It was a big year for Beyoncé, Drake, and others, but none of them topped the Billboard chart in 2013. Album sales, however, tell a more complicated story.
The Associated Press
2013 was the first year since Billboard began its pop singles chart in 1958 in which no black artists hit the No. 1 position. It's particularly notable since this situation is the exact opposite of the same chart a decade ago, when every No. 1 single in 2004 came from a black artist. It's easy to look at this and interpret it as an alarming sign that mainstream music fans have turned against black artists, or that the charts are being whitewashed. But the reality of this is a lot more complicated and ambiguous.
The intent of the Billboard charts is more about reflecting a record's success than its popularity and cultural impact, which can be sort of nebulous things. Billboard is a trade magazine, and the editors' decision last year to factor digital sales and streaming audio and video into determining the Hot 100 was driven mainly by those things becoming key to the industry's revenue streams as consumer behavior has changed in the recent past. It's where the money is now, plain and simple. But since only 11 songs hit No. 1 in 2013, it isn't enough of a sample size to indicate a trend just yet.
There's not that much information to analyze just yet.
The Associated Press
