Originally Posted by
RanRan79
I know you don't mean any disrespect with your comment Ollie, but I have to say I take exception to it and the disregard for the "40 million" plus Black people [[and others who love R&B and listened faithfully to radio stations that played that kind of music) who consumed the songs that made the R&B chart, both by radio and by sales. If you buy into the notion that only what white people or pop music fans consume is memorable or noteworthy you're certainly entitled to that opinion. But as someone who is Black and grew up in the Black community, steeped in the culture, and was once a faithful listener to some of the nation's leading radio stations devoted to r&b music, I can tell you, there are indeed songs that are MASSIVELY popular but were not successful outside the genre.
Take Stephanie Mills' "I Feel Good All Over". Number one r&b hit in 1987. Find me a Black person born between 1940 and 1983 who cannot sing at least the chorus to this song, and that would be a Black person who was not listening to r&b radio in 1987. Stephanie can step on any stage, anywhere, with a sizable Black audience and turn the place out doing this one song alone. Yet "I Feel Good All Over" didn't chart at all on the Hot 100. All that means is that a segment of society felt it, while other segments didn't get it.
It does suck to be told that a song popular with one segment of society doesn't carry the same weight as another song popular with another segment of society, especially when there are countless songs popular with non r&b loving folks that most Black people have never heard nor find memorable. As I said before, I doubt this is the way you've thought about this. Hopefully you get the other side of this and understand it better.