If you’re my age you remember the days when Stevie, Aretha, Smokey, Al Green, Santana, Marvin Gaye, Earth Wind & Fire, The O’Jays all ruled the charts.
Today, after two or more decades of throwaway, disposable rap, the only R&B artist in the top 30 albums is Mary J. Blige with her excellent “London Sessions.”
The only other black artist is Darius Rucker, who’s considered “country” or “pop” and has a Christmas album. Beyonce is at number 32. A couple more black artists are scattered at the bottom of the top 50.
Of Mary J’s 50,000 copies sold in her debut week, only 2,000 are streamed. That’s interesting. Because of Taylor Swift’s 272,000 copies sold last week, fifty thousand were streamed. Are only white people using Spotify?
What the heck is going on? If anyone knows, I’d like to hear it. (Comments must be clean and not derogatory.)
PS Last year Jay Z skipped the chart entirely, and gave his album away to Samsung.
