they all tried different sounds and genres and often were creating trends rather than following them.

I think the rules are different for hip-hop. While it may seem like pop stars have the loudest stans I think hip-hop artists often have more loyal followings long-term. Drake also is a little different in that he never dominated the singles side until just the past couple years. He had just one week at #1 in his whole career until 2016. So he doesn’t have some prior golden singles era to live up to.

[jenglisbe]

Apr 25, 2018 7:55:07 GMT -5 badrobot said:

I think the rules are different for hip-hop. While it may seem like pop stars have the loudest stans I think hip-hop artists often have more loyal followings long-term. Drake also is a little different in that he never dominated the singles side until just the past couple years. He had just one week at #1 in his whole career until 2016. So he doesn’t have some prior golden singles era to live up to.

Maybe not an "era," but I think his lack of #1s before 2016 doesn't mean he hadn't established himself as a "pop star" of sorts. "Best I Ever Had" was a #2 (and a top 10 at Top 40) back in 2009. "Find Your Love" was another top 10 at Top 40 the next year, and then he had "Take Care" and "Hold On We're Going Home" and "Hotline Bling" all hit the the top 10 at Top 40 radio before "One Dance" hit #1. Considering "Controlla," "Fake Love," and "Passionfruit" all missed the top 10 at Top 40, he actually fell off a bit until the past few months. I don't know that he's ever been a dominant "pop" force. We are seeing his singles do better on the Hot 100 now because of streaming, but his success at "pop" radio has always been hit-or-miss, but the hits go back to 2009.

[Sherane Lamar]

Apr 25, 2018 7:55:07 GMT -5 badrobot said:

Apr 24, 2018 20:44:03 GMT -5 felipe said:

But what does Evolve even mean? Is Drake evolving to keep his music relevant?

Someone says Katy Perry is flopping because she doesn't sound like herself anymore. Someone says Katy Perry is flopping because she hasn't evolved and still sounds exactly like she always has. You can't win.

I think “evolving” is specific to pop artists. When you look at pop stars with longer careers, they usually succeed because they change. Madonna, Janet, Mariah, Michael Jackson, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake — they all tried different sounds and genres and often were creating trends rather than following them.

I think the rules are different for hip-hop. While it may seem like pop stars have the loudest stans I think hip-hop artists often have more loyal followings long-term. Drake also is a little different in that he never dominated the singles side until just the past couple years. He had just one week at #1 in his whole career until 2016. So he doesn’t have some prior golden singles era to live up to.

That seems like another case of #1s not being that important. 

Drake was already the biggest rapper of all time on the Hot 100 in early 2016, before One Dance hit #1. If you include features, he already had something like 7 consecutive years of charting without a break. 

Take Care is a golden era if I've ever seen one. Probably at least Top 100 of the Soundscan era. Maybe more like Top 50? IDK. I've only seen a handful of Hip-Hop albums make more of an impact than Take Care. 10 charting songs. 3 major hit songs ("Headlines" (25 weeks), "The Motto" (35 weeks), "Take Care" (34 weeks)) and then one tamer hit "Make Me Proud". And then 6 more charting songs, the biggest of which is "Marvin's Room". 

[tanooki]

Apr 24, 2018 20:44:03 GMT -5 felipe said:

Apr 24, 2018 10:41:10 GMT -5 badrobot said:

This is a good point. I could easily see "Swish Swish" as being a #1 if it had been on the Teenage Dream album. She just didn't evolve enough to keep people interested.

But what does Evolve even mean? Is Drake evolving to keep his music relevant?

Someone says Katy Perry is flopping because she doesn't sound like herself anymore. Someone says Katy Perry is flopping because she hasn't evolved and still sounds exactly like she always has. You can't win.

Katy Perry definitely evolved, but in the wrong way. Nobody wanted a "woke" Katy Perry, they just wanted Katy Perry. She could make more bubblegum pop or take a different approach to her music and kept the same success, her music this time around just did not appeal and I think a lot of it was more the fact that her lyrics sucked than her sound.

[badrobot]

Apr 25, 2018 9:37:55 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Apr 25, 2018 7:55:07 GMT -5 badrobot said:

I think “evolving” is specific to pop artists. When you look at pop stars with longer careers, they usually succeed because they change. Madonna, Janet, Mariah, Michael Jackson, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake — they all tried different sounds and genres and often were creating trends rather than following them.

I think the rules are different for hip-hop. While it may seem like pop stars have the loudest stans I think hip-hop artists often have more loyal followings long-term. Drake also is a little different in that he never dominated the singles side until just the past couple years. He had just one week at #1 in his whole career until 2016. So he doesn’t have some prior golden singles era to live up to.

That seems like another case of #1s not being that important. 

Drake was already the biggest rapper of all time on the Hot 100 in early 2016, before One Dance hit #1. If you include features, he already had something like 7 consecutive years of charting without a break. 

Take Care is a golden era if I've ever seen one. Probably at least Top 100 of the Soundscan era. Maybe more like Top 50? IDK. I've only seen a handful of Hip-Hop albums make more of an impact than Take Care. 10 charting songs. 3 major hit songs ("Headlines" (25 weeks), "The Motto" (35 weeks), "Take Care" (34 weeks)) and then one tamer hit "Make Me Proud". And then 6 more charting songs, the biggest of which is "Marvin's Room". 

This is all drifting into a different discussion than where it started. *Obviously* Drake has been a huge star for awhile, and I think it's abundantly clear I was in no way implying that he only recently was successful -- but he is not a "pop artist," he's a hip-hop artist who has had a good amount of pop crossover success, with it really reaching new levels of chart success in the past couple years. #1s don't tell the whole story but I'm not sure how you could say he's not at a chart performance peak right now. 2009-2015, 1 week at #1 total. 2016-2018, 32 weeks at #1 and counting.

BUT the whole original discussion point was around why so many *pop* artists have struggled recently. Drake is simply not a part of that discussion because that is not his core genre. My argument for *pop artists* is that after any initial burst of success, they need to evolve their sound in a compelling way to stay relevant and successful, and that the rules are a bit different for other genre-based artists, where the need for constant reinvention is not as vital for their long-term career success.

Just a reminder that in the music world, "pop" and "popular" have 2 different meanings. You can be a pop artist who is not very popular. And you can be extremely popular and not be a pop artist.