Andrew Medichini, Associated Press Rapper Eminem had one of the biggest sales weeks of the year in 2004, with his album "Encore." Click photo for larger image. Related article: Concert revenues end year on high note

R & B and hip-hop cemented their grip on the radio dial last year with 61 of the top 100 most-played singles of the year. That's up from 53 the year before, when R&B/hip-hop made big news by occupying every slot inside the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 one week in October.

But the news of rock 'n' roll's demise as a cultural force has been greatly exaggerated, as has hip-hop's domination of the culture.

"From an audience saturation point of view," says Geoff Mayfield, director of charts at Billboard, "it is accurate to say that [R&B and hip-hop are] the most heard music now. But if you look at the sales charts week to week? It is impressive on the sales side. The best-selling album of the year was an R&B album. And one of the biggest sales weeks of the year belonged to Eminem.

"But week in and week out, you don't see the same saturation you see on the radio charts."

Hip-hop and R&B artists accounted for 24.2 percent of albums sold in 2004, as tracked by Neilsen Soundscan. That's a significant share of the market, to be sure, but not as dominant as airplay would suggest.

One reason is that stations that focus on R&B/hip-hop tend to spin their biggest hits more frequently, and airplay charts are based on audience impressions, as tracked by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems, which take into account both the number of plays a song receives and the estimated audience for that time of day at that station.

"A station in one of those formats will play its most popular song as many as 80, 90 times or more," says Mayfield. "And we're also in a period where an awful lot of Top 40 stations are leaning on R&B/hip-hop as well, because they see that it tests well with the audience they're seeking. And Top 40, like R&B/hip-hop and rhythmic stations, tends to have a very high rotation of the most played songs, 80, 90, 100 times a week.

Phil McCarten, Associated Press Usher's "Confessions" was the biggest-selling album of the year. Click photo for larger image.

"When you go to the rock or adult-oriented stations, they tend to rotate their hits less. So that's why the Hot 100 is often dominated in the Top 10 by R&B and hip-hop. The formats that turn their songs the most are both focusing on the same repertoire. But that doesn't necessarily mean everyone is listening to the R&B or Top 40 station."

The Billboard Hot 100 also factors in a single's sales. "But there are so few hits that get released as retail singles," Mayfield says, that the impact of sales on the chart is, at best, "minimal," leading to a Hot 100 that's "almost essentially a radio-only chart."

While R&B and hip-hop clearly have the airwaves, to see what the public actually buys you'd have to check the album chart. And what you'd find there is a more diverse assortment of musical interests. While Usher's "Confessions" was far and away the biggest-selling album of the year, at 7.9 million, No. 2 was "Feels Like Home" by Norah Jones, a soft-rock record Billboard counts as jazz. Eminem was No. 3 with "Encore," followed by three country records (Kenny Chesney, Gretchen Wilson, Tim McGraw), two more rock releases (Evanescence, Ashlee Simpson), pop (Maroon 5) and a genre-crossing compilation ("Now 16").

R&B/hip-hop also did well in the second 10, with major hits from Kanye West, Nelly, OutKast and Alicia Keys. But even then, says Mayfield, you don't really see the "preponderance there of hip-hop titles that you do when you look at a radio-based chart that is constructed on bulk audience."

As Mark Tindle, senior vice president/general manager of West Coast Nielsen Music, sees it, "Obviously, the industry kind of gears toward youth, and that's what the hip-hop scene is really speaking to. The baby boomers are still very active buyers of music, and they're buying the hip-hop albums for their children. But I think, by and large, they're not the main consumers of hip-hop."

	Jim Cooper, Associated Press Nelly's "Sweat" and "Suit" added to the strong R&B showing in the top 20 albums of the year. Click photo for larger image.

But they will buy Norah Jones. And The Beatles. And country.

Last year's biggest gainers on the album chart were country, which posted a 12 percent sales gain, and Latin, up 16 percent over last year.

"I think overall what it's showing," says Tindle, "is that there are consumers who are actively looking for music in all different genres."

As to which chart is a more conclusive sign of what people are actually into, Mayfield says, "Well, I would tend to think the sales chart is probably closer to the people's choice. You're voting with your wallet."

Still, he says, you can't discount the popularity of any sound that comes to dominate the airwaves, from 'N Sync and Britney Spears in their day to this latest wave of R&B with Usher at the helm.

"You hear a lot of nefarious things about how radio will wind up playing something," Mayfield says. "But at the end of the day, radio is an extremely competitive field, and you don't play songs just to do a favor for someone or to pick up a little coin, because if you play the wrong songs, you're gonna chase your audience somewhere else. And today, especially since Top 40 stations are playing so much hip-hop and R&B, if you're an R&B or hip-hop station, you're not gonna carelessly play something just to play it. You're gonna play it because you think people want to hear it. You don't make capricious decisions."

Before you cite those airplay charts as proof that rock 'n' roll has lost its grip on the public imagination, keep in mind that rock sales were actually up in 2004. And competitive, too. While Billboard's sales statistics are too niche-specific to account for rock or pop as genres, "alternative" albums accounted for sales of 132.5 million in 2004, as compared to sales of 162.2 million for R&B/hip-hop. Heavy music accounted for sales of 75.3 million, but some of those records also were counted as alternative, so it's hard to arrive at a comparable figure for rock, a situation complicated by the fact that rock acts as diverse as Ashlee Simpson, Norah Jones, Los Lonely Boys, Hilary Duff, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, Lindsey Lohan and Five For Fighting wouldn't be included in alternative or heavy music. Nor would hot-selling catalog items by the Beach Boys, Beatles, Pink Floyd or the Eagles.

"Ludicrous" is how Mayfield responds to the notion that rock 'n' roll is somehow losing ground here.

"Look," he says, "the 'rock is dead' obituary gets rewritten every two or three years, and it's never true. It never dies. It always hangs around. It has up and down periods, just as R&B and country have up and down periods. Music is cyclical."