The powers that be are accessing this years MTV Video Music Awards after hitting another ratings low. Only 5 million viewers decided to tune in. To save face, the network is painting an upswing in social media activity. Still, the show didn’t move sales and streaming numbers for the artists, and that’s what labels and managers hope for. Money is spent and a return is expected. Plus, putting on the show is a hefty cost. One could very well assume that this could be the last MTV awards show. The fat lady may have sung. If MTV thought they had impact on popular culture, the confidence is gone. It’s a new era.

“Because in this bottom-up world, where cultural authority shatters into a million channels of exposure, the hits are harder to foresee—and authority is harder to protect.” – Derek Thompson

If anything, the MTV network looks cursed. Madonna was hired to pay tribute to Aretha Franklin and received the biggest backlash of her career. Post Malone left in a plane that blew two tires and had to make emergency landing, while twitter followers were hoping for his death. In fact, some of the biggest pop stars skipped the ceremony. The Washington Post said Camila Cabello, who was the surprise winner of both Artist of the Year and Video of the Year, was MTV’s way of sending a message to celebrities who don’t show up that they would be ‘punished’ for not showing up at the awards and ‘rewarded’ for attending.

It’s back to the boardroom.

KOAR (Kings of A&R) was the only media outlet that I’m aware of that predicted the Grammys would have a historic viewership decline. It may have been the least watch ever since its formation.

2018 KOAR predictions: 1) Spotify goes public 2) Amazon becomes more of a player in streaming music 3) Rap will have peaked giving room for another genre 4) more acts will break without a big music label 5) The Grammy’s will have a historic low in viewership.

— Kings Of A&R (@kingsofar) January 3, 2018

“With a 12.7/21 in metered market ratings, the Recording Academy’s big hootenanny was also way down from the early numbers for the LA-based February 13, 2017 59th annual show. By way down, I mean a just over 20% decline from last year to what looks to be an all-time low for the ceremony.

Facing the midseason debut of The Walking Dead and even a bit more competition on the rest of the Big 4 than last night’s show, last year’s Adele dominated Grammys eventually claimed 26.05 million viewers and a 7.8 rating among adults 18-49 when the final numbers came in.

Year-to-year, those results were up a tiny bit in total sets of eyeballs from the 2016 Grammys, which were held on a Monday, but basically the same as the February 15 show of almost two years ago in the key demo. All of which had a bottom line of the 2017 Grammys being the most watched since 2014 but the second lowest rated since 2009 – with only 2016 going lower by half a hair.” (Deadline)

Rap has taken over the Spotify Charts and now the genre has dominated the Grammys.

Shockingly, Ed Sheeran’s massive selling “Divide” did not get an Album of the Year nod, neither did albums by Gaga or Kesha. Rather, the Grammys went mostly for R&B and rap: Jay Z, Bruno Mars, Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino, who is really the actor Donald Glover.

Rather, all the pop stars including Gaga, Sheeran, Pink, Kelly Clarkson, and Kesha have been pushed down to to best vocal category.

“How the Grammys became the R&B/Hip Hop Awards will be the subject of much discussion at Black Rock today. Their traditional country nominee is absent, which for CBS is a disaster. The only pop singer who scored an Album of the Year nod was Lorde, the 20 year New Zealand singer whose “Melodrama” album not much of a hit compared to her previous outing.

Kendrick Lamar, Glover, Bruno Mars and Jay Z also took up most of the Record and Song of the Year categories even though almost none of that music is not what is typically thought of for those categories. I’ll bet a lot of pop, rock and R&B stars are in shock right now. Ed Sheeran and his team must be having Xanax omelettes.

Again, for older skewing CBS and producer Ken Erlich, this will be a challenge. This is not the show they want. Having no country nominees in the main categories is heart-attack inducing.

There were no nominations for singles released before the September 30th deadline by pop superstars Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and so on. Swift will not be performing “Look What You Made Me Do” with Right Said Fred. Cyrus won’t be singing “Malibu.”

For Jay Z, this must be quite a celebration. He wanted the Grammys at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. That didn’t happen. Instead, he will be a huge part of the Madison Square Garden show. Stunning.”

Feedspot just released the top 75 American Music Blogs. Kings of A&R has been selected as one the top 75 American music blogs. But what are music blogs and what is the purpose?

Music blogs can help music go viral and they can drive traffic to music streaming services such as Spotify, Soundcloud, and Apple Music. Most importantly, blogs are introducing their readership to new artists. Although the web has largely changed, blogs remain a collective powerful force. Artists, PR agents, managers, and other industry people will literally spend hours sending out new music releases to blogs, patiently waiting for a reply back. Patience is key because the email inbox of bloggers looks like a war zone. It’s not uncommon for a blogger to get 25 – 50 emails a day. Since bloggers deal with literally everyone in their respective industry, artists want to hunt down the tastemakers for there connections.

Nicole Cifani who is a Executive producer, writer, and DJ calls music blogs a cultural voice and says, “music blogs have helped shape the landscape of what we tune in to.”

She goes on to say:

“With that said, some similarities can be drawn between music blogs and indie labels. Music blogs are similar to indies because they excel at marketing and branding by taking a very DIY approach. This independent mindset is one that for whatever reason resonates well with music fans. CONTINUE READING

(credit: Instagram screenshot)

Taylor Swift’s music label Big Machine is predicting the latest album ‘Reputation’ will move close to 2 million units first week. This is more than her previous releases. In fact, this is historic.

A Target spokesman notes, “Reputation is our biggest entertainment pre-sale of all time, across movies, music and books” and additionally stated that overall Target expects the album to be the biggest release of the season.

Although data analysts claim the 2 million first week album sales is an overreach, Big Machine is claiming the number is real close.