Not much. Which is why Billboard added YouTube views to their calculations a few weeks ago.
Ok, so who wants to set up a bot network to watch YouTube videos?
(Seriously, the Russian Crime Network could make you a star!)
Has there ever been an era where a song was universally embraced?
Elvis had biblethumping detractors.
The Beatles and their shaggy hair rubbed people the wrong way.
The Rolling Stones and various rock bands furthered that wrong way rubbing.
Rap, Grunge, and MJ each had their individual followings, not to mention metal.
N’sync battled Backstreet boys…
That’s what I was wondering myself. I have to say, as much as it seems a “flash in the pan” kind of thing, “Gangnam Style” is as close to universal as I’ve seen.
Like, Macarena-level embrace.
I think it depends on how memorable the song is. Some songs just have such a memorable riff(Smoke on the Water), a soaring chorus(Living on a Prayer) or such clever turns of phrase(about three dozen rap hits) that they’ll stick in the public memory for a long, long time.
Marley mentioned the splintering of music, and that’s been true for a long time, but in recent years almost every artist who is big tries for crossover success. There’s a thriving pop market like I haven’t seen since the 80s, although we had a brief resurgence of true pop music in the early 2000s with all the teen pop. But now we’re seeing the return of the long-lasting megastars like Beyonce, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Rihanna, etc. Each of them have been successful for more than a decade now, across genres, as opposed to what we saw in the 90s, when everything had to be brand new and fit into one genre. I’m hard pressed to think of any true pop hits from that era, just a bunch of alternative rock, rap, R&B, and country.
I was surprised how many classic rock songs my stepson and his friends know. It turns out that Guitar Hero on xbox is introducing a lot of young people to music from the 70s and 80s.
You’re absolutely right. ‘crowd-pleasing’ was a poor choice of words. I meant the power pop epic music made for big stadiums the eighties are renowned for, you know: Queen, 1980’s U2, 1980’s Bruce Springsteen…
I’m sorry, but this is wrong. The late 90s/early 2000s was the swan song of bands/singers with massive mainstream appeal. Shania Twain, Alanis Morisette, Mariah Carey, and Celine Dion all sold at least 20 million copies of their biggest albums in the US. Worldwide, each is over 40 million copies sold.
Meanwhile, the megastar Beyonce has only sold around 1.5 million copies of her last CD. Worldwide is better at around 5 million, but nowhere near the numbers in the 90s/2000s.
The music industry has splintered and no artist will ever be close to being universally known ever again.
You can’t go by CD sales any more than you can go by Cassette sales or Vinyl sales. Youtube views and itunes downloads have changed the metrics.
Exactly. The music industry does seem to have become more fractured but, at the same time, it’s much easier for sensations to spread and become worldwide hits, like the aforementioned “Gangnam Style.” It seems like no matter where you are in the world, you will hear that song, which really can’t be said for works like “Living on a Prayer.” (ETA: Although Michael Jackson you probably could in the 80s.)
Whoooooosh
Yes, this is a ridiculous way to evaluate her popularity because this is the exact reason the music industry isn’t where it used to be. It’s not because people stopped listening to music, it’s that they stopped buying physical copies of CDs. For what it’s worth, though, Wikipedia says she’s credited with 75 million albums sold worldwide, and that sounds like kind of a lot regardless. I couldn’t find a quick total for downloaded albums or singles, but I can see that after her Super Bowl appearance her download totals looked more like the kind of CD sales you used to see the week after a hit album was released.
But that doesn’t make her “universal,” which is my point. I know exactly two things about Beyonce’s music: Her song “Single Ladies” repeats “All the single ladies!” over and over again and one of her songs includes the lyric “If you liked it, you should have put a ring on it.” They might be the same song, now that I think about it.
Everybody knew Alanis screeching “You Oughta Know.” Everybody knows that the answer to a drawling “What’s My Name?” is “Snoop Doggggggy Dogggggggg.” No music artist is like that anymore. Even the mighty Gangham Style. I was able to ignore that by not clicking a YouTube link for months until I heard it shopping in a mall around Christmastime.
“You Oughta Know” is more universal that “Gangnam Style”? You’ve gotta be kidding me. I was in freaking India in January and during the kite festival Gangnam Style was blasting from rooftops, mixed in among Indian pop music. If you somehow avoided it here in the US, it was willfully, because that song is freaking everywhere. Literally every single wedding I’ve been to since about September of last year has had that song played. And it’s on commercials. On the radio. In stores. It’s got a freaking BILLION AND A HALF Youtube hits. It really cannot get much more universal than that.
So she’s not universal because she’s more successful by newer metrics than older ones? How does that make sense? You could mostly ignore “Gangnam Style” by ignoring YouTube - which I did; I’ve heard a snippet once on Craig Ferguson and once in full during a high school talent show - and avoiding the relevant radio stations and you could mostly ignore something like “You Oughtta Know” by not watching MTV or listening to the radio stations that played it. That seems pretty similar to me.
Yes, that’s one song. She has plenty of other hits, but saying you’ve successfully ignored something that doesn’t interest you is not very impressive.
You mean everybody in your age group or all your friends. That’s not everybody on Earth or everybody in the country. You’re making assumptions about the popularity and universality of music based on your own experience. Everybody does that sometimes, including me. Sometimes it’s not conscious. But it’s wrong. If you think about it for a minute, it’s kind of ridiculous to say every knew “You Oughtta Know” - which was very popular; the album it’s on sold 33 million copies worldwide - and somehow “Gangnam” style is at some lower tier when it’s been watched 1.5 billion times on YouTube. Consider 1.5 billion views compared to the population of the planet and that seems pretty universal. Beyonce has sold more albums than Alanis Morisette even though that’s not the main way an artist’s popularity is measured at this point; she did come onto the scene enough to sell plenty of albums. I’m sure in terms of downloads it’s not even close.
I mean, just look at the charts for that song. It hit #1 in the following countries. I’m not even going to count the ones it came close in, just #1: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech, Denmark, Europe, Finland, France, Germany, Greence, Honduras, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Luxeumbourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal (Digital), Russia, Scotland, South Korea, Spain, UK. And it just missed #1 in the US, peaking at #2. That’s a pretty good spread.
Beyonce is currently one of the biggest music acts in the world. Anybody that thinks otherwise has no idea what they’re talking about.
Any sites break it down to country level? Like, how does Beyonce do in China, Timberlake in India, JayZ in Russia, etc?
The claim isn’t that she’s not big, it’s that she’s not as big as anyone was in the '90s. Destiny’s Child got famous in the late '90s anyway.