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Gender and the Billboard Top 40 Charts between 1997 and 2007

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 34; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03007766.2010.522827

1740-1712

Marc Lafrance, Lara Worcester, Lori Burns,

Asian Culture and Media Studies

Abstract In this paper, we examine the gender-related trends on the Billboard Top 40 charts between 1997 and 2007. Building on similar statistical studies (Wells, "Women in Popular Music," "Women on the Pop Charts," "Nationality") our study aims to answer two questions: first, does the number of hit songs by male artists continue to exceed the number of hit songs by female artists as we move from the late 1990s into the early post-millennium; and, second, are women's chart success rates in the late 1990s and the early post-millennium as precarious as they were in the 1980s and the early to mid-1990s?1 [1] Unless otherwise specified, the term "artists" refers to solo artists. Taking frequency and success score distributions as our indicators, we conclude that the Top 40 charts continue to be characterized by considerable gender inequality. Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding this research project. Marc Lafrance is grateful to Jada Watson for her help with the initial phases of the study, and to Sarah Rasmusson for suggesting references relating to third wave feminism. He is, moreover, grateful to both the panel and the audience at the MMLA 2008 for their insights into the cultural context of the data reported here. Notes [1] Unless otherwise specified, the term "artists" refers to solo artists. [2] On its website, Billboard maintains that factors such as time of day and audience size are also used to determine airplay rankings. For more on this topic, see < www.billboard.com>. [3] Our choice of charts is all the more relevant given that both the Top 100 singles sales and the Top 100 airplay are component charts—that is, charts that determine the position of singles on the Billboard Hot 100. In the United States, the Billboard Hot 100 is the standard chart used to determine the popularity of a song. Again, for more on this topic, see < www.billboard.com>. [4] This large number of categories can be attributed to the considerable amount of gender-related variation associated with feature artists and group membership. [5] Some might argue that this is due, in part, to the fact that there are more male groups than female groups in present-day popular music culture. This claim is, however, a difficult one to corroborate statistically. That is, how do we prove that there are more male groups than female groups? And how do we show that the greater number of male groups is related to their greater success in the world of popular music? Above and beyond these questions, the fact that there may well be more male groups than female groups is itself a phenomenon worthy of consideration by scholars of gender and popular music. [6] Here the terms homogeneous and heterogeneous refer to the amount of gender variation on the charts in question. In other words, we take less gender variation as an indicator of homogeneity and more as an indicator of heterogeneity. [7] As Keith and McPherson argue, the increasing concentration of media ownership can be seen as one of the most important developments over the course of the decade in question. Interestingly, however, our data suggest that this concentration has had no direct effect on the gender distributions of either chart. This is, without a doubt, an important avenue of future inquiry.