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This study investigates the degree to which gender, nationality, and race are reflected in the pop music charts. Using the Billboard top 50 annual album charts from 1985 to 1999, we replicate and update earlier studies by Wells that covered the charts from 1955 to 1984. There has been much media coverage of female pop artists in recent years, and a relative neglect of race and particularly of foreign incursions into the U.S. music market. In the '60s and again in the '80s, there was much press attention to the so-called British invasion. This analysis investigates chart performances that can indicate music trends on the three identity dimensions of performing artists.

Previous Chart Study Findings

NATIONALITY. Wells's 1987 ("British") study found that the British invasion of the American market that occurred in 1965-66 led to a relatively permanent British presence on the charts until 1985. Analysis of annual singles and album charts showed that the "new wave" and "second British invasion," widely heralded by the press, were largely myths. While there were fluctuations, the British and other foreigners accounted for about 20% of the singles market and one-third of the U.S. album chart.

RACE. Another 1987 Wells ("Black") study showed that there was a sustained growth of African Americans on the charts from 1955 to 1985. On the singles charts, African Americans and racially mixed groups averaged 8.4 top 50 hits for 1955-1969, rising sharply to 12.6 hits for the 1970-1985 period. African Americans were equally successful on the album charts, averaging 19% of the top 100 albums between 1979 and 1985. In the latter year, the total was 38 of the top 100. These artists, it was concluded, had finally arrived in the music business that for so long had drawn from their musical heritage, while denying them full access to pop music wealth.

GENDER. Female artists in the United States studied in Wells's 1986 study ("Women in") accounted for approximately 10 of Billboard's top 50 singles per year since 1955, with peak years in the mid-'50s, '60s and late 1970s. For singles in the period to 1984, the women's peak years were 1962-64, just prior to the British invasion, and 1967. These women were predominantly White and African American--the British and other foreign invasions did not include many women. For albums, there were peaks in 1967, 1975, and 1979, and female artists achieved a fairly stable 20% share of success from 1979 to 1984.

Wells's 1991 study ("Women on") extended the chart analysis to four more years and compared the success of female artists in the U.S. and Britain. Since 1960, women artists' peak year on the British charts was 1985 (17 of the year's top 40 singles), followed by 1987 (15 hits) and 1986 (14). This confirms press reports that in the mid '80s female success rates were considerably higher than in earlier periods. As in the United States, women artists apparently gained increased success in Britain. Although different charts were used, U.S. and British top 40 album success rates were comparable. From 1967 to 1976, women had consistently more top 40 albums in the U.S. than in Britain. In the 1980s, however, women artists in Britain reversed the situation. Female success rates in the two countries were close in part because a similar array of music is made available in each country by multinational music corporations. There were three discernible categories of women artists. First were "transatlantic stars": Madonna, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Tracy Chapman, Tiffany, and lesser lights, who have hits in both countries. All but Sade are Americans. The second group were Americans who are successful only in the U.S. Their numbers are comparatively few, because U.S. success appears to predicate British success. Cyndi Lauper, Heart, and Gloria Estefan fit this category. Third, and probably responsible for higher overall female success in Britain, are major British stars who do not achieve U.S. recognition. The most prominent examples were Allison Moyet, Kate Bush, 5-Star, and Australian soap opera star Kylie Minogue.

Numerous recent studies, for example Creedon, have dealt with women in many branches of mass media, but very few have investigated the music business. Parsons has studied women in record business management. While he finds some progress, women are only slowly emerging from traditional promotions and public relations positions into male-dominated "power" positions in the industry. Parsons implies that there may already be an effect: he refers to Ms., Vogue, and Newsweek heralding the "influx of female artists around 1985" (32).

The 30th Anniversary Issue of Rolling Stone in 1997 was titled "The Women of Rock." It contains feature articles by Gerri Hirshey ("Women Who Rocked the World"), Donna Gaines ("Let's Talk about Sex"), and Suzanna Andrews ("Taking Care of Business"), plus 28 interviews of leading women performers chosen by Rolling Stone (only 6 of them had a top 20 hit on the annual album charts '86-'98). The cover of the special issue featured Courtney Love, Tina Turner, and Madonna,' each with wind-tunnel-blown hair and a superimposed gold triple X (symbolizing 30 years or an adult movie rating?) beneath the hip-level "WOMEN OF ROCK" title. The opening "Letter from the Editor" introduces the theme very clearly: Women have arrived! Editor Jann S. Wenner explains:

As we made our plans six months ago to celebrate the 30th anniversary of ROLLING STONE, it became obvious to us that the major music story of 1997 was the rise of women artists. "Women are ruling the roost," says Joel Whitburn, the chart master of Billboard. "Women are the big names--Mariah Carey, Jewel. (2) Fiona Apple (3) is coming on strong. Just try to name five top male vocalists (4) who have come along in the past 10 years." Not since the girl groups of the early '60s ... dominated the business have there been so many talented women front and center. (Wenner 31)

A new golden age for women? This study will investigate whether these assertions are justified.

This paper is an investigation of the nationality, race, and gender of successful music artists. Although there are multiple criteria for "success" (Sicoli, for example, examines music awards), the focus here is on the Billboard annual top 200 album charts. Jim Sernoe has written a useful study of the charts. He notes that the introduction of SoundScan in 1991 to measure album sales has given the chart a more accurate basis. It has also given nonmainstream genres a boost on the charts. This has opened the charts to "country, rap, R&B and rock along with mainstream pop," and perhaps also to female performers like Shania Twain in the '90s. The top 50 records of each year's chart were identified by their artist's nationality, gender, and ethnicity, and scored from 50 points for the year's top album to 1 for the 50th-ranked record.

Findings

Tables 1a and 1b indicate the changing fortunes of the main contributing categories of female artists, white and African-American, and foreign performers. As in previous time periods, the dominant groups are white American males (peak year 1993), African-American males (peak 1998), white American women (peak 1990-91), African-American females (top year 1987), and the rapidly fading British males (best year by far, 1986). These chart scores are grouped by race, nationality, and gender in Table 2, which is the basis for the following discussion of findings.

NATIONALITY. The British invasion clearly died in the '90s and the total foreign share of the top 50 albums has been below 20% since 1991. Nineteen hundred ninety-nine is back to pre-1963 levels. Without the recent great success of a few foreign women--Canadians Celine Dion, Shania Twain, and Alanis Morissette, and Britain's Spice Girls (more on them below)--the foreign scores would be marginal indeed. In 1999, the foreign score was below 10% of the total points for the chart, far below the more than 30% share in earlier post-Beatles decades.

RACE. As in prior years, male success of African Americans outscores females by about a 2 to 1 ratio (see Tables la and lb). The combined totals (Table 2) show a peak in 1987. Every year shows a level equal to or greater than the 1979-84 average of 20% of the album chart. Since 1996, the share is a historic 30+%.