How Music Charts

Highlights  

• It’s Found on Friday, and we’re celebrating the big five-oh by unearthing some breaking artists according to social and Spotify follows.

Mission   

• Good morning, it’s Rutger here at Chartmetric with your 3-minute Data Dump where we upload charts, artists and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world.

Date

• This is your Data Dump for Friday, May 31st, 2019.

Found on Friday: A Dutch YouTube Personality, a Turkish Rocker, and Sisters in a Cover Band

• It’s Found on Friday, and we’re celebrating our 50th episode by unearthing three artists breaking on the social and Spotify follow growth charts.
• First up: 22-year-old Dutch YouTube personality and rising European pop star Simon De Wit, aka Blanks, who experienced a 27 percent growth in SoundCloud followers over the last 28 day period. 
• Along with SoundCloud growth, he’s also experienced a 52 percent increase in Spotify followers and a 27.6 percent increase in Instagram followers. 
• Blanks’ bio reads, “Make yourself happy,” and he’s got to be feeling pretty happy about those stats right about now.
• His beachy, funky pop vibe is sure to put a smile on listeners faces as well.
• Next up, it’s Turkish rocker Ufuk Beydemir, who is absolutely killing it on Insta with a 595 percent increase in followers.
• And it’s translating well on other platforms, too, with a 31 percent increase in Spotify followers over the last 28 day period.
• I don’t speak Turkish, but I don’t think you really need to to understand the wistfulness in his catchy and accessible rock ballads. 
• Thought cover bands couldn’t gain traction? Think again. American sisters Sidney and Caitlin Powell, who comprise folk duo Neoni, are going viral thanks to their acoustic renditions of prominent pop songs like Despacito by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee. 
• Just a quick glance at their YouTube channel reveals the sheer breadth of their covers, from Evanescence to Gnarls Barkley songs.
• But enough of the fluff, what about the numbers? Neoni have gone from zero to 100 (and then some) in their Spotify followers over the last 28 day period, which far surpasses any growth they’re seeing on other platforms. Their Instagram follower growth is down, in fact, by .6 percent, and their SoundCloud followers are up by only .9 percent.
• From May 14 to May 15, Neoni’s follower count skyrocketed from 179 to 16,730, which is interesting, because they don’t appear to have been added to any prominent playlists. 
• While this smells like a metadata error at first sniff, a closer whiff shows why it’s not.
• What that exponential growth tells us is that Neoni either just joined Spotify within the last month and happened to bring some of their YouTube popularity with them all of the sudden, or…. something else is going on.
• Ah, the power of a name change. With a little digging, we find that Neoni used to be called Facing West, and the Powell sisters announced their official name change on Instagram on May 4.
• Looking at Facing West’s Spotify follower stats reveals an astonishing drop from 16,682 to 59. Can you guess when that happened? Yep, May 14 to May 15. 
• It might have taken 10 days, but through their label or distributor, the sisters were able to transfer their Spotify follower count from Facing West to Neoni, which accounts for the lopsided, and ultimately deceiving, growth percentage for Neoni’s Spotify followers. 
• All that to say, sometimes, numbers can be deceiving if you’re not looking at the bigger picture. 

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday, May 31st, 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.
• Free accounts are at app.chartmetric.com/signup
• And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com.
• Happy Friday, have a great weekend, and see you on Monday!

• Highlights
  • It’s Excursion Thursday, we’re teleporting to Tokyo, Japan, where local music matters for Spotify and Instagram, but not for Shazam. What does that say about public and private listening habits in Tokyo?
• Mission   
  • Good morning, it’s Jason here at Chartmetric with your 3-minute Data Dump where we upload charts, artists and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Thursday, May 30th, 2019.
• Excursion Thursday:
  • As Japan’s capital and the world’s largest city with a population of around 38 million, Tokyo is the heart of the No. 2 music market in the world.
  • Despite streaming’s rescue of the global music industry from a $14.6B decline in global revenue since the 2000s, a lot of Japanese simply don’t care as 71% of their local recorded music revenue in 2018 came from physical sales.
  • Along with their love of physical music goods, Japan’s consumer base also remains faithful to its local artists. According to Ichiro Asatsuma, Chairman of Fujipacific Music., the breakdown of the country’s physical sales is typically 85-90% Japanese repertoire and 10-15% international.
  • Now how does this percentage distribution hold up in Tokyo’s digital market? 
  • Looking at Top Artists by Spotify Monthly Listeners in the past month, 18 of the top 25 are Japanese, and by recent Instagram Followers, 15 of the Top 25 Artists are also local. 
  • But Spotify and Instagram are generally more private platforms when it comes to use, at least in comparison to an audio fingerprinting app like Shazam, which is utilized in a public space like a bar or a club.
  • So, what’s the Shazam spread look like? Of the 25 Top Artists by Shazam Chart Occurrences in the past month, only three are Japanese.
  • So recently, locals tend to prefer Japanese artists on Spotify and Instagram, at 72 and 60 percent respectively, but not at quite the same 85-90 percent distribution that Asatsuma suggests for physical.
  • On Shazam, the preference for Japanese artists bottoms out at only 12% domestic.
  • This suggests that Tokyo locals are more likely to listen to their fellow countrymen and women when they’re in a personal streaming mode and they’re simply curious about foreign music when they’re in a public environment.
  • But YouTube, arguably the most “global” platform of this bunch and the 2nd most visited website in the world, seems to have more of a globalizing effect on Tokyo’s use of it. 
  • Looking at Top Artists by local YouTube Video Views, only eight of the top 25 are Japanese. Same story when it comes to Top Tracks by local YouTube Views, with just three of the top 10 originating in Japan. That’s a 32 and a 30 percent distribution, respectively, indicating international preference just might increase the more global the streaming platform gets.
  • Granted, these streaming stats are from the last 28 days, so they’re more current, and also susceptible to fluctuation and recent releases...so if a few Japanese bangers make some great YouTube videos next month, then the numbers might be telling a different story.
• Outro
  • That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Thursday, May 30th, 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.
  • Free accounts are at app.chartmetric.com/signup
  • And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com.
  • Happy Thursday, see you tomorrow!

Highlights

• It’s Winner Wednesday, and we’re scanning the top of the SoundCloud and QQ Music charts to see what moods are winning out on two very different streaming platforms. 

Mission   

• Good morning, it’s Rutger here at Chartmetric with your 3-minute Data Dump where we upload charts, artists and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world.

Date

• This is your Data Dump for Wednesday, May 29th, 2019.

Winner Wednesday:

• Welcome back to this week’s Winner Wednesday, where we’re scanning the SoundCloud and QQ Music charts to see what song valences are winning out on those two very different streaming platforms.
• First, what the heck is valence? Think of it as the mood or emotional quality of a track. With high valence songs, there’s going to be more positive or cheerful energy, and low valence songs are going to sound a bit more negative, sad, or angry. In other words, 100 percent valence suggests a song might be the happiest you’ve ever heard. 0 percent valence suggests it’s going to be downright depressing.
• Note that we measure valence irrespective of lyrical content, so there’s plenty potential for a low valence song to have uplifting lyrics, but that’s not typically the case.  
• Looking at the top of the SoundCloud charts for May 18-24, there’s a clear and unsurprising frontrunner when it comes to genre: hip-hop. In fact, the genre overwhelms the Top 100 consistently, making the Swedish-founded streaming service almost exclusively important to the rap scene. 
• Why does this matter for valence? SoundCloud was crucial for helping niche sub-genres like emo rap and trap — both of which tend to be characterized by melancholy — go mainstream. So much so, in fact, that dark and gritty “SoundCloud rap” has become a genre altogether.   
• So, is it borne out in the data? For the most part, yes. At No. 1, “Shotta Flow” by NLE Choppa has a 45 percent valence measurement; at No. 3, “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X is at 47 percent; and if we dip down to No. 4 and No. 5, “Pop Out” by Polo G featuring Lil TJay is only at 25 percent and Earfquake by Tyler, the Creator is only at 41 percent. The outlier here is “Suge” by DaBaby, which is at No. 2 with 85 percent valence.  
• And that brings us to Chinese streaming service and Tencent subsidiary, QQ Music. 
• Looking at the platform’s Western Music Chart behavior during a similar timeframe, pop and dance are the genre frontrunners, with 50 of 96 songs tagged with those genre identifiers. 
• Here, hip-hop only accounts for eight. 
• With pop and dance frontloading QQ Music’s Western Music Chart, you’d probably expect high valence songs at the top. Would you be right?
• “Me!” by Taylor Swift featuring Panic! At the Disco’s Brendon Urie, “Rescue Me” by One Republic, and “If I Can’t Have You” by Shawn Mendes hit the high notes here with 66, 64, and 82 percent valence measurements, respectively. But Carly Rae Jepsen and Lana Del Rey, at No. 4 and No. 5, bring out our sensitive side with 37 and 45 percent. 
• Taking the average valence of the top five on each of these charts gives us a total score of 48.6 percent valence for SoundCloud. QQ Music, meanwhile, is a bit less moody at 58.8 percent valence. 
• So, does SoundCloud have more edge? We can’t say that definitively across the board, but we can say that the top of the SoundCloud Chart is less positively valenced than the top of QQ’s Western Music Chart when it comes to mood — and it’s all in the genres each streaming service caters to, which might suggest something about audience geography. Does China have a bigger appetite for happy pop than Westerners with a palette more open to edgy rap?

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Wednesday, May 29th, 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.
• Free accounts are at app.chartmetric.com/signup
• And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com.
• Have a winning Wednesday, see you tomorrow!

• Highlights
  • Major labels usually dominate top music playlists, but Apple’s Global Release Day playlist, Best of the Week, tells a different story.
• Mission   
  • Good morning, it’s Jason here at Chartmetric with your 3-minute Data Dump where we upload charts, artists and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Tuesday, May 28th, 2019.
• New Music Friday Monday:
  • Hope the American listeners enjoyed Memorial Day and those in the UK Spring Bank Holiday, welcome back to the work week.
  • On this New Music Friday Tuesday, we’re revisiting the newest adds to Apple Music’s Best of the Week playlist in the US storefront since we last looked in late March.
  • Like Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist, it updates every Global Release Friday. 
  • With a 28-Day Add Ratio of 100 percent, it’s obviously the most frontline of frontline playlists, and brings 67 new songs to our attention this week.
  • In the No. 1, 2, and 3 spots on Friday’s playlist positioning are Ed Sheeran, Young Thug, and YG, with tracks released by Warner and Universal subsidiaries.
  • No real surprise here, but new deals and labels are making the spread a bit more interesting: only 11 of the 67 tracks this week were owned and operated by majors, just over 16%.
  • The funky track “Playground” by The Internet guitarist and recent Vampire Weekend collaborator Steve Lacy bucks the major label trend altogether with a partnership between music startup 3qtr (Three Quarter), who consider themselves part record label, venture capital, management, and PR firm, and label services company AWAL, or Artists Without a Label, which is owned by publishing and tech firm Kobalt, currently neck and neck with the majors when it comes to market share in publishing.
  • At the #5 position on the US Best of the Week is Clairo with chilled-out track “Bags,” who is operating under a 12-song licensing deal with the FADER Label, something that’s becoming increasingly popular for artists wanting to retain ownership and creative control over their copyrights.
  • With over 12 million monthly listeners on Spotify, Chance the Rapper released the mid-tempo jam “Cross Me” with Ed Sheeran in the #1 position, still a poster boy for the DIY artist career track.
  • Flying Lotus is back in the mix, with a Denzel Curry cameo on “Black Balloons Reprise” and the Warp Records release of his sixth studio album, Flamagra. While presumably a traditional deal, the British electronic label Warp is another notable indie at the top of this week’s best. 
  • Throwing in other new releases from Google-backed 300 Entertainment, indie country giant Big Machine Label Group, and K-pop’s enormous SM Entertainment agency…what defines “major” and ”indie” starts to get dicey at best.
  • The majors might still have the lion’s share of the industry, but this week’s Best of the Week mixes things up and shows today’s artists what a variety of potential career options could look like.
• Outro
  • That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Tuesday, May 28th, 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.
  • Free accounts are at app.chartmetric.com/signup
  • And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com.
  • Happy Tuesday, see you tomorrow!

Highlights

• It’s Found on Friday, and we’re digging in with our A&R tool to find breaking artists based on YouTube Channel Views, and that’s important, because YouTube is technically the most popular streaming platform in the world.

Mission   

• Good morning, it’s Rutger again at Chartmetric with your 3-minute Data Dump where we upload charts, artists and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world.

Date

• This is your Data Dump for Friday, May 24th 2019.

Found on Friday: Momoiro Clover Z, Yella Beezy & Junip

• Welcome back to Found on Friday. We’re digging in with our A&R tool to find artists breaking through the surface in a global way. 
• If we search according to highest growth percentage in YouTube Channel Views, we land on three artists with notable momentum on YouTube right now: Momoiro Clover Z, Yella Beezy, and Junip.
• First up, J-pop group, let's call them MCZ for short, the first to make theme music for Sailor Moon, Pokémon, AND Dragonball Z, in addition to being the fourth highest grossing artist in Japan in 2013, based on CD, DVD, and Blu-Ray sales — yes, physical is still VERY important in the Japanese music market — they've experienced a 14 percent growth in their YouTube channel views over the last 28-day period.
• Their Spotify monthly listeners have spiked almost 29 percent over the last 30 days as well. But the group is not new, so what shot them to the top of the breaking list? Well ... they did just come out with a new album on May 17th.…
• Just about tied with MCZ is Texas rapper Yella Beezy, whose growth percentage is up to 14.4 percent this period from the previous 30 days’ 9.5 percent. 
• Yella Beezy, whose latest track features Gucci Mane and Quavo from Migos, also soared 16 spots from No. 50 to No. 34 on Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart. 
• Switching gears altogether now for Sweden’s folk rock duo Junip, composed of soft-spoken singer-songwriter Jose Gonzalez and Tobias Winterkorn, who experienced a 13 percent jump in the last 28 day-period. This correlates with a 10.2 percent increase in their YouTube channel subscribers over the last 30 days, which is surprising, as it doesn’t look like they’ve released anything recently…. Maybe fans of Rogue Wave and Ben Howard got turned on to them? We don’t know. What we do know is Junip’s monthly Spotify listeners dropped an estimated .2 percent in the last 30 days, but their Spotify followers increased .4 percent in the same period. So, no, not all streaming services are created equal.
• Check out these stats: YouTube is technically the biggest music streaming source in the world, with close to a billion users consuming music via user upload video streaming. Compare that with just over 200 million users consuming music via “traditional” streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, and the importance of YouTube stats as some indication of an artist’s digital presence worldwide becomes clear.
• So there you have it — a Japanese idol group, a Texas rapper, and a Swedish folk duo comprise an eclectic trio of international artists on a YouTube hot streak right now.

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday, May 24th 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.
• Free accounts are at app.chartmetric.com/signup
• And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com.
• Happy Friday, see you tomorrow!

• Highlights
  • Grab your passports, it’s Excursion Thursday, and we’re headed to Mumbai, India’s largest city and Spotify’s largest potential market.
• Mission   
  • Good morning, it’s Jason here at Chartmetric with your 3-minute Data Dump where we upload charts, artists, and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Thursday, May 23rd, 2019.
• Excursion Thursday: Mumbai
  • On today’s Excursion Thursday, we’re taking off to India’s most populated city, Mumbai, which has quickly become a testing ground for Spotify’s global expansion strategy. 
  • Until 1995, the “Hollywood of India” was also called Bombay, what many in India saw as a vestige of British colonialism, hence the name change. The city’s booming movie industry lends the city its other famous moniker, “Bollywood”.
  • Mumbai is not only the wealthiest city in India, but it’s also arguably the financial, arts, and entertainment capital of the entire country with an estimated 22.5 million  Mumbaikars more than doubling the population of New York City!
  • It’s clear why Spotify’s weathering its recent challenges in-country, as India’s population is currently at 1.4 billion and climbing — that’s almost 20 percent of everybody on earth, while North America comprises around 5 percent. 
  • So, if Spotify’s been able to acquire an estimated 50M monthly active users out of North America’s 366M people and an estimated 60M monthly active users out of Europe’s 743M people, that gives them a market penetration rate lying somewhere between 8 and 15 percent. Apply that to a population of 1.4B, and SPOT’s stock price will rise, for sure.
  • So, based on the city’s listening profile….how’s it going? Unfortunately, it’s too early to tap into Spotify’s local monthly listeners, but we can at least look at other Western platforms that are operating there.
  • Mumbai’s Shazam and YouTube charts definitely reflect the battle between domestic and foreign repertoire preferences.
  • According to the Top 90 tracks by Shazam Chart Occurrences in the past month, a total of 22 bear Indian ISRC codes. That’s around 25% of total Shazam’d tracks we captured, while there are 38 US-based ISRCs present, about 40%.
  • Moving to Shazam’s most charted artists in Mumbai over the last 30 days, American rappers Swae Lee and Lil Nas X come in 1st and 3rd with 52 and 47 chart appearances, respectively, and Puerto Rican singer Farruko in 2nd with 50. Fourth and 5th place go to film music composers Vishal-Shekhar and star singer Arijit Singh with 42 and 41 chart appearances each.
  • Using Top Tracks by YouTube Views, we see a mixed bag at the top, with T. Swift and Brendon Urie’s “Me!” at 235K average daily views and Katy Perry and Migos’ “Bon Appétit” at 77K daily views in 1st and 3rd place respectively. Second place goes to “Aankh Mare” from Bollywood movie Simmba sitting pretty at 188K views. 
  • Genre-wise on the Shazam charts in the past month, it’s still a battle between local and foreign fare: with Hip-Hop at 11 genre tags from mostly American artists, Dance at 15 genre tags from an international artist roster, and Pop at 22 genre tags from both Western and Indian artists. 
  • Twelve of Pop genre tags are from domestic artists, suggesting there’s a slight skew in the past month  toward the local when it comes to the genre.
  • While Spotify competes with the entrenched Indian streaming service JioSaavn, partly headquartered in Mumbai and specializing in Bollywood music , Mumbai’s demand for both Indian and Western music will prove to either be Spotify’s ace in the hole or rock in its shoe.
• Outro
  • That’s a wrap for your Daily Data Dump for Thursday, May 23nd, 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.
  • Free accounts are at app.chartmetric.com/signup
  • And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com.
  • Hope you’re not too jet-lagged from today’s Excursion Thursday, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

• Highlights
  • It’s Winner Wednesday again, and we’re looking at who’s hot on the Spotify and Deezer charts to examine just how global Europe’s biggest streaming services are?
• Mission   
  • Good morning, it’s Jason here at Chartmetric with your 3-minute Data Dump where we upload charts, artists, and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Wednesday, May 22nd, 2019.
• Winner Wednesday: Deezer & Spotify...who's more global?
  • On today’s Winner Wednesday, we’re looking at who’s hot on Europe’s biggest streaming services, Spotify and Deezer, on their Top 200 Spotify and Top 100 Deezer track charts for May 20th. 
  • The #1 and #2 tracks are the same across both platforms, with “emerging artists” Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber taking the lead spot with “I Don’t Care”, tallying 58.4M streams on Spotify this week and having a 10/10 popularity score on Deezer. 
  • Holding strong for almost two months now, Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” occupies the #2 position on both apps, with 41.4M streams on Spotify this week and a 9.95/10 popularity score on Deezer currently. 
  • But starting from #3 down, the differences between Sweden’s Spotify and France’s Deezer are as wide as the North Sea in between them.
  • For example, Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Old Town Road (Remix)” was 3rd on Spotify’s chart but only 9th on Deezer, where Daddy Yankee’s “Con Calma” took 3rd on Deezer but only 14th on Spotify.
  • Shawn Mendes and the late Avicii both appear in each platform’s Top 10 in different places, but otherwise the tracks are completely different.
  • Let’s look at the daily chart summaries: Billie Eilish has 13 songs on Spotify’s Top 200 chart, followed by Tyler, the Creator with 11, Post Malone with 8, with Cardi B and Khalid at 6 tracks each. 
  • On Deezer, a blast from the past: Neue Deutsche Härte (or German industrial metal) group Rammstein hold the top spot with 10 tracks in the Deezer Top 100 since their May 17th self-titled album release. 
  • For those that were of musical awareness in 1998, the German rockers managed to peak on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart at #20 and even appear on MTV’s Total Request Live, which was then the epicenter of US pop culture.
  • Puerto Rico’s Ozuna followed Rammstein with 8 tracks in the Deezer Top 100, and fellow reggaeton kings Daddy Yankee, J Balvin and Anuel AA took the 3rd, 4th and 5th spot with 6 tracks each that day. 
  • Note that Spotify’s most placed artists this week are decidedly American, while Deezer’s winners are German, Colombian, and Puerto Rican. So, is Deezer the more global streaming service between the two?
  • Well technically, yes: Deezer is operating in 187 countries compared to Spotify’s 79, though stateside, the now publicly-traded Spotify takes up most of our headlines.
  • But remember: Deezer really just started expanding into the U.S. since 2016, and is privately owned by American conglomerate Access Industries, who also happens to own all of Warner Music Group. 
  • So keep your eyes peeled for different charts and each platform’s preferences, as it always helps to remember that no matter where your fans come from, Spotify, Deezer, YouTube, Apple Music, and Amazon listeners all buy the same concert ticket!
• Outro
  • That’s a wrap for your Daily Data Dump for Wednesday, May 22nd, 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.
  • Free accounts are at app.chartmetric.com/signup
  • And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com.
  • Have a winning Wednesday, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

• Highlights
  • This Technique Tuesday brings you a fresh way to take a bite out of your data by learning how to curate the curators, the streaming world’s sometimes mysterious movers and doers. 
• Mission   
  • No, this isn’t Jason with a cold; it’s Chartmetric’s newest voice, Rutger Rosenborg, and I’m happy to be here uploading charts, artists, and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world. 
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Tuesday, May 21st, 2019.
• Technique Tuesday: Curating the Curators
  • On today’s Technique Tuesday, we’re bringing you a fresh way to take a bite out of your data with a spoonful of meta-curation. 
  • Curators are the sometimes mysterious movers and doers of the streaming world determining what’s hot, what’s not, and what might have a shot — and all with a playlist. 
  • It might not be a surprise to anyone that Apple and Spotify are themselves the biggest curators in the streaming world — after all, they control their own DSPs. 
  • Let’s look at the green giant, Spotify,  which has a whopping 7,000-plus self-curated playlists to its name…. with a staggering 1.1 billion followers. How does that work, if its total user count is something like 200 million, counting both premium and ad-based users? Well, users must like Spotify playlists enough to subscribe to tons of them.
  • On the other side of the ring, despite its lower worldwide subscriber count, as a curator, Apple boasts more than twice the number of playlists than Spotify at around 17,500, all said and done.
  • C’est tout? Non, less is more for French streaming service Deezer, which  interestingly features official curators composed of a combination of geographic or genre based anonymous “editors” and face-forward “editors” like Fabio from Brazil, Emilia from Romania, and Stanislav from Russia. While Deezer’s playlist count is low, on the order of 1,500 or so dispersed amongst some 40-odd official Deezer editors, each editor ranges from thousands to multi-millions of followers.
  • There’s also Amazon’s mysterious Music Experts, who dictate all 2,800 playlists in their ecosystem, from “All Hits” to “Country Heat,” and “Pop Culture” to “I Miss the ‘90s.” “Cleaning the House” is a good one too, by the way.
  • But we’re talking macro level here. Let’s get into the weeds. As a curator, Spotify is clearly geared toward frontline pop hits, with its “Today’s Top Hits” playlist absolutely dominating the platform in terms of both listenership, at an estimated 5.7 million a month, and also follower count, at 23.2 million. Apple Music, on the other hand, is a bit more evenly dispersed, with its Hip-Hop, Alternative, and Pop sub-curators sitting at around 1,300 playlists each. Jazz, Rock, Indie, and Country hover between 800 and 1,000. Deezer is a bit more difficult to parse, numbers wise, because its curation focus is more geographic based. Suffice it to say, you’re probably not going to want to hit up Fabio for a Country Western pitch anytime soon.
  • Still too macro? Then it’s microscope time. What about those other curators — you know, the ones who aren’t necessarily funded by billion-dollar corporations.
  • On second thought … Fltr, Digster, and Topsify are three of the biggest third-party playlist curators, and they’re owned by Sony, Universal, and Warner, respectively. While it’s no secret where their curation interests lie, there are still the classic DJ tastemakers like Dmitri Vegas & Like Mike, who boast close to 2 million EDM-focused followers, or market-specific influencers like Hugo Gloss with 1.4 million Brazil-focused followers.
  • What’s clear here is that Spotify and Deezer are somewhat more democratic and accessible platforms for individual tastemakers with some skin in the game. Aside from prominent artists, individual users have managed to rack up hundreds of thousands of followers and exert influence on the playlist game. Apple Music and Amazon Music, on the other hand, have a tighter grip on the curation wheel, making their platforms more difficult to penetrate for third-party tastemakers. 
• Outro
  • That’s a wrap for your Daily Data Dump for Tuesday, May 21st, 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.
  • Free accounts are at app.chartmetric.com/signup
  • And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com.
  • Have a good rest of your Tuesday, and long live King Bran the Broken!

• Highlights
  • Amazon Music’s Brand New Music playlist features a few new Friday releases similar to Spotify and Apple, we’ve got the quick rundown for you
• Mission   
  • Good morning, it’s Jason here at Chartmetric with your 3-minute Data Dump where we upload charts, artists and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Monday May 20th 2019.
• New Music Friday Monday: Amazon’s Brand New Music playlist
  • It’s New Music Friday Monday and we’re looking at Amazon’s Brand New Music playlist that updated on Friday before the weekend.
  • Brand New Music is essentially the tech giant’s version of Spotify’s New Music Friday, currently featuring 70 tracks from big stars to legacy acts to up and comers.
  • In the #1 playlist position is the DJ Khaled’s latest track featuring John Legend and the late Nipsey Hussle on “Higher”. Halsey’s “Nightmare” pulls up in the #2 spot while The Black Keys make their comeback with the new single “Go”, coming into the #3 position.
  • The three major labels have the most singles on the list this week, with UMG having 14, Sony at 11 and Warner Music at 7. However, there is no shortage of independent labels on the list either, with 4AD, 300 Entertainment and AOMG all representing with one track each.
  • Genre-wise, about 30% of the playlist’s tracks feature the “pop” genre tag, the most out of all genres, with Madonna, Mark Ronson and Charli XCX feat. Lizzo in that group. 
  • “Hip-hop/rap” takes 2nd place with another 20% of the list’s sound with none other than Wu-Tang Clan debuting a new record to accompany their recently-released Showtime documentary series.
  • EDM and rock have 6 and 5% of the tracks respectively to round things out, with Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum and Maddie & Tae contributing to the “country” genre tags for a total of 4% of the list.
  • Brand New Music’s artists this week are mostly from English-speaking countries, almost 85% of it, which fits in nicely with the fact that 72% of the smart speaker market last year was solely based in the US and the UK.
  • Between Spotify’s top 10 tracks on the New Music Friday and Brand New Music’s top 10, only 4 of the tracks overlap, coincidentally in the 1st, 2nd, 5th and 7th position.
  • And if we throw in Apple Music’s equivalent playlist- Best of the Week- we have the 1st and 2nd position in common with the other two.
  • So if you pulled up all three Global Release Day playlists on any of the platforms, you’re guaranteed to hear DJ Khaled and then Halsey, in that order.
  • In all three, you’ll also end up hearing Lana Del Rey’s Sublime cover of “Doin’ Time”  before you hit track 6.
  • There seems to be some slight experimentation going on: for example, you’ll hear Tyler the Creator on all platforms, but his track “WHAT’S GOOD” on Spotify and Amazon, while hearing “EARFQUAKE” on Apple.
  • On the Latin front, Colombian rapper Maluma debuts a purely Spanish track “11 PM” on Amazon, while he shows off both Spanish and English vocals on another track, “Tu Vecina (feat. Ty Dolla $ign)” on Apple Music.
  • Check out some of these interesting playlist differences for yourself before this Friday comes around!
• Outro
  • That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Monday May 20th 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.
  • Free accounts are at app.chartmetric.com/signup
  • And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com.
  • Happy Monday, see you tomorrow!

• Highlights
  • It’s Found on Friday: we dig up an American rapper, a Dutch DJ and Albanian pop star spiking in their Spotify Popularity Index.
• Mission   
  • Good morning, it’s Jason here at Chartmetric with your 3-minute Data Dump where we upload charts, artists and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Friday May 17th 2019.
• Found on Friday: MAJ, Adam Brown & Xhensila
  • It’s Found on Friday where we dip into our A&R tool to find emerging artists making their way into the public eye.
  • If we search by the biggest change in Spotify Popularity Index (or SPI) in the past 28 days, we uncover three artists with very different backgrounds: Amercian rapper MAJ, Dutch DJ/producer Adam Brown and Albanian pop star Xhensila.
  • I hope I’m saying these artists’ names correctly, here we go.
  • Going from 1 to 39 SPI in the past month is MAJ, currently based out of Dallas, Texas, featuring “grunge-inflected production, soulful delivery, and nocturnal hip-hop with stark vulnerability and confessional storytelling.”
  • With 155K Spotify monthly listeners and only 3K followers, this gives him a listeners to followers ratio of 51, which for a strong signal for him.
  • From April 26th to May 3rd, he enjoyed a #47 slot on the 100-track New Music Friday playlist, which has 3.2M followers currently.
  • MAJ is still enjoying a Spotify editorial playlist placement on the Shisha Lounge playlist at 375K followers, but more interestingly, he’s on 27 playlists with more than 10K followers that seem to be focused on sub-culture categories such as “sad” or “emo rap” or gaming culture playlists like EA Sports’ NHL franchise. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that these lower-tier playlists are likely playing a big part in MAJ’s strong rise on the platform.
  • Adam Brown in the Netherlands currently has 11 dance music tracks on Spotify, with his latest track “Your Body” being what seems to be driving his SPI rise in the past month from 1 to 31.
  • This increase isn’t from Spotify playlisting, as he’s on no editorial playlists, and his biggest one is currently “Dance Hits” by curator globalmusicx with only 6.5K followers.
  • The reasons for his jump in SPI in late April is not clear, but by checking his Twitter, it may be from a more organic off-platform source via his own hosted local dance radio show or possibly from club play, given the very electronic music-oriented region and that his #2 and #3 top Spotify monthly listener cities are very locally Dutch: Ermelo and Harderwijk. Definitely butchered those names.
  • Last but not least is pop star Xhensila from Albania, who represents the kind of “emerging artist” that is only emerging to the Spotify market, as Xhensila is already a big deal in her part of the world.
  • In the past month, she jumped from an SPI of 2 to 56 despite having only 100 monthly listeners with 449 followers for a ratio under 1.
  • Her most followed playlist, “Albanian Hits 2019” has 20K followers, but her six total tracks don’t seem to be generating that much attention playlisting wise.
  • More than likely, Xhensila’s Spotify popularity is being generated by her 1.3M followers on Instagram, where her streaming link in her IG bio leads to Spotify. 
  • One of the lessons that can be gleaned here is that Spotify statistics are just Spotify statistics...Xhensila obviously is quite the star in Albania, further proven by her 154K YouTube followers and her nine very popular music videos there, the biggest one hitting 39M views to date.
  • So we’ll leave you for the weekend with an American rapper, Dutch DJ and Albanian pop queen to explore...three different paths, three different vibes.
• Outro
  • That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday May 17th 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.
  • Free accounts are at app.chartmetric.com/signup
  • And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com.
  • Happy Friday, see you tomorrow!