(April 3, 2024). A lot of music industry fans and prognosticators are weighing in on whether Beyoncé’s new Cowboy Carter will finally garner the Texas superstar that elusive Album of the Year Grammy win at next year’s ceremony. It’s likely to turn a few heads in the Academy’s country music categories as well (or else NARAS will have quite a bit of ‘splainin’ to do).
But that’s still ten months away. Billboard magazine’s got a more pressing dilemma on its hands this week.
And it’s not related to the country charts.
Well, it is, but not exclusively.
It’s a continuation of a decision the music trade publication faced just weeks ago when it decided to withhold Beyoncé’s country music hoedown “Texas Hold ‘Em” not from its country-specific charts but from — get this — its Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, despite Beyoncé’s long history there and despite the song getting considerably more play on R&B stations than it has on country ones, where in Billboard it hit No. 1.
And now the predicament is even more glaring with the release of Beyoncé’s genre-flipping album Cowboy Carter, one that’s been buzzed about for its country leanings but which contains a healthy mix of other formats spanning its 27 tracks, including Americana, folk, opera, pop, rock, hip-hop and R&B.
Billboard has genre-specific charts for most of those formats, which today serve as subsets of the larger Billboard 200 list, the all-inclusive ranking of the most consumed albums in America combining physical sales, digital downloads and streaming.
Cowboy Carter will easily top the next Billboard 200 chart — making it Beyoncé’s eighth No. 1 there — with projected album equivalent sales of over 400k units in its opening week.
With all of the country music hysteria surrounding Cowboy Carter, it will no doubt also be included on Billboard’s Hot Country Albums list, where it will also rank No. 1 given that chart uses the same data as the Billboard 200 and is merely a subset of it.
It is that country placement which will garner all the headlines as Queen Bey becomes the first Black woman to have a No. 1 LP on Hot Country Albums, just as she did the singles chart with “Texas” six weeks ago.
But there is a larger issue looming here, and it’s as much a reflection of the very genre-less utopia that Bey’s album portends to be as it is a question of whether Billboard should continue playing gatekeeper to what is allowed to reside on one genre’s charts instead of (or, in this case, in addition to) another’s.
Billboard gave itself this role in October 2012 when it elected to have all its genre charts use the same sales/ streaming/ radio panels as the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 charts, thereby eliminating the exclusive contributions of genre-specific components like R&B radio stations for its R&B charts, country stations for its country charts, etc.
This meant that, in addition to the genre-specific charts now merely mirroring the order of song rankings on the two larger charts, Billboard’s chart editors now had to decide whether a song that, for example, was getting R&B airplay was indeed eligible for its R&B-based charts, instead of allowing it to organically chart there as it had pre-2012.
The most embarrassing and highest-profile execution of this gatekeeper role occurred in 2018 when the publication elected to remove Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” from its Hot Country Songs chart despite the song receiving airplay in the format, calling it not country enough (and appeasing that genre’s own purists in the process).
But the most recent example happened just last month when Billboard denied “Texas Hold ‘Em” a spot on its Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart despite the tune receiving considerable play on three of its component airplay rankings: Adult R&B, rhythmic, and mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop.
It’s received more airplay there, in fact, than it has on the magazine’s panel of country music stations. “Texas Hold ‘Em” peaked at No. 33 in March on Country Airplay but claimed a history-making No. 1 rank on its composite Hot Country Songs list.
By contrast, it is at No. 14 and climbing on the magazine’s latest Adult R&B list, No. 11 and rising on its Rhythmic Airplay chart, and No. 23 and moving up on its Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay ranking.
It is, however, nowhere to be found on the publication’s composite Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, an inexplicable and baffling filtering owing not to R&B purists but to the magazine’s editors obviously deciding that “Hold ‘Em” isn’t R&B-sounding enough, despite the nation’s radio programmers (and its listeners) clearly indicating otherwise.
While Billboard appeared to learn its country lesson from the Lil Nas X fiasco by allowing Bey’s song to take up residence on Hot Country Songs, it appears to have employed this either-or philosophy to the detriment of its rightfully earned place on the magazine’s R&B/hip-hop counterpart.
Had “Texas Hold ‘Em” not been screened from the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs list, it would’ve given Beyoncé the distinction of being the first artist since the Everly Brothers (“All I Have To Do Is Dream”) in 1958 to top Billboard’s main pop, R&B, and country charts with the same song. She would have simultaneously become the first Black person, the first woman, and the first solo artist (since Elvis in ‘57) to pull this feat.
The presumption here, again, is that it would’ve ranked No. 1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart given that ranking’s use of the same formula used for the Hot 100, for which Hot Country Songs and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs are both mere subsets.
Now Billboard faces this decision again as it has to determine whether or not the genre-spanning Cowboy Carter will not only top the Billboard 200 and Hot Country Albums lists, but also the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, giving Beyoncé’s album the rare No. 1 trifecta that eluded its lead single.
Cowboy Carter contains far more non-country, or at least non-country exclusive elements than “Texas Hold ‘Em” alone did, so the right decision should be easier for Billboard to make, one would think.
“Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they,” 82-year-old country pioneer Linda Martell opines in the opening to Cowboy Carter song “Spaghetii,” itself an exercise in Southern hip-hop where Bey also teams with 28-year-old country-rap upstart Shaboozey.
Martell continues on “Spaghettii” with more: “In theory, they (genres) have a simple definition that’s easy to understand… But in practice, well, some may feel confined.”
The irony that a country trailblazer like Martell offers this pearl of wisdom on the album’s decidedly most hip-hop track where she shares space with the album’s 42-year-old main star and a young, up-and-coming rapper is a statement in itself.
But perhaps no one entity understands genres better than Billboard, whose weekly menu of charts now includes what must be a hundred of them.
In recognition of Billboard’s preeminence in all things music charts (and genres), the blog submitted the following letter to “Ask Billboard” in March regarding its R&B snubbing of “Texas Hold ‘Em” that month:
Dear Billboard:
I’m perplexed.
Given that Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” is receiving (and gaining) airplay at multiple R&B/hip-hop formats, including Rhythmic (greatest gainer this week), Adult R&B, Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop and likely others, how does Billboard justify not allowing the song to appear on the main Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart?
With the Hot R&B/HH Songs chart using the same formula as the Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs charts, “Texas” would rank No. 1 on the former were it allowed to enter, giving Beyonce the first song to top all three simultaneously in at least 60 years (since the days Elvis did it?).
I understand that Billboard’s chart editors are now the arbiters of what songs grace which genre charts since they all began using the same formula in Oct. 2012, rather than allowing a format’s radio audience to dictate whether a song can chart on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop, Hot Country and the other “Hot”-named charts.
The fact that these charts all duplicate the Hot 100’s formula (and relative song rankings) is a flawed concept and contributes to this kind of problem, one similar to what happened when Billboard notoriously decided to remove Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” from its country charts six years ago.
The Beyoncé example may be even more egregious with “Texas” now receiving more R&B/Hip-Hop airplay than country (at least based on its relative rank on the respective airplay charts).
In the past, songs would organically cross from one genre’s charts to another’s based on crossover appeal and legitimate interest as measured by radio play across a given format.
As a key example, Steve Miller Band’s “Abracadabra” — as unlikely as it was then — crossed over to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart (then known, oddly enough, as Hot Black Singles) in 1982 not because it sounded Black, but because Black radio stations were playing it.
The same is happening to “Texas Hold ‘Em” today, except, unlike Steve Miller, Beyoncé happens to be a proven R&B/Hip-Hop artist with a legendary track record on the genre’s charts.
This example brings up another key difference between then and now, which is: although “Abracadabra” was topping the pop charts, it only peaked at No. 26 on Hot Black Singles because, well, soul music lovers liked it… but not at the expense of bigger R&B hits at the time like Evelyn King’s “Love Come Down,” The Time’s “777-9311” and a host of others.
If the Hot Black Singles chart back then had used the same formula as the Hot 100 — as today’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart does — it’s arguable that “Abracadabra” would’ve been placed at No. 1 on Hot Black Singles, with other R&B songs falling in line behind it according to how they were ranked on the Hot 100.
Thankfully, Billboard was able to not only survey which songs Black radio stations were playing, but also pinpoint record sales from R&B consumers using specific panels of record stores that specialized in R&B product. This made the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart a truer genre ranking than the one that exists today.
It is under today’s rules that “Texas Hold ‘Em” would top Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart if it were allowed to enter, premised on the chart’s use of the Hot 100’s formula. Fans get that the song may not SOUND like a No. 1 R&B/Hip-Hop Record, given its heavy use of banjo and fiddle, and Beyoncé’s country cadence (which is not far off from her soul one). But penalizing the song altogether by omitting it from a chart whose format is clearly playing it, seems arbitrary and unfair.
Instead, Billboard should return to a formula where only the R&B-based stations feed the R&B/Hip-Hop charts, the country radio panel feeds the Hot Country Songs chart, and so on (even if it continues to apply all sales/streams/downloads data equally to the different charts since technology limits the ability to determine which genre’s audiences are downloading/streaming/buying specific songs).
That way Billboard doesn’t have to be the judge and jury of what constitutes country or R&B/Hip-Hop or any of the other genres using this methodology. The publication can then return to chronicling what a genre’s fans are actually listening to and allowing them to dictate whether and where a song lands on those charts.
Even without that change in methodology, allowing “Texas Hold ‘Em” to appear on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs only makes sense — even if it’s two or three weeks after the fact — as the multi-format smash is clearly gaining fans among R&B/Hip-Hop’s faithful.
Thank you for listening. I look forward to a response (or a change)!
I’m not holding my breath for a response.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog and on Meta’s Threads.
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