Why did Rolling Stone and other music publications all but ignore RAP & Hip Hop

[Eliot Rosewater]

back when they were outselling the rock albums of Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty or whoever else?


I am watching a Rolling Stone magazine doc on HBO and it talks about how a rap album outselling Fleetwood Mac 5-1 cant get hardly any recognition let alone front page exposure from RS and others back during that time.

There is no article I know of to link to on this.

I know for myself way back when i didnt recognize this art form of music as music or an art form, but I sure do now.

If you can get the RS doc on HBO, it is worth it especially if you are a Hunter S. Thompson fan.

[brewens]

1. You said it yourself. "Music publications". Unrelated to rap or hip hop. n/t

[LonePirate]

2. Top 40 stations back in the 80s played very little rap and hip-hop.

That didn’t change until the 90s and music magazines like RS focused mostly on artists being played on the radio and being promoted heavily by pop/rock record labels.

Outside of Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Lionel Richie, Billy Ocean and Stevie Wonder, top 40 radio stations played very little music by black artists. Rap and hip-hop suffered from that lack of exposure so fans had to access and spread the word on that music by purchasing the albums.

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. Yes, and they had to deal with the bullshit, stupid accusation that it isnt music in the first place

[LonePirate]

5. I agree. Rap didnt receive a fair shake until Aerosmith paired with Run DMC.

Then there is the whole racist bullshit controversy that was attached to 2 Live Crew.

This late 80s classic is one of my all time faves. It somehow found a way to reach me, a white teenager in a tiny, rural midwest town that was almost 100% white. It’s a testament to how good early rap and hip-hop was.

[Eliot Rosewater]

20. Thanks for this!

[rsdsharp]

15. FM radio weakened the Top 40 format, and it was dead before Rap and Hip Hop.

True Top 40 was not a musical format. It was a sales format. Stated differently, whatever sold, was what was played. Much of it was rock, because the sales that were tracked were singles, and kids bought the most singles, but it only mattered what was selling. Rock, pop, bubble gum, Motown, heavy metal, R&B, country, show tunes, classical, jazz, big band, novelty, TV and movie themes were all played on Top 40. Stations weren't using Rolling Stone to make up their playlists, and never did. They used Billboard (which had multiple charts including R&B), Radio and Records, Cashbox, and the Gavin Report.

Your comment about black artists seems to focus on the 1980s. Top 40 as a format lasted from the mid 1950s until the early 1980s. And black artists were played at lot, despite cover artists like Pat Boone trying to edge them out. Fats Domino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Little Anthony and the Imperials, the Drifters, Sam Cooke, the Del Vikings (one member was white), the Coasters, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Supremes, Mary Wells, the Marvelettes, Martha and the Vandellas, the Temptations, the 4 Tops, Jackson 5, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Otis Redding, Earth Wind & Fire and on and on and on, were all played on Top 40.

The FCC began pushing FM in the late sixties. The AM band was pretty full, and the FM band was under utilized. Few people had an FM radio at home in 1968, and virtually no one had an FM car radio. That began to change, and by the mid to late 70s, FM began to have substantial market penetration. Rather than Top 40, many FM outlets began adopting niche formats tailored to specific types of music. Disco virtually ended AM music radio. Disco fans preferred the superior sound (in stereo) that FM had to offer, and disco haters were outraged when AM stations added more disco to try to compete in the ratings, and went to FM stations that weren't playing it. AM stations cut back on disco in an unsuccessful attempt to try to get back listeners. At that point, they were no longer really Top 40, because disco was selling, and they were playing records that weren't selling as well.

By the time Rap came on the scene, niche programming was well established. Top 40 was dead -- replaced with CHR -- Contemporary Hit Radio, which did pick and choose what musical genres it would play. In most cases, Rap and Hip Hop weren't among them. Was it racism? Probably, at least in part, although by that time I was out of radio, and played country the last few years I was in the business, so I wouldn't really know.

[LonePirate]

16. I cannot comment on radio before the 80s as it was before my time and I have not researched it.

Do I think racism played a part in delaying the impact on mainstream radio and related media by rap and hip-hop? Most likely but I have no proof nor have I read any research into this so I could be wrong.

I will say that I prefer rap and hip-hop from the 80s over that from today, although I have aged out of the target music demo and I am not the teenager I was then.

[jmowreader]

4. They also ignored country, jazz and classical artists

Somehow I don’t think the Rolling Stone with Renee Fleming on the cover would have sold well.

By a similar measure, why did The Source magazine not review Iron Maiden’s Brave New World or Matchbox 20’s More Than You Think You Are?

[DonCoquixote]

12. Rolling Stone deifned itself as every pop music

The same way Coke and Pepsi define all that is cola. Yes you can point out others that were snubbed (such as metal and prog Rock) but even Yes and Rush were white, with a lot of white fans. The only time RS pretended to know Hip Hop existed was when a bunch of White kids stopped listening to Zep, and put away the Punk Rock records that were the darling of Music critics.

[Ferrets are Cool]

6. They knew their paying customer base? nt

[Mike Nelson]

7. Don't know every...

...music publication, but Rolling Stone is an establishment, mainstream, corporate-like mag now - it is not the cutting edge Rolling Stone from the 1970s and began changing back in the 1980s. They are no longer a serious music publication, in my opinion.

[EffieBlack]

8. For the same reason MTV refused to play black artists for years until Michael Jacksons label

threatened to pull all of its artists off the channel.

[Eliot Rosewater]

9. I am trying to think of the journalist who Ice T worked with at RS who is highlited in the

Last edited Mon Mar 12, 2018, 02:27 PM - Edit history (1)

doc, very interesting stuff

I think you would enjoy the doc.

This thread is showing in part why RS would be afraid to give Hip Hop it's due.

[cbdo2007]

10. Well let's see...my Mom is the only person I know...

...that still has a subscription to Rolling Stone and she went to both Fleetwood Mac and Tom Petty concerts within the past two years.

*Shrug* I'm not sure what you want me to tell you.

I read and watch quite a bit of music/entertainment material and I don't have any interest in rap or hip hop, so I would quickly skip over or change the channel when either of those things come on.

*Shrug* just not sure what you're looking for here. Many people don't like rap or hip hop.

[Eliot Rosewater]

11. And yet they were outselling Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac by big numbers. Or did you miss that

part of my post?

I suppose if I had to I could find the figures, but that point was made in the doc.

[mythology]

13. The sales numbers aren't relevant

They are from different genres as others have already explained.

But additionally it's irrelevant because merely selling more albums isn't an indication of being inherently worthy of attention. Queen, Bon Jovi, Bob Dylan and Def Leopard have sold about the same number of albums. Journey and Kenny G have outsold all four. I can't imagine a case for arguing Kenny G is more important musically than Dylan or Queen, much less a rock and roll magazine.

[Eliot Rosewater]

23. My post is responding to someone arguing that the popularity of a given band

with a certain group is why that group was covered; popularity, sales, same thing.

[cbdo2007]

17. Trust me, my mom doesn't give a shit if rap people sell

More albums than Fleetwood mac, she likes Fleetwood Mac and Rolling Stone has always catered to people like her.

This whole argument is like asking why Walmart doesn't start selling washing machines in it's stores...they don't want to, even though all of their customers presumably want to have clean clothes, they have determined it would not be a good business decision.

I can tell you though, if I'm in a doctor's office and they have two magazines there, one with Foo fighters on it and one with ANY rap person on it, I am picking up the Foo fighters one every time.

[BannonsLiver]

18. +1

There was a time when hip hop had a message. Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, NWA. Now all the songs are about bottle service, or something equally inane.

[Eliot Rosewater]

22. The argument was made by a RS reporter to the owner of RS.

[cbdo2007]

28. The owner of RS is a huge classic rock fan...

And is good friends with Yoko Ono and Bono and Mick Jagger. It was always more interesting for him to get to hang out with rock stars than try to branch out to the next new thing. Again, I feel the same way he does...classic rock stars seem like world figures while rap and hip hop musicians to me just seem like reality star celebrities or something, it's just our perception of what interests us.

[Blue_Adept]

21. Here's an example of why it happens

I deal heavily in the comics world with a lot of stuff for work, superheroes and non. Sales discussions are naturally a big topic because everyone wants their favorite books to sell. With most of the really popular books struggling to break 100,000 these days for a 22 page book, and the collections doing far far worse in terms of numbers, it's in a rough place.

But then you get a big event and everyone is touting that some books sell 200,000 copies and it's a whole lot of big talk and strutting kind of stuff and think pieces are written about it.

But it largely pales compared to comics from other areas.

Let's say Batman is the most popular character and a new Batman graphic novel comes out that collections six issues from a really big story. It might sell 10 to 20,000 volumes and it'll top the charts for months because of that.

In Japan, with the comics there (which are released here as well), the most popular title is One Piece, which just had its 88th volume released and has been running for nearly twenty years.

It sold 1.3 million copies in five days.

Barely a whisper from the comics press about it.

They don't want to talk about anything that goes against the narrative.

[el_bryanto]

24. I wonder about that - I know very little about Manga

I've read some over the years - and enjoyed some of it as well; but it always feels so daunting looking at that section in the bookshop (or on Comixology) - how do i find something I would like in the sort of niche stuff I wouldn't? I try different things, and have found a few series I relly liked, for one reason or another.

Music i suppose is the same way - some people just prefer to listen to the same songs ore variations on songs that they've heard before. Or in many cases just the same 20 albums they had when they were 20-22. The same way some people just want to read the Avengers or the Justice League doing the same things they were doing when they first started reading comics.

Bryant

[Blue_Adept]

25. Pretty much

I got into manga when it was done up in single comics form back in the 80's and just loved it for its differences. I'm a huge fan of both forms of comics but the majority of fans are very much "tribal" about it. There's always some crossover but it's small compared to the size of either side.

And that really cuts into most things. Rolling Stone was born out of the 60's rock and roll and kept to the big mainstream stuff. As said elsewhere in the thread, other forms including Country were selling better than various acts. But those acts were "niche" and not "national" (like mainstream comics that everyone knows like batman and superman as opposed to "niche" manga) and the national is what gets covered.

[Tipperary]

31. I like some rap, but I have always been turned off by the bitches and hos thing.

I just do not care for that.

[LanternWaste]

14. Trade magazines often target their content to their base demographic.

Trade magazines often target their content to their base demographic. I subscribe to Strategy & Tactics magazine which focuses on historical military conflicts, but as the majority of the readers subscribe to it for its articles on 20th century warfare, those conflicts receive the lion's share, while anyone into the Napoleonic or Roman conflicts receive get short-sheeted.

[BlueTsunami2018]

19. Theres no mention of Heavy Metal at all in that documentary.

Lots of Metal bands were outselling mainstream bands as well, with zero commercial airplay, and they were totally passed over in the Rolling Stone doc.

Some of the very best musicians in the world are in Metal. Virtuoso level players. It’s a disgrace how they’re still ignored to this day.

As far as your question, isn’t it obvious? Rap was considered a black fad with limited talent involved. Emphasis on black.

[Blue_Adept]

26. It was also an element of "writing what they knew"

When you have writers that don't know country, rap, metal, etc, then that's all going to get minimal coverage outside of some interest pieces or "surprise, these guys are doing pretty good, but we'll never mention them again."

It's a provincial view from editorial that filters into the magazine itself.

[SonofDonald]

27. Don't know about RS but I didn't listen to rap anyway

I grew up on rock n roll, that's what I listened to period, I was in bush Alaska from 79 to 96, there were very few music sources available to me.

I had AFRN, Armed Forces Radio Network to listen to, that's it, rap never got played on that, classical, jazz, country, polka!, and some rock.

I didn't know what rap was, my Son is a very big fan but I was never able to understand what it had to do with a boy born in Dutch Harbor Alaska with Aleut/White Parents.

I was not exposed to the genre and have never been a listener, my Son loves it.

But then he also loves Robin Trower, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton and others.

So it's all good, I still don't listen to rap but then again "And Then I Got High" by Afroman is a great smile creator.

It's all good.

[onenote]

29. Why'd did Vibe all but ignore Fleetwood Mac,Tom Petty and whoever else?

n/t

[Eliot Rosewater]

30. Dont ask me, ask the RS journalist who argued with the owner about this.

Sure is easy to predict which hot button can get people going around here.