1988 Countdown: Demographics on Parade
Since we’re halfway done with the countdown, it seemed like an opportune moment to update the demographics of the fifty videos played so far:
United States: 30
England: 10
US/UK joint ventures: 4
Australia: 4
New Zealand: 1
Sweden: 1
White: 40
Black: 10
Male: 37
Female: 13
Solo acts: 31
Groups: 19
Number of acts with a singer who has since died: 3
More people of color in the second quarter (although the numbers are still shamefully low), fewer women. I tried slicing up the countdown by genre and style, but I quickly got bored of making judgment calls as to what counted as R&B and which songs qualified as ballads. After mulling it over, I decided that Terence Trent D’Arby qualified as a US/UK joint venture.
R.I.P., Michael Jackson, Michael Hutchence, and Roy Orbison. And Ken Ober too.
posted 17 August 2010 in 1988 and tagged statistics. 4 comments
August 17th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
I tried slicing up the countdown by genre and style, but I quickly got bored of making judgment calls as to what counted as R&B and which songs qualified as ballads.
That’s what was good about the ’80s, right? Say what you want about how badly some of the music has aged, but a lot of it was virtually genre-blind.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
I remember when Jann first discussed a possible INXS cover he pronounced it “Inks-ess”
August 18th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
!!!
(The other US/UK joint ventures, by the way: Foreigner, Whitesnake, and the Traveling Wilburys.)
August 20th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
One of which, surprisingly, has yet another entry a fair ways up into the second half.