How Music Charts

• Highlights
  • If you don’t eat chicken noodle soup with a soda on the side yet, then at least check out how a member of K-pop supergroup BTS tapped a 2006 Harlem dance craze to make a splash today...you might reconsider your lunch plans.
• 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.
  • We’re on the socials at “chartmetric” — that’s Chartmetric, one word and no “S.” 
  • Check us out on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook!
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2019.
• Chicken Noodle Soup With j-hope and Becky G
  • If you’re not a BTS Army superfan, then you didn’t know that they’re currently taking a break from their full-on conquest for the US market, which has been going on since at least late 2017. You can read about that in our blog, link in the show notes.
  • And if you didn’t grow up in the mid-2000s, especially in New York City or the East Coast, you might not know about Webstar, Young B or AG, the artists behind a fun dance to their mid-2000s hit “Chicken Noodle Soup”.
  • But what might be interesting to you now, is how even during BTS’ two-month hiatus...they’re still really working the US market, just through one of the members as a solo act, j-hope.
  • J-hope is known for his dance skills among the BTS fanbase, and in the last week of September, he dropped a remake of the Harlem party anthem “Chicken Noodle Soup”, rapping verses in Korean and singing the catchy chorus in English.
  • The track has likely amassed over 70M YouTube views as of today with over 5.4M likes and 550K comments...this is all within 1.5 weeks.
  • J-hope experienced a 6x increase in Spotify daily followers to over 18K and doubled his Spotify monthly listener count to over 2M.
  • While certainly the star of the remake track, he also enlisted the help of Latin American pop star Becky G, who has a Spotify Popularity Index (or SPI) of 84 She also 84th in her ranking in the Chartmetric system.
  • J-hope’s SPI is lower at 69, while his Chartmetric ranking was 947th yesterday, so it’s clear that at least on Spotify, Becky G’s higher profile should be helping expose the BTS member’s solo career to more people in the States and the Latin community alike.
  • However, likely a measure of how curious BTS fans were of this collaborator, Becky G experienced her biggest jump in the past year in daily Wikipedia views by almost 10x to 29K.
  • Regarding overall popularity, BTS themselves are just ahead of her in terms of their own Chartmetric ranking at 82nd place, with an SPI of 90.
  • It’s hard to say who’s helping the other out more: j-hope picked an undeniably American dance classic to stoke stateside nostalgia and to pour more gas on the fire, featured one of Latin music’s top stars to gain more global market share.
  • But Becky G is certainly enjoying her own new fans from j-hope’s part of the world: BTS’ stronghold on several platforms is still major cities in East and Southeast Asia, and as for fandom, the BTS camp is world-class.
  • As for the original artists, Webstar and Young B? They’ve experienced their own upticks...for example, Young B is now known as Bianca Bonnie, and she experienced a 100x increase in daily Twitter followers to over 5K upon the remake’s release.
  • Better yet? Their soda on the side will come in the form of tasty, tasty publishing royalties, thanks to a couple of Korean and Latin pop stars.

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.
• Free accounts are available at chartmetric.com 
• And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
• If you haven’t downloaded our semi-annual global industry report 6MO yet, you can find it all across our socials and in our show notes!
• Happy Wednesday, we’ll see you Friday! 

• Highlights  
  • Rolling Stone, Music Ally, and others were particularly interested in a surprising data point from Part 2 of 6MO, our first-ever Global Music Industry Data Report. What’s that all about? Find out here.
• 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.
  • We’re on the socials at “chartmetric” — that’s Chartmetric, no “S.” 
  • Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, and talk to us! We’d love to hear from you.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Friday, Oct. 4, 2019.
• 6MO Global Music Industry Data Report, Part 2: Platform-Playlist Analysis
  • The domination by North American artists of the top streaming playlists was of particular interest to many major music publications as soon as we dropped 6MO.
  • Obviously, it was to us too, but there was another trend that intrigued us in the Platform-Playlist Analysis section, or Part 2, of our Global Music Industry Data Report.
  • That trend? The Top 5 genre differentiators on Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, and Spotify’s Top 30 playlists.
  • What exactly do we mean by genre differentiators and how did we get there?
  • Well, we pulled geographic and genre metadata tags for every artist included on each of those 120 playlists, filtering out personalized and artist-specific ones, and then, we calculated the distribution for each platform set. 
  • What we found is that virtually across the board, Pop and Hip-Hop & Rap take the Top 2 spots in terms of artist genre distribution for all four of those streaming platforms on June 30, 2019.
  • Generally speaking, those genres account for about half of the market share on those top playlists for those platforms.
  • Where things get interesting is in the No. 3, No. 4, and No. 5 spots, because that’s where the platforms begin to diverge from one another. 
  • This is what we mean by genre differentiators in the Top 5 for each platform.
  • On Amazon Music, for instance, Country makes the Top 5, which is not the case for any other platform. 
  • On Apple Music, R&B/Soul fills that role, on Deezer, it’s Latin & Carribean, and on Spotify, it’s Folk, Traditional, and World.
  • Surprising? Maybe not, if you’ve had that hunch all along.
  • It is both satisfying and also illuminating to see it borne out in the data, however — and that’s what we’re all about. 
  • If you want to see where Indie or any geographic region outside of North America stacks up, dig in to 6MO more here.
• Outro
  • That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday, Oct. 4, 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.
  • Free accounts are available at chartmetric.com 
  • And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
  • If you haven’t downloaded our report yet, you can find it all across our socials and in our show notes!
  • Happy Friday, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next week! 

• Highlights  
  • It’s official: We've launched 6MO, our first-ever Global Music Industry Data Report! We're thrilled to present you with our comprehensive view — from a music data perspective — of the first six months of 2019. Dig in to Part 1 with us here.
• 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.
  • We’re on the socials at “chartmetric” — that’s Chartmetric, no “S.” 
  • Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, and talk to us! We’d love to hear from you.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019.
• 6MO Global Music Industry Data Report, Part 1: Semi-Annual Awards
  • If you haven’t heard yet, we officially released our first-ever Global Music Industry Data Report on Tuesday, and the response has us very excited to dive into it with you guys here.
  • Last week, we explained the 30-page structure: Semi-Annual Awards, Platform-Playlist Analysis, and Strategic Business Insights.
  • Today, we’re tackling Part 1, our Chartmetric Semi-Annual Awards, which rank the top performing artists in terms of absolute and percentage-based growth across multiple metrics on June 30, 2019, the last day of the six-month period we tracked.
  • By the way, if you’ve got the report in hand, feel free to scroll or flip along with us.
  • First off, our Cross-Platform Performance Award, as you might imagine, revealed some familiar names in the Top 10 in terms of overall streaming and social popularity — from T. Swift to Shawn Mendes and Rihanna to Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.
  • However, the interesting stories were J Balvin at No. 2 and Daddy Yankee at No. 7, reflecting Latin’s growth outside of Latin America itself, and the late Avicii at No. 10, likely due to his strong catalog consistently driving 3M+ YouTube views daily, his April release of “SOS” with Aloe Blacc, and the full posthumous album release of Tim on June 6.
  • When it came to YouTube Channel Views gain as of June 25, 2019, six of the Top 10 artists with the highest gains were primarily Spanish-speaking, showcasing the strength of both Latin content and also the popularity of the YouTube platform for Latin audiences.
  • Keep in mind, however, that India-specific music charts didn’t launch until two weeks ago, so that data could very well change up the distribution in a big way.
  • Stay tuned for our July to December report to see if 6MO months prove that to be the case!
  • For Spotify Monthly Listener Gain as of June 30, 2019, collaborations were crucial to Lunay’s 557 percent and Jhay Cortez’s 521 percent lifts — not to mention Billy Ray Cyrus’ 3,032 percent increase as a result of his “Old Town Road” collab with Lil Nas X.
  • On Twitter, Follower Gain was all about diversity, with three Korean groups, three Americans, two Brazilians, one Nigerian, and one Turkish rocker comprising the Top 10 percentage gains.
  • And on our own platform, BTS won out on the Artist Follower front and Spotify curators dominated in terms of Playlist Followers. 
  • It would be an understatement to say that this is just the tip of the iceberg for Part 1, so please, keep digging into it, and let us know what else you find!
  • Next up, we’re taking on Part 2, our Platform-Playlist Analysis, where we break down artist country market share and artist genre market share on Amazon, Apple, Deezer, and Spotify’s top 30 playlists.
  • So, stay tuned for that!

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.
• Free accounts are available at chartmetric.com 
• And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
• By the way, if you haven’t downloaded our report yet, you can find it all across our socials and in our show notes!
• Happy Wednesday, and we’ll see you on Friday for Part 2!

• Highlights  
  • For the past couple of months, we’ve been cooking up something big: the first iteration of our Global Music Industry Data Report, 6MO! With the help of music tech extraordinaire Cherie Hu, we give you the first taste of it here. 
• 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.
  • We’re on the socials at “chartmetric” — that’s Chartmetric, no “S.” 
  • Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, and talk to us! We’d love to hear from you.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Friday, Sept. 27th, 2019.
• The Cherie Hu Preview-Review of Our Inaugural Global Music Industry Data Report
  • Over the last couple of months, we’ve been cooking up something that we think you’re going to like.
  • On Wednesday, we launched the first edition of our Global Music Industry Data Report at an exclusive gathering in New York City, after which music tech extraordinaire Cherie Hu was kind enough to feature her insights in her weekly Water and Music newsletter.
  • Because we’ll be publishing this comprehensive data report twice a year, we’ve given it the catchy title — at least we like to think so — of 6MO, aka six months. 
  • So, without further ado, what’s it all about?
  • According to Cherie, 6MO “sheds light on the kinds of perspectives that we’re still missing by relying on incumbent charts like the Billboard Hot 100.”
  • Because our approach is revenue-agnostic, we’re more interested in artists’ general online footprints than their sales numbers.
  • We’re working with more than 20 data sources, including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Facebook, and we pulled from 1.7M+ artists and 1.1M+ playlists worth of data.
  • We’ve divided our report, which spans Jan. 1 to June 30, into three sections: Semi-Annual Awards, Platform-Playlist Analysis, and Strategic Business Insights.
  • Our awards section tackles the top performing artists in terms of absolute and percentage-based growth across multiple metrics, including Cross-Platform Performance, YouTube Channel Views Gain, Spotify Monthly Listener Gain, Instagram Follower Gain, and more.
  • Our platform-playlist section analyzes artist country and genre market share on the top 30 Amazon, Apple, Deezer, and Spotify playlists.
  • Finally, our strategic insights section summarizes important concepts that we’ve developed this year, from trigger cities to the gender play gap and our top performing podcast episodes.
  • If you want to get a head start on our January-June 6MO before its wide release next week, it’s available for an early digital download thanks to Cherie’s Water and Music newsletter!
  • Either way, you’ll be able to read along when we take a deep dive into it here next week!

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday, Sept. 27th, 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.
• Free accounts are available at chartmetric.com 
• And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
• Happy Friday, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next week!

• Highlights  
  • Obsessed with streaming? Rightfully so, but after almost a year of coverage on Chartmetric, let’s go over some useful US radio facts that may help your artist’s overall distribution strategy.
• 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.
  • Chartmetric’s social media handle is Chartmetric, no “S ”- follow us onTwitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook- we’re always posting useful music tidbits, we’d love to hear from you!
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019.
• Radio in the Streaming Era: US Radio Facts for Streaming Experts
  • Coming up on one year ago, Chartmetric added 300 US radio stations to our 20+ sources of music data.
    • Why? Well, radio is still considered one of the major ways to break an artist into the mainstream here in the States, and to many, it remains a strong advantage of the major labels, who are well-networked in the radio community.
  • You can check our blog article about it in the show notes, but for those who maybe never got a chance to learn about the world before streaming, we thought we’d take the time to review some basic radio facts to help you put it all in context.
    • First, a radio spin does NOT equal a streaming play! Nowadays, we’re so used to looking at total streams on whatever platform, how many plays are coming from what playlist, or how many plays came from a user’s library...but nonetheless, each stream is just a one-to-one relationship with a listener.
    • With radio, one spin can mean thousands of listeners, at the same time, and usually in the same geographic area! A one to many relationship is how terrestrial radio differentiates itself from streaming, and it requires a certain appreciation to realize that just because radio spin counts aren’t as big in quantity as streams in a given time period, they are much more geographically attributable, they’re time-stamped, and they play to many more people.
  • On the many more people part, one term to be aware of is “AQH”, which stands for average quarter-hour persons, or the amount of unique listeners in a 15-minute period listening for at least 5 minutes.
    • Have you ever been stuck in highway traffic and flipped through radio stations, only to hear commercials? Well, I bet it was around one quarter hour before or after the hour when that happened.
      • Why? The reason is the way Nielsen Audio records AQH, because by playing commercials on the :15 and :45 minute marks, they maximize the period of time they play music (and thus, get the highest AQH possible). This raises their profile for advertisers wanting to buy time and more exposure on their station.
      • The AM Drive during morning rush hour is primo ad time, so while 5-10AM is highly lucrative for radio stations, it’s probably not when your new song is going to get played. You probably have a better chance in the PMD (guess what that is), Evening or Overnight dayparts.
      • Location-wise, New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago stations tend to have the highest AQH ratings, which makes sense given they’re the top three populated cities in the country.
    • Another term you may have heard is “Radio Format”, and this loosely refers to the type of genres a station plays, and it’s really more of a way for advertisers to recognize a station’s listener demographics.
      • Surely you’ve heard “Top 40”, and that also goes by Contemporary Hit Radio, or “CHR”, and it’s what you’d expect, the latest and greatest from mostly major labels.
    • Country is another format, and of course it plays best in the South, but also a sizeable presence in other places like Chicago.
    • Urban plays better in the Midwest/South/East and is made up of hip-hop and rap, while Rhythmic plays bigger in the West; a mix of Top 40 and Urban where R&B, dance, hip-hop, and pop all intermingle.
    • Other formats like “Triple A”, Alternative and Hot Adult Contemporary exist as well, we invite you to check out the blog article to learn more. Many thanks to our data supplier RadioWave and Seth Keller for their expertise.
• Outro
  • That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.
  • Free accounts are available at chartmetric.com 
  • And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
  • Happy Wednesday, and we’ll see you on Friday!

2019-09-20 // Taylor Swift enjoys Chinese success on QQ Music, with R3HAB set to in the near future with Tencent

• Highlights  
  • If the 2000s belonged to 50 Cent, the future belongs to Tencent. We’ll check out a few Western artists who are active in the Chinese market, and how the tech conglomerate may matter to them in the near future.
• 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.
  • Chartmetric’s social media handle is Chartmetric, no “S ”- follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook- we’re always posting fun music facts, we’d love to hear from you!
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Friday, Sept. 20, 2019.
• Taylor Swift enjoys Chinese success on QQ Music, with R3HAB set to in the near future
  • Music Business Worldwide yesterday reported on Tencent, the giant Chinese tech company responsible for running the massively popular WeChat messaging platform with over 1B users and related music streaming app QQ Music, with over 650M active monthly users. 
  • One piece highlighted how Tencent is reportedly in talks to buy 10 to 20% of Universal Music Group, in a move that would surely be a boon for all artists operating with the major label.
  • Some already there don’t need it! Looking at the QQ Music Western chart for this week, one of their artists under the Republic Records imprint is already enjoying her access to Chinese music fans, an artist by the name of Taylor Swift.
  • While Tay Tay isn’t in the Top 20 this week, she does have by far the most tracks on the 100 track chart, placing 17 tracks of her recent Lover album onto the list.
  • This obviously suggests that her entire album is getting quite an amount of attention on the platform, rather than just a few hits like Camila Cabello at 3 tracks or Ed Sheeran at 2.
  • She’s not the only artist with new album release doing well there however, as Post Malone placed seven of his 17-track album Hollywood’s Bleeding in the QQ Western Top 100 and showing that Chinese fans are into trap just as much as pop music.
  • Someone who doesn’t show up on the QQ Chart this week but may be doing so very soon is Dutch-Moroccan DJ/producer R3HAB, who just signed to Tencent’s joint venture label with Sony, named Liquid State.
  • The Hong-Kong based electronic-focused label must be excited to host the international artist’s content in the Chinese market, as he’s played at least five live shows on the mainland this year, the last three being in Shanghai, Harbin and Chengdu, according to Songkick data.
  • R3HAB’s exposure on Spotify and YouTube has been mostly European, getting most of his streams from cities like Amsterdam, Oslo, Warsaw and Paris, but the electronic sound does indeed lend itself to a global audience, just like Liquid State “ambassador” Alan Walker can attest to.
  • The British-Norwegian DJ has an almost 35% Instagram follower demographic from Asia, over 30% of them hailing from Indonesia and India alone and accounting for over 2M followers in those markets.
  • So with Liquid State and Tencent now in his corner, it looks like R3HAB could very well start exhibiting Taylor Swift-like success there, because with over 83% of the Chinese music market controlled by Tencent, the promotional advantages will be plenty.

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday, Sept. 20, 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.
• Free accounts are available at chartmetric.com 
• And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
• Happy Friday, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next week!

• Highlights  
  • Streaming might favor frontline singles, but some tracks buck the trend. Looking at Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and Deezer’s Top 100 charts, we examine what tracks and artists are able to ride the wave of longevity.
• 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.
  • We’re on the socials at “chartmetric” — that’s Chartmetric, no “S.” 
  • Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, and talk to us! We’d love to hear from you.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Wednesday, Sept. 18th, 2019.
• Post Malone Leads Track Longevity on Streaming Charts
  • When it comes to streaming, we’re trained to think immediacy and expendability, because, let’s face it, those are the kinds of qualities that characterize today’s digital singles-driven industry.
  • On the streaming charts, however, things aren’t that simple, and some tracks can ride out their Top 100 position for more than a year. 
  • Pulling up Spotify’s Daily Global Chart on our charts tab, for example, we can scroll down a little to see chart summaries according to many different variables, including “By Time on Chart.” 
  • Within Spotify’s Top 100, Post Malone’s “Rockstar” might only be sporting a No. 81 spot, but it’s been on the chart for 508 days — that’s almost a year and a half.
  • If we extend the Daily Global Chart to include the next 100 tracks, “Closer,” by the Chainsmokers and Halsey, might be in a precarious position at No. 199, but the track has enjoyed some 1,103 days on Spotify’s Top 200.
  • To be clear, that’s three years.
  • Toggling Apple’s Top 100, at No. 58, Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode” claims the top spot, in terms of time on chart, with 361 days, or just short of a year.
  • Meanwhile, Amazon’s Top 100 features a four-way tie at 210 days. 
    • At No. 20, it’s “High Hopes,” by Panic! At The Disco.
    • No. 41 is Bebe Rexha’s “Meant to Be (featuring Florida Georgia Line).”
    • No. 56 is “Youngblood” by 5 Seconds of Summer.
    • And No. 60 is “Better Now,” by, guess who? Post Malone.
  • Interestingly, Deezer’s Top 100 has a six-way tie at 195 days.
    • At No. 10, it’s “Con Calma” by Daddy Yankee and Snow, while No. 19 is “Calma” by Pedro Capó and Farruko — ¾ of whom are Puerto Rican who all like to keep it cool.
    • No. 27 is once again Post Malone, but this time, with “Sunflower,” from the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack.
    • No. 66 is “Te Vi” by Piso 21 and Micro Tdh, No. 68 is “Adan Y Eva” by Paulo Londra, and No. 70 is “Giant” by Calvin Harris and Rag'n'Bone Man.
  • So, while Amazon and Deezer’s track longevities might be a bit more evenly spread, they’re also significantly lower than the longest lasting tracks on Apple’s and Spotify’s charts.
  • Another takeaway here is that Posty has managed to keep tracks from two separate releases, Beerbongs & Bentleys and the Spider-Man soundtrack, relevant — and that’s irrespective of his new album, Hollywood’s Bleeding, dominating the top of those same charts.
• Outro
  • That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Wednesday, Sept. 18th, 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.
  • Free accounts are available at chartmetric.com 
  • And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
  • Happy Wednesday, and we’ll see you on Friday!

• Highlights  
  • With a head-to-head comparison between the Apple Music Video and YouTube Music Video charts, we’ll expand your understanding of chart behavior through a chart velocity analysis. 
• 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.
  • We’re on the socials at “chartmetric” — that’s Chartmetric, no “S.” 
  • Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, and talk to us! We’d love to hear from you.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Friday, Sept. 13th, 2019.
• Apple vs. YouTube Music Video Velocity
  • Looking at Apple Music Video and YouTube Music Video charts, pure chart rank can tell us a lot — but not everything.
  • And that’s where chart velocity comes in. 
  • Chart velocity measures a track’s — or in this case, a music video’s — behavior on a chart within a predetermined time period.
  • For the Apple Music Video and YouTube Music Video charts, we track 7-Day Velocity, or how a given music video has performed on each chart in the last week — irrespective of its pure position.
  • It could be No. 1, or it could be No. 150 — what we’re looking at here is time-constrained growth trends, which can expand our understanding about how contextual factors might be influencing those micro-trends.
  • For Apple, Post Malone’s “Sunflower” leads with a Velocity of a bit more than three, even though its pure chart rank is No. 42.
  • Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” is next up at two, even though its pure chart rank is No. 28.
  • Both songs were released about a year ago, give or take, which makes sense if you consider that Apple isn’t a music video platform, so major hits just kind of linger.
  • However, YouTube features the actual newest viral videos.
  • And that’s probably why YouTube’s Velocity leaders are totally different, as is the correlation between their Velocity scores and their pure chart ranks.
  • On YouTube, Polo G’s “Effortless” leads with a bit more than seven, in terms of Velocity rank.
  • The music video is ranked 11th overall.
  • At second is Tainy, Anuel AA, and Ozuna’s “Adicto,” which is ranked No. 6 overall with a 2.6 Velocity score.
  • Here’s the interesting thing: Polo G’s music video has jumped some 50 spots, and “Adicto” had an 18 spot fluctuation. 
  • On Apple Music, the change was nine and 13 spots, respectively. 
  • Couple that with the fact that Apple’s top velocity music videos are near catalogue material and YouTube’s top velocity music videos are decidedly frontline, and you get a sense of what Velocity is measuring on each respective platform.
  • Note, for instance, that songs from Post Malone’s new album, which was released just a week ago, are in every Top 10 spot on the Apple Music Daily Track chart.
  • On YouTube, only two are — “Sunflower” and “Circles.”
  • As such, on Apple, music videos can continue to climb the charts, irrespective of release date and according to new album marketing drivers.
  • On YouTube, music videos climb the charts according to freshness and virality.
  • Or so it seems.

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday, Sept. 13th, 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.
• Free accounts are available at chartmetric.com 
• And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
• Happy Friday, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next week!

• Highlights  
  • When was the last time you got your face melted with some heavy metal? Well, distributor TuneCore says it was probably during 2018 and American alt-metal group Tool says it’s right now on the Billboard 200 chart.
• 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.
  • Chartmetric’s social media handle is Chartmetric, no “S ”- follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook- we’re always posting cool music tidbits for your knowledge! And here’s more.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2019.
• Tool, Metal’s Growth, and the Future of the Album
  • Yesterday, digital distributor TuneCore released some Q1 2019 statistics stating that $83M USD was earned by its artists, bringing their total distribution revenue to over $1.5B all-time.
  • However, one of its finer details caught the eye of some music outlets like Consequence of Sound: the Heavy metal genre sported a 154% increase in streams and downloads in 2018, outdoing the next four genres J-Pop at a 133%, R&B/Soul at 68% and K-Pop at 58%.
  • While the 2018 data might feel a little outdated, how about this week of September 14th, when American alternative metal band Tool debuted in the #1 Billboard 200 album chart like they were a Billie Eilish / Drake super-group. 
    • Tool’s new album “Fear Inoculum” breaks all of the pop and hip-hop’s rules, as it was 13 years in the making for the progressive metal act and according to Billboard:
      • “...a now-rare example of a No. 1 album without…” a concert redemption offer, pre-order promotion, or merchandise bundle.
    • Tool amazingly relegated Taylor Swift’s “Lover” album to the #2 slot on the Billboard chart, and the band is currently ranked 679th overall according to Chartmetric’s Cross-Platform Performance ranking as of yesterday.
    • Tool’s Neighboring Artists who are ranked similarly include Reggaeton artist Arcangel, Pop crooner Alec Benjamin and Rap duo Rae Sremmurd.
  • Now given Tool’s smashing album success this week, you’d expect to see them similarly trouncing their fellow artists with similar music metrics.
    • However, the opposite is the case: Tool only wields 830K Spotify followers, while Rae Sremmurd has over 5.1M and Arcangel has over 3.8M.
    • Similarly, both artists also trounce Tool with regard to Spotify Monthly Listeners -- the rap and reggaeton stars are collecting almost 11M unique streamers on the Swedish platform while Tool only has half that.
  • But that’s why it’s important to take into account more hits-driven artists vs. album-driven artists: Tool’s fans have long known they don’t go by industry rules and that’s part of why they love them.
    • Six of the new album’s ten tracks clock in over 10 minutes each and the packaged CD released with a 4-inch HD screen inside of it to play its visual arts-driven music videos to their fans that bought it.
  • So while no single Tool songs are appearing on Apple Music or Amazon track charts, the album sits at No. 14 on Apple’s Album charts and leading their Rock one. 
    • They also take No. 17 on Amazon’s Album charts and No. 1 on its Rock chart.
    • This breaks the normal correlation between each platform’s track and album charts...which just goes to show that Tool is doing things their way, in a big way.
  • As most music markets continue to digitize away from the physical world, Tool is showing that while the album format still has its charms, they are likely also benefitting from a   rising tide where metal fans are digitizing themselves.

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.
• Free accounts are available at chartmetric.com 
• And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
• Happy Wednesday, and we’ll see you on Friday!

• Highlights  
  • Howdy! Today, we’re going Country, looking at the CMAs’ full list of nominations and making some educated guesses about who might win based on streaming and social data.
• 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.
  • We’re on the socials at “chartmetric” — that’s Chartmetric, no “S.” 
  • Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, and talk to us! We’d love to hear from you.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Friday, Sept. 6th, 2019.
• Data Predictions for the 2019 Country Music Association Awards
  • Saddle up, because we’re heading to Nashville, figuratively speaking, to check out what’s going on with this year’s CMAs. 
  • Based on streaming and social data, can we make some educated guesses about who might win at this year’s ceremony?
  • 12 categories comprise the full range of awards, including Album of the Year, Single of the Year, Musical Event of the Year, Music Video of the Year, and New Artist of the Year, among others.
  • Maren Morris leads the pack with a total of six noms, and if we filter our “Artists” tab for the Country genre, Morris comes up at No. 3 in terms of Chartmetric rank, so she’s gotta at least win one, right?
  • Her track “Girl,” which is nominated for Single of the Year, alongside Blake Shelton’s “God’s Country,” has a good shot.
  • While neither are currently charting on Apple Music or Spotify, if we filter for genre on Amazon’s Track Charts, Shelton has the edge over Morris with a No. 5 rank compared to No. 12 for Morris.
  • But Shelton’s Chartmetric rank is No. 7 compared to Morris’ No. 3, so this one’s going to be close — a real tossup, if data has anything to say about the matter.
  • Overall, Morris also has some competition from Carrie Underwood, who is up for an impressive three awards. 
  • When it comes to Album of the Year, though, Morris leads with an 81 Spotify popularity score for her album “Girl,” compared to 65 for Underwood’s “Cry Pretty.”
  • Morris’ closest competition in this category, if we’re going strictly by streaming performance? Thomas Rhett’s “Center Point Road” at 79.
  • Looking at the Nashville “Cities” page, Rhett also has the seventh highest Spotify Monthly Listener count for the Tennessee capital where the CMAs will be held.
  • And then there’s the category everyone’s wondering about: Musical Event of the Year.
  • The category is interestingly described on the CMAs website as “a collaboration of two or more people either or all of whom are known primarily as a Country artist.” 
  • After being quietly stripped of his brief Country label by Billboard, Lil Nas X can at least find solace in the fact that his “Old Town Road” collab with Billy Ray Cyrus landed a Musical Event of the Year nom at this year’s CMAs.
  • We probably don’t need to go back over how big of a viral sensation this surprise crossover hit was, so we’ll just say that, as far as Chartmetric rank goes, Lil Nas X is sitting at No. 32 out of all 1.7M+ artists that we track, and Billy Ray Cyrus is at No. 1 if we filter our “Artists” tab for the Country genre.
  • So, even if “Old Town Road” doesn’t win the CMA award, I think we can all agree it really was the musical event of the year … so far. 
• Outro
  • That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday, Sept. 6th, 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.
  • Free accounts are available at chartmetric.com 
  • And article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
  • Happy Friday, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next week!