I guess agree to disagree on that. I’m referring to GP as a casual radio listener. Talking about the Grammy noms with some coworkers yesterday a couple of them didn’t even realize Taylor dropped a new album, granted this was mostly women 35-50. Folklore didn’t make an impact at radio, at all. Lots of casual listeners may have missed that record if they’re not plugged into social media or follow Taylor regularly.
Fuck the Grammys since 1989 The Boycott Before: Rap and Resentment at the 1989 Grammys (Published 2016)
You’re correct! Taylor is brilliant at maximizing sales and getting her extremely dedicated stans to buy multiple copies of an album to get all the goodies (extra tracks, vinyl colors, etc) All I’m saying is, when looking at the other contenders in those categories it’s much easier for a casual listener to easily identify Dua Lipa, Roddy, or the Post tracks as they were all massive radio hits. Taylor will win all of her categories, and rightfully so. But saying that Folklore was as relevant as her past work in the radio/singles world is false. Again, does radio matter? Not to people under 35, but there’s still a good portion of the US who is older and isn’t regularly on music forums and streaming services. Looking forward to her performance.
You've now gone from saying that inarguably one of the biggest albums of the year was one that "most of the general public forgot even came out" to now talking about the small radio market to try and tie the ends off. So, yeah, the album was not forgotten by the general public and all the evidence is in all the records broken by the album in the general market, so, I'm done responding to this parallel universe discussion.
Our perceptions and identification of the general public are obviously different. Your opinion is valid based on your experience, as is mine with the way I viewed the reception to the record. It’s a great record that deserves the accolades, I was just saying that it didn’t have the commercial legs of Lover or 1989. To be honest, that may have been Taylor’s intention! Folklore is not a record that is lodged in the consciousness of the casual radio listener in 2020.
I've definitely wondered how much less influence radio had this year on "the culture" than in past years, just by virtue of people not commuting as much/just in general there being fewer situations where you might find yourself within hearing distance of a radio. I think back to last year, when "Old Town Road" was inescapable to the point where you probably heard it several dozen times even if you never listen to the radio and didn't purposely cue that song up. I don't think there's anything like that this year, which makes me question the idea that radio should be considered a particularly relevant metric of what people are listening to, what they care about, or what is going to last. (Frankly, I don't think radio has been a good metric of any of that for a very long time, but it's especially off course in quarantine year.)
i have not listened to music radio since, honestly it's probably been close to double digit years lol give me sports talk or give me the aux
I haven't listened to the radio outside of a few minutes here or there in like 20 years, but A LOT more people than you would think still do.
Taylor Swift on Spotify alone has 1/7th of how many people Nielsen says listen to “some form” of the radio each week. (Add in YouTube and that’s 1/3rd of the entire radio listening population per week on just two streaming platforms.) Her Instagram followers, at 140m, is well over half of the entire weekly “any radio” listening population. Little context for how massive her platform is.
What’s the take on MGK getting nominated next year for TTMD? It’d be awesome to see & deserves recognition I think.
You don’t, and she doesn’t need radio performance to win the award, which she will. She’s a Grammy darling and this is her best reviewed record, she’s winning all the awards. I was never debating her winning, or saying she needed radio support to win. I was only implying that this record didn’t have a life at radio and the casual radio listeners are not familiar with this record, as they would be with her massive Top 40 hits of the past.
I’m mostly saying the familiarity of the radio crowd is not necessarily the top metric for Album of the Year winners. Sometimes it is (1989, 21, etc.) but then you have something like The Suburbs or Golden Hour that had very little life at radio but was pretty universally beloved as a full album. Folklore has definitely made more of a radio impact than either of those albums.