Streaming is Hurting Meghan

[Helxig 39,447]

Personally her music is the kind that I'll bop to if it's played on the radio, but I won't actively seek out her specifically to listen to when I'm bored. Maybe lots of other people are the same way with her music?

[Guest]

I dont understand how streaming can hurt you. Maybe it's bcs people dont like your song, despite radio wanting to brodcast it??

[Bloody hooker 6,445]

I don’t think streaming is hurting her. She’s doing decent on the radio according to the OP. The song is catchy, but just needs more promo. One reason as to why her video hasn’t gotten pass 10 million views is due to current music trends,and how much people were wanting Meghan back.

To add on to the whole entire “pop music isn’t dominating, and only urban/hip-hop/rap/r&b music is” topic, here is what I have to say. Pop music isn’t going to dominate for the next 2 years. Everyone should realize that music popularity and trends change as time goes on. From 2014-2017, tropical House was the it thing. Guess what? It died out, and something else came back and replaced it. When the current hip-hop/rap/r&b trend ends, pop should come back, and allow all of our favorite pop girls and new comers to dominate once more.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I don’t want pop music to be full force again when I actually do want it back. However, I am enjoying what’s currently popular, because I have a diverse music taste and find the positive of songs.

Sorry for the long post.

[DiscoHeaven23 35,007]

6 hours ago, Tyler Henry said:

of the course the grammys are going to label them as "urban artist" just because their black 

sorry i refer to artists' genres as the genres they're classified by, crucify me

[AlexanderMagno 10,746]

Truth be told, Meghan has never proven herself to be more than one-hit wonder, so I'm not sure she's the right pop star to talk about when you discuss the effects of streaming.

 

Video killed the radio star. And streaming killed video star. Makes more sense like that. Lady Gaga and Katy Perry are the most obvious examples, they have been struggling to get into the streaming public.

[Ryusei 59,929]

8 hours ago, Bio said:

This. People here only hate streaming because bubblegum pop music is not at the center of it, but isn't it the most fair way of really knowing what people are listening to?

I mean, technically... but not everyone uses streaming services.. and I don't see the point of someone who downloaded a song on itunes then listening to it on a streaming service. So in a way it's accurate but also not.. Basically a person could listen to a song 1000 times in private but it wont count a thing since it's not being reflected in the streaming data.. 

[Naor Daniel 937]

10 hours ago, DiscoHeaven23 said:

It's sad to me because aside from Ariana, Meghan was one of the last hopes for veteran pop girls to survive (singles wise). 

They're being taken out one by one because of streaming. 

"veteran"

wow.

[DiscoHeaven23 35,007]

2 hours ago, Naor Daniel said:

"veteran"

wow.

 

seeing that she's on her 3rd era, yes "veteran". wow.

 

[MaryJaneHolland 77,348]

Everyone is tired of her bossy/feminist/body-positive shtick 

[StrawberryBlond 13,245]

I think it's more to do with the fact that Meghan has truly never got out of All About That Bass's shadow. She is still largely thought of as a one hit wonder by many and thus, will always struggle to get wide acceptance of her. She had more continued hits than say, Carly Rae or Lorde, but that doesn't mean that she's been elevated about "one hit wonder" status in the public's mind. Look at her international sales - that's where she's really struggling because she just isn't appealing to non-American audiences, so she has no other market to save her. And perhaps people don't like the song? Not surprising, considering it's one of her worst to date and is nothing special.

But yeah, I won't pretend that for some reason, pop fans don't seem to be devoted on the streaming side of things which is bizarre as pop has always existed on the periphery, no matter what other genre's the biggest. So, I always imagined that streaming would make pop even bigger as a big part of its identity is devoted fans who buy everything associated with it to get it doing well in the charts. But the exact opposite has been true. Young people listen to pop and young people are ardent streamers, so why isn't pop...popping? Yes, pop's not the most in thing but streaming now ensures that all music fans can have their say and be equally represented. So, what's going on?

12 hours ago, Matangi said:

streaming has highlighted what is culturally largest at a given time, and i much rather that than what stations are paid to play or not. streaming didn't kill the popstar, just the idea of what a popstar is to most ggd users. plenty of pop stars are dominating streaming as well as being culturally significant (ex. rihanna, the weeknd, drake)

The downside is that you're now getting a worse effect - the same song staying at #1 for weeks on end purely because of streams. The UK charts have #1's at the top for much longer because of this, which makes the charts a bit more credible (as opposed to constant one-week #1's) but then you wind up in a ridiculous situation like the case of Drake's One Dance which stayed at #1 for 15 weeks straight, all because of streams. Bear in mind that the longest-serving UK #1 was Bryan Adams' Everything I Do I Do It For You, at 17 weeks, in 1991, so it missed the record by not much. Chart followers were buzzing about this for weeks, talking about how insane it was and pointing out that had streaming not been considered at all, it only would have been at #1 for 3 weeks. To date, it has sold 2.3 million units here...combined. Only 554k of them are actual sales. It's a bit of a joke, really. Don't you not think this is a problem? And Rihanna, Drake and The Weeknd are not popstars, they're urban contemporary/RnB. Pop hasn't been a shorthand for "popular" for a long time, it's a genre in and of itself and the music that these three make is not it. Literally everyone files these artists under urban. You're deliberately stretching the definition here.

12 hours ago, Bio said:

This. People here only hate streaming because bubblegum pop music is not at the center of it, but isn't it the most fair way of really knowing what people are listening to?

No, I'm annoyed because there isn't a broader range of musical taste on display. I listen to all kinds of music and the beauty of diversity is slowly dying away due to urban fans monopolising streaming, which already accounts for too much of a song's chart position. It isn't the most fair way of knowing what people are actually listening to because one person can stream the same song all day and it'll be accounted for each time, then you multiply that be millions when all the fans get on board. It shouldn't count if it's the same person re-listening. One sale used to be all that was accounted for per person and it didn't matter how many times you played your vinyl or CD. One person's obsession shouldn't dictate the charts. I thought it seemed a fairer representation initially...until I realised how ridiculously lenient the rules are.

And in reference to your other comment that "urban" is another way of saying "black," no it isn't. You can be any race and do urban. There are white artists succeeding with urban music currently. When we say "urban," we do mean a reference to the music genre, nothing else. Urban music doesn't sound like pop, fact. Don't insert race where there has no need to be.

11 hours ago, Matangi said:

when is ggd going to realize pop artists like the ones in the last decade aren't going to exist in the same way, and it isnt some conspiracy against white women, its that music is evolving and what is popular music of 2018, is "urban" lmao.

But it's not fair that certain genres have to go down and/or adapt to a new world where the urban acts don't have to. No one said it was a "conspiracy against white women," that your own overblown perception. Sure, you could say that white women are unintentionally affected as most pop artists are white women but no one's saying that this was a music industry conspiracy against them. And it's a far bigger issue than urban being the most popular genre right now. It's the fact that lots more urban fans are utilising streaming, putting artists from other genres at a distinct disadvantage. Other genres don't stand a chance of becoming the next big trend in the future if this continues.

11 hours ago, Tyler Henry said:

of the course the grammys are going to label them as "urban artist" just because their black 

No they don't. It's because their music is obviously urban. You don't have to be educated in music to know the differences between pop and urban music. Even without R Kelly, there's no doubt that Gaga made an RnB record with DWUW. It's all about beat, lyrics and vocal style. Urban contemporary is all the rage right now and it sounds nothing like what popstars make. Wake up and realise that "pop" as a shorthand for "popular" is an extremely outdated term and has been for a long time.

[Supersonic 49,375]

2 minutes ago, MaryJaneHolland said:

Everyone is tired of her bossy/feminist/body-positive shtick 

Because by now everyone knows it's fake. Intellectuals knew when she debuted with a song that basically said "It's ok to fat as a girl as long as your boyfriend thinks you're f*ckable"

Cuz she got a boyfriend who doesn't like fat girls and lost weight for him.

[nswain1110 2,661]

Unless you're Camila Cabello, streaming just hasn't been kind to pop stars. It's a hip hop and male-artist dominated format. The question is, how can the industry get the youth interested in pop again? They're definitely finding success in what they're doing with Camila. 

[discodiick 56]

12 hours ago, RadioIsOurs said:

Streaming let's the GP decide what become hits, and make those hits even bigger through playlists. Unfortunately, I can't say that the GP from today's generation have particularly good music tastes...

Spotify lists are all being manipulated tho.. song first gets added to 'Today's Top Hits', goes top 50 worldwide and eventually into top 50 USA, after that radio and shazam still play big role. Majority of spotify users just play top 50 playlists and if the song is top 10 on the playlist, it stays there for a long time (one dance,work,closer,shape of you,despacito,rockstar) just to name a few. Before it wasn't common that songs stays 10 weeks at #1. 

[Matangi 3,050]

12 hours ago, DiscoHeaven23 said:

there is a difference between popular music and pop music though

Popular music is a generic term for a wide variety of genres of music that appeal to the tastes of a large segment of the population, whereas pop music usually refers to a specific musical genre within popular music.

 

 

 

Pop music is not separate from subgenres, however. "Pop" refers mainly to the structure of a song, with hooks, verses, and a recognizable chorus, not what genre it happens to be or what is popular culturally. Rock music was synonymous with pop until the 60's/70's, as it once was with other genres. Urban artists are now what is popular, which is only proved by platforms like spotify.

[Matangi 3,050]

38 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

And Rihanna/The Weeknd are not a popstars, they're urban contemporary/RnB.

2

Honey just claimed "Rihanna isn't a popstar"  Right cause "Starboy", " Cant Feel My Face", "Love on the Brain", "Diamonds" etc. are totally not pop songs. Oh that's right they are, but some of y'all can't comprehend that pop music in 2018 may overlap with urban music, just like it did overlap with rock music in the 60s/70s and how it did with electronic music in the 80's etc.