Music Thread #1 For 9/17/09: Gladys Knight Slams Hip Hop, While More Shameful Greed From Big Wig Industry Execs

The legendary Gladys Knight did not have some kind words to say about Hip Hop with BlackNews.com apparently. In fact, she baiscally slammed it, and slammed it good.

“It's been bad, in my opinion, as far as the quality of the music and the stories that they tell. It's one thing to be raw about your history, but they took it to another level and it became vulgar,” Knight said.

She also claimed that Hip-Hop had not “elevated our industry musically,” before blaming the music for a number of issues within the African-American community.

“It definitely has not elevated us as African-Americans, because we show disrespect for our partners, men and women,” Knight stated. “I believe we have lowered our self-esteem with these performances and presentations.”

Though she has allowed some artists to sample her stuff over the years, Knight is every bit justified in what she is saying.

Of course, she could have done a way better job of mentioning the positive rappers who haven't denigrated the genre, but on the contrary, enhanced it into the social conscious of the rest of the nation.

And Jay-Z makes a real good point about Hip Hop helping with race relations in American more than anything else over the course of 30 years. But even he is wrong about that, because sports has done it even more in my view, and there have been other genres before hip hop that other cultures were signing to in order to see better the life of blacks in America.

It is certainly a hot button issue, and you know some rapper out here will not take too kindly to what she said, so stay tuned for that.

Lost in all the Blueprint 3 hoopla has been the fact that Raekwon's "Only Built For Cuban Link" hit a surprising #4 on the charts this week. No question that was a happy site to see, although he only sold 68,000 cops.

But hey, it had no promotion at all though. Rest of the Top 10 Info:

Back on big chart, Miley Cyrus's "The Time of Our Lives" stays put at No. 2 with 120,000 copies and Whitney Houston's "I Look to You" falls 1-3 (88,000, -71%). Raekwon's "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt. 2" bows at No. 4 (68,000), Brooks and Dunn's "#1s... And Then Some" debuts at No. 5 (55,000) and Trey Songz's "Ready" slips 3-6 (45,000, -65%).

Black Eyed Peas' "The E.N.D." ascends 11-7 (44,000, +29%) as Boys Like Girls' "Love Drunk" has a No. 8 start with 41,000. Kings of Leon's "Only By The Night" descends 7-9 (40,000, -11%) while Taylor Swift's "Fearless" falls 9-10 with 33,000 (-6%).

Sales this week are up 7% compared to last week but down 2% compared to the same sales week last year. Sales for the year are down 14% overall.

Maybe they should ask the Beatles to, you know, release a new album every week. But I guess they can't do that anymore though.

And finally, the continued absurd greed of the big wig A-holes that are killing the music industry:

CNet reports that the two major agencies in charge of collecting royalties in the U.S., ASCAP and BMI, have been unsuccessful to date in negotiations on these points with electronic music retailers. They’ve since begun lobbying Congress to pass legislation that would require any music retailer selling downloads to pay a performance fee.

Performance fees are typically collected when music is performed in public: at radio stations, in restaurants, in sports stadiums and other venues for example. The argument that ASCAP and BMI are trying to make is that downloading a song from the web should be considered a performance and thus subjected to this fee.

The courts thus far have not been favorable to this argument. Past rulings have tended to side with music retailers, with a precedent-setting ruling from a U.S. district court finding that streaming music should be subject to performance fees but not downloads. ASCAP has since appealed the decision, with the case returning to court later this year.

The royalty agencies are also going after performance fees from downloads of movies and TV shows. The argument goes that when music is included in film or TV that is shown on broadcast, cable or satellite, a performance fee is collected. So when that same TV show is downloaded over iTunes, music industry representatives say, they should also be subject to this performance fee.

And they wonder why they are doing so bad, don't they?

More to come later in the second music thread. For now, Peace.