How Music Charts

• Highlights  
  • Not all breaking artists are new artists, not all platforms have the same up and comers, and not a day more should pass until you check out all the viral talent we’re discovering on our new A&R tool.
• 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, or Facebook, and talk to us! We’d love to hear from you.
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019.
• Breaking in Our Newly Updated A&R Dashboard
  • Do you like discovering new music, but you want more than just a New Music Friday playlist? Do you like discovering new music, but you don’t necessarily want to be out 7 nights a week in the clubs either?
  • Well, come check out the next version of Chartmetric’s A&R tool, now live on the platform.
  • The newest, shiniest updates include:
    • Several windows of relative change….for example, there is now a 7-day, 30-day and 60-day absolute value and growth change %
    • For example, if I click on the Instagram Followers tab, Chartmetric scans over all the IG profiles we have in our 1.7M artist database, and as of yesterday, pulled out over 38K artists who showed remarkable growtih in that particular metric.
      • Feel-good, indiecoustica troubadour Andrew Simple comes out on top here, with a 1700% increase in his IG follower base to 8.8K, from 30 days ago.
    • “But what if I’m not into indiecoustica?” you may say, well here’s what else is really neat about this new A&R tool version:
      • We have established our own Chartmetric parent genre system, containing 20 major genres such as “Pop”, “Rock, Punk, Metal” and “Rap & Hip-Hop”.
      • And once you pick that, it goes even further with the sub-genre filter, which uses over 1.8K specific genres to really get to the type of sonics you want to discover, such as “Latin jazz” or “electro swing” or if you’re really looking for it, “symphonic black metal”.
      • If I narrow down to Rap & Hip-Hop, I get US rapper Gerald Walker as the #1, but if I apply the sub-genre “Alternative Hip-Hop”, I get Benny the Butcher as the #1 with a 21% increase himself in IG followers.
    • “What if I’m curious about Australian artists, and I value YouTube the most?” 
      • That’s what our Artist Country filter is for, which contains virtually all the world’s countries, allowing you to surgically find artists according to the biographical data we have.
      • And then you simply click into “YouTube Channel Views”, and there you’ll have neo-psychedelic Aussie band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard at #1 with a 28% increase in views in the past month.
  • What’s a couple of cool things so far that we’ve discovered?
    • There’s not a lot of crossover between platforms, which can open up your mind on who is doing best on which platform...and this also provides a way to focus energy once an artist hits that “breaking” threshold: Where do they need to focus their attention next?
    • We’d also pay attention to the First Release and Last Release Columns, because a breaking artist doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a new artist.
      • For example, Fleetwood Mac’s YouTube channel saw an increase of 6.2M views in the last 30 days and 11.5M in the last 60 days, putting them in the 10th spot, as of Sept. 2.
      • Their first release was in the ‘60s.
      • If you’re in the catalog game, you’re in luck, but if you’re looking for the next big thing to sign, the first release column can help you move on to other artists quickly.
    • Much more to discover as we dig into the data ourselves, but for now, have at it and let us know what you think!

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Wednesday, Sept. 4, 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  
  • Don’t call it a comeback: This week, the VMAs wrapped and the CMAs dropped their noms, but do the ceremonies even matter to an artist’s bottom line? Let’s dive into Missy Elliott’s data and see.
• 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, August 30th, 2019.
• The Music Awards Effect: Bump or Bust?
  • With the VMAs wrapping and the CMAs dropping their noms this week, the ceremonies grabbed a lot of headlines, but what exactly does that mean for artist success? 
  • Missy Elliott’s highly anticipated return and long overdue recognition with both an electrifying performance and also a gracious acceptance of MTV’s Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at Monday night’s VMAs should offer the perfect case study as we look forward to the 53rd Annual Country Music Association Awards in November.
  • While she’s been workin’ it since the late ‘90s and even late ‘80s, Elliott’s Super Bowl halftime performance in 2015 had some youngsters thinking she was a new artist on the verge of blowing up.
  • Those in the know had to flip it and reverse it on the younguns to let ‘em know about her four wins and 22 nominations at the Grammy Awards, her 30 million records sold in the U.S. and status as the best-selling female rapper in Nielsen Music history (as of 2017), and her history-making induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame this year — the first female rapper ever!
  • With her surprise Iconology album release last week and this week’s VMA-driven visibility, do the data say comeback or consistency?
  • It really depends what data sources we’re talking about.
  • For an artist like Elliott, whose streaming numbers have consistently been on the incline since the beginning of the year, this awards ceremony doesn’t appear to have made much of a splash.
  • Elliott’s daily Spotify follower change has generally hovered at around 700, bringing her from 922K on Jan. 1, 2019, to 1.1M on Aug. 29, 2019.
  • Save for a minor dip in March, her Spotify popularity has generally been on the upswing from 76 on Jan. 1, 2019, to 79 on Aug. 29, 2019.
  • The lowest it got was 73 — so not much variation at all.
  • But the behavior of her social media growth tells another story.
  • On Instagram, Twitter, and Wikipedia, we see a dramatic spike in followers and views — most significantly around her VMAs appearance.
  • On Insta, from Thursday, Aug. 22, the date of her album release, to Monday, Aug. 26, her daily change in followers jumped from 2K to 15K.
  • Following her VMAs appearance, however, that daily change spiked to almost 42K.
  • There’s a similar pattern on Twitter, where Friday and Saturday gave her a 3K daily follower increase, up from low to mid hundreds, and following her VMAs appearance, she shot up to around 6K
  • The music awards effect is perhaps the most pronounced when it comes to Elliott’s daily Wikipedia views, which have hovered between 2K and 5K since the start of the year.
  • Last Thursday, on the day of her album drop, however, that number almost reached 33K. 
  • On Monday, the night of the VMAs? Almost 150K.
  • So, at least with an artist as influential as Missy Elliott, a big music awards moment could lead to a big bump in social relevancy, even if that same artist might not see quite as much volatility in their streaming data.
  • As we edge nearer to the CMAs, where Maren Morris and Lil Nas X are the big standouts this year, let’s see if the same trends follow suit.

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday, August 30th, 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  
  • Know thy neighbor, you may have been told, and to that us music data nerds would say, know thy artist neighbor...we’ll do so with rapper Pusha T through Chartmetric’s Neighboring Artists feature.
• 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, 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, Aug. 28, 2019.
• New Kids on the Block: Identifying Pusha T's Artist Neighbors
  • Virginia Beach veteran rapper Pusha T, dropped a new song, “Sociopath,” on Monday.
    • The Kanye West-produced track featuring Kash Doll was leaked early, but Complex Magazine’s "Best Rapper Alive" of 2018 is still keeping it moving.
  • As of yesterday, Pusha T’s Chartmetric rank was at 729th out of the 1.7M artists we track globally.
    • He has 8.2M SoundCloud followers, 140M total YouTube channel views and a Spotify Monthly Listener count at 3.8M.
  • Now, if we break out Pusha T’s Artist Neighbors by his Chartmetric rank alone...
    • To the north, we’ve got 
      • Singer-songwriter god Sara Bareilles ranked 728th, and Irish indie band Two Door Cinema Club in 725th place.
    • To the south of Push, there’s 
      • American pop rockers Cage the Elephant ranked 731st and Australian rockers The Vines in 732nd place.
  • Would Push ever do a cross-genre track with these acts who are at similar popularity levels in the digital world? 
    • It wouldn’t be his first: his guest verse on Justin Timberlake’s 2002 solo album debut “Like I Love You” or 2017 guest on Linkin Park’s “Good Goodbye” with grime rapper Stormzy have both accumulated tens of millions of spins on Spotify alone.
  • But if we filter by genre cluster-which through Chartmetric’s data science magic we find to be rap, trap music, pop, pop rap, southern hip hop-Pusha T’s Artist Neighbors now turn into:
    • Brooklyn’s Desiigner at 623rd place and Atlanta’s Playboi Carti at 591st place above Push.
    • And below, is Toronto’s PARTYNEXTDOOR at 859 and Diddy himself at 889.
    • So if Push were looking for a more similar sound in vein to plan a tour with or collab with, he could easily generate some creative ideas this way.
  • Our data science skills are growing strong with the Force back at Chartmetric HQ, so be sure to keep an eye out for more super-cool and hopefully super-useful features to come.

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Wednesday, Aug. 28, 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  
  • Follow us around the world as we examine T. Swift’s album drop, remember a Mexican cumbia legend, and recognize Korea’s finest through the market coverage lens.
• 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, August 23rd, 2019.
• Taylor Swift’s ‘Lover’, Celso Piña’s Passing, and Monsta X’s Big Win
  • We’re going around the world today, covering T. Swift’s fresh album drop, the late Mexican cumbia legend Celso Piña, and Monsta X’s multiple wins at the SOBA Awards.
  • Taylor Swift’s “Lover”
    • Leading up to the highly anticipated album release, Swift’s Chartmetric  rank is holding strong at No. 3 and and her Spotify Popularity Index is at 93 out of 100.
    • Her “Lover” lyric video is No. 3 on top YouTube playlist Popular Music Videos but, interestingly, not on TikTok’s Top 200 Tracks at all.
    • Still, #LoverTOMORROW was trending on Twitter on Thursday, and Swift made headlines with her upcoming CBS Sunday Morning interview, where she reportedly claims that she’ll be re-recording her entire catalog -- you know the one that Scooter Braun and Ithaca Holdings now hold rights to.
    • Talk about a metadata nightmare.
    • But I digress, scrolling down to the charts section of T. Swift’s profile on Chartmetric
      • “You Need to Calm Down,” which was released on June 14, has been performing best on Amazon, Shazam, and Deezer charts.
      • “The Archer,” which was released on July 23, is, comparatively speaking, not doing well across platforms, and it’s slowly sinking on the charts, in fact.
      • “Lover,” released Aug. 16, is on the rise on Shazam, and it generally scores somewhere between the other two singles on the charts.
    • An interesting way to track her regional success -- especially now that her album is hot off of the press -- is to look at top countries and cities by market coverage.
    • In other words, the ratio of listeners or views an artist has reached over the maximum available listeners in the region.
      • For Spotify cities by monthly listeners, for instance, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Bangkok, Arlington (TX), and Minneapolis are Swift’s current top cities by market coverage, giving her plenty of saturation in Southeast Asia.
      • For YouTube Views by country, Northern Mariana Islands, Canada, Myanmar, Australia, New Zealand, and Sweden rule, truly marking her international status.
      • And for YouTube views by cities, Sugar Land (TX), Quincy (MA), San Ramon (CA), Alexandria (VA), Brighton (NY), and San Marcos (CA) are all definitively American cities winning out here.
  • Celso Piña’s Passing
    • Now, heading South a bit, we change gears for some tragic news: Mexican Cumbia legend Celso Piña died of a heart attack on Thursday. He was 66.
    • According to the Los Angeles Times, “Piña was a pioneer, known for his fusion of cumbia and tropical sounds as a base, combining them with all kinds of popular genres from the north, to sonidero, ska, reggae, rap, hip-hop, among others.”
    • He first came to prominence in Monterrey, Mexico, and went on to snag Grammy Award nominations in the Best Contemporary Tropical Album and Best Alternative Artist categories in 2002.
    • His last solo studio album, “Sin Fecha de Caducidad,” is a decade old now, but he still maintains almost a million monthly Spotify listeners. 
    • His top cities by market coverage on Spotify and YouTube are pretty exclusively Mexican, and his top countries are largely Latin American, but the USA does pull the No. 2 spot when it comes to market coverage for YouTube views by country.
    • We’ll continue to keep the memory and the music alive, Chief of the Bell. Rest in peace.
  • Monsta X’s Big Win
    • Spinning the globe again, we land in South Korea, where Day 1 of the Soribada Best K-Music Awards, aka the SOBA Awards, wrapped on Thursday.
    • Based on data from Korean peer-to-peer file sharing service Soribada, the ceremony recognizes some of the top Korean performers.
    • This year, hip-hop boy band Monsta X were standout stars, winning Best Artist of the Year and the Soribada New Wave Award and trending on Twitter as a result.
    • It was perfect timing for their Aug. 21 album release, Phenomenon.
    • Similar to Piña’s hometown market coverage data bias, Monsta X’s Spotify monthly listeners and YouTube views by cities are largely East or Southeast Asian -- especially Korean, naturally.
    • With YouTube views by country, however, Sweden takes No. 2, Germany No. 4, Bulgaria  No. 5, and Estonia No. 6. 
    • Looks like Monsta X might be able to add a few stops to their upcoming world tour?
• Outro
  • That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday, August 23rd, 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 
  • What better A&R team to have then over 150M smartphones Shazaming every month around the globe? Let’s check out new Apple Music’s Shazam-powered Discovery Top 50 chart/playlist.
• 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, 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 Thursday, Aug. 22, 2019.
•  Unpacking Shazam's New Discovery Top 50 Playlist
  • This week on Variety, Apple Music made some superhero-sized news with the reveal of its Shazam-powered Discovery Top 50 playlist, which aims to spot “emerging and up-and-coming” artists based on data from 11 countries.
  • According to Music Ally, the global chart is based on Shazam data from the US, UK, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Russia for now, and is a way for Apple to spot and deliver trends worldwide.
  • Apple bought Shazam in September 2018 for an estimated $400 million, and this is likely one of many cross-app data integrations to come. 
  • Shazam Discovery Top 50 updates every Tuesday, and appears to be exclusive to frontline material, though they’re not all necessarily new releases.
  • Clicking through to the playlist profile on Chartmetric, we can see that seven of the 50 tracks, were released in 2018, and five of those were released more than a year ago.
  • For example, American Lucy Dacus’ anti-Americana track “Yours & Mine” currently sits in the No. 13 spot. But after Sept. 2, it will pass the 18-month catalog date, which is the industry’s traditional rule of thumb.
  • A few weeks after that, Dutch producer Mason’s itchy-footed track “Dance, Shake, Move,” currently at No. 34, will join her.
  • Interestingly, there also appears to be some genre and geographic method to the madness.
  • Unlike Apple’s other top playlists, EDM rules at 11 percent of the Shazam playlist’s genre distribution, Progressive House follows at 8 percent, and House at almost 3 percent, giving the larger Electronic & Dance genre almost a quarter of the market share this week.
  • The next biggest segment is all Latin, including Pagode, Música Popular Brasileira, Samba, Forro, and Reggaeton-each with nearly 6 percent of the distribution-and Bossanova following at almost 3 percent.
  • With the exception of the Puerto Rican-originated reggaeton sound, these genres are all Brazil-based.
  • Considering that next to the US’ 30 percent artist country distribution on the playlist, Brazil comes in second with 15 percent and Puerto Rico comes in third with 11 percent, there’s clearly a geographical alignment with the types of music presented.
  • Going another level deeper into the tracks themselves, we can expose more of why some of these songs are popping up on the Discovery Top 50 radar.
  • For example, Kosovo-based DJ Regard appears in the No. 4 position in the Shazam-fed chart, but his EDM track “Ride It” also happens to be trending on TikTok.
  • It was 40th yesterday on the TikTok Top Tracks chart with 1.9M TikToks using the track, many times the users simply doing a fun dance or showing lists of why they’re single, different, or annoyed with something.
  • While the Shazam Discovery Top 50 playlist is only currently pulling from 11 countries, it will be interesting to see if EDM and Latin music continues to outnumber Pop and Hip-Hop tracks as the playlist’s country inputs increase.
  • So if you feel like benefiting from 20 million Shazams a day, 1 billion app downloads, and users in 190 countries, check out Apple’s freshest playlist and welcome your newest addition to your A&R team.

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Thursday, Aug. 22, 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 Thursday, and we’ll see you tomorrow!

• Highlights  
  • YouTube’s global importance is no secret, but monitoring its playlist performance hasn’t always been easy. Using our new YouTube Playlists chart, you can finally track which lists are getting the most play!
• 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, August 16th, 2019.
• The Top YouTube Playlists to Land On
  • If you’re tracking YouTube playlists as part of your daily routine, or if you want to start thinking about a digital strategy for the platform, then you’re in luck.
  • Thanks to our brand new feature, you can check the rankings of more than 500 YouTube-curated playlists, sorting by total playlist views, number of videos, 28-day add ratio and last update date. 
  • Then, you can click through to see who's charting on the world's biggest video streaming platform.
  • As it stands now, YouTube’s Popular Music Videos playlist is far and away the top performer with more than 1B total views, 200 tracks, and a 99 percent 28-day add ratio.
  • It’s heavily weighted with Pop, Hip-Hop, and Rap artists from the USA — think Ariana Grande, Chris Brown, and Rick Ross — but R&B, Latin, and Reggaeton aren’t too far behind.
  • In the No. 2 spot is the 72-track Pop Hotlist playlist, which has about a third of the views and half of the 28-day add ratio of the Popular Music Videos playlist.
  • Katy Perry, OneRepublic, and Puerto Rican rapper Anuel AA rule this one — as does the USA, once again. 
  • YouTube has a number of genre-specific Hotlists, actually, including the Latin Hotlist at No. 4, the Hip-Hop and R&B Hotlist at No. 5, the Country Hotlist at No. 6, and the Regional Mexican Hotlist at No. 7.
  • The No. 3 spot, however, goes to New Music This Week, which has a bit more than 300M views and a 100 percent 28-day add ratio.
  • While Pop holds about a third of the market share on it, with R&B and Rap tied for second at a bit less than a tenth, Country rounds out third, tying with Hip-Hop and Metropopolis. 
  • USA dominates the playlist again, holding almost ¾ of the artist country market share.
  • With such a global platform, you might expect to see less American representation and more international representation, but keep in mind, these market shares describe artist-track distribution on the playlists and not listener geography.
  • So, Americans might be pumping out the majority of the content that’s landing on these playlists, but the global community is likely forcing it to the top.
• Outro
  • That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday, August 16th, 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  
  • TikTok is the new game, but it’s already the 2nd quarter. Let’s dive into one of our newest features, TikTok Top Track and Trending Videos charts.
• 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, 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 Thursday, August 15th, 2019.
•  TikTok Top Tracks and Trending Videos
  • If you are involved in music marketing at all, or you have a Gen Z-er in your life, you know about TikTok.
  • Owned by Beijing-based Internet company ByteDance, TikTok is arguably the newest place to be when it comes to music discovery, and it’s hard not to be when you take over the giant lip-sync app that was Musical.ly.
  • Earlier this year, ByteDance hit over 1B downloads across their suite of apps, 100M of them in the US and 250M of them in India, according to CNN.
  • Some of its biggest stars are just regular people: teens dancing, moms decorating cookies, people playing practical jokes on each other….but it’s all frequently set to music.
  • So who’s winning that never-ending game for eyes and ears on TikTok?
  • As of yesterday, the top track used was none other than Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Old Town Road (remix)”, with 9.3M videos using the now record-breaking track.
  • One thing to note about TikTok as a music platform is that-at least in its current state-it’s not the neatest from a metadata perspective. It’s more about the users’ creativity.
  • As users are free to record and upload video and audio like YouTube, songs can be uploaded with no identifying song name or artist to keep track.
  • Or in Lil Nas X’s case, duplicates. There were two original track copies of “Old Town Road” in the 28th and 34th positions on the top tracks chart yesterday, with 2.3 and 2M videos respectively. So if you include remixes, the track is definitely the top one on the Chinese platform with over 13.6M TikTok videos with the yeehaw anthem.
  • And while there is a Trending Video chart, where Mariah Carey’s 2009 track “Obsessed” is currently the soundtrack for the #1 and #2 videos, you don’t have to go to the trending chart to find non-Top 40 tracks.
  • For example, Why Mona’s 2017 moody electronic cover of the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” took the #2 spot yesterday with 9.2M videos, due to its viral dance that many users uploaded the song with.
  • In 4th place with 7.6M videos is Sean Kingston’s 2007 track “Beautiful Girls”, where lots of TikTok-ers are do a cute hand dance or some Fortnite moves.
  • Or in 135th place with 791K videos is none other than ABBA, with their 1986 track “Gimme! Gimme! Gimmie!”, because it has a nice “reveal” type of drop into its chorus. Users like to provide some kind of visual surprise or fun moment when it hits.
  • So if you’ve got a catalog track ripe for memes, let her rip, because the world awaits its next hashtag!

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Thursday, August 15th, 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.
• Our new TikTok Top Tracks and Trending Video charts are now live, check them out with a free account at chartmetric.com 
• Article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
• Happy Thursday, we’ll see you tomorrow!

• Highlights  
  • We do our best to stay out of the political fray, but with the Democratic debates wrapping last week, we look at the candidates’ streaming profiles to get a sense of not only who they’re listening to — but who is listening to them. 
• 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, August 9th, 2019.
• When Streaming Gets Political, Who Gets the Vote?
  • Think profiles and playlists are only for artists? Think again.
  • We do our best to stay out of politics, but with the debates wrapping last week, why not look at the candidates’ streaming profiles to get a sense of not only who they’re listening to — but who is listening to them ... and how?
  • Since no one is vying for the Republican nomination, with Trump seeking a second term, we’ll look at six of the Democratic candidates: Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang, Beto O’Rourke, Joe Biden, and Marianne Williamson.
  • Booker’s Cory Booker’s Music playlist might only have around 150 followers, but what it lacks in popularity it makes up for in track popularity, with almost half of its 101 tracks at a popularity score of 60 or above.
  • At around 180 followers, Biden’s streaming profile has about the same count as Booker’s playlist — but only 22 monthly listeners. 
  • Harris’ Kamala’s Summer Playlist ups the ante with more than 4,000 followers tuning into her heavily rap, hip-hop, soul, and funk oriented 46-song listing. 
  • O’Rourke’s BBQ for Beto has some 500 followers listening to his 94-song playlist, which ranges in genre from folk to classic rock and country to hardcore punk.
  • Keep in mind, O-Rourke used to play in punk bands, so he definitely knows what’s up in that regard.
  • As might be expected, Williamson’s streaming profile is heavily geared toward meditation, prayer, and motivational speeches — and it’s paying off.
  • Williamson’s follower count is almost 1,800 with a Spotify monthly listener count of around 1,200, helping to make her listeners to followers ratio about 1 to 1.
  • Perhaps most interesting, and maybe most unsurprising, is that her daily Wikipedia views shot up from some 12,000 to some 350,000 following the debate, correlating strongly with a daily change in her Instagram followers from around 600 to around 11,000 on Aug. 1.
  • Yang’s Favorite Jams playlist leaves the others in the dust with more than 5,000 followers — despite it being primarily catalogue based.
  • Oh, and in case you didn’t know, Yang appears to really enjoy Florence & the Machine and the Cure.
  • Streaming performance might not be an indication of political performance, but it does give us some insight into who these candidates are looking to win over — or at least how good their music taste is.

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday, August 9th, 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.
• Free accounts are available at chartmetric.com 
• Article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
• Happy Friday, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next week!

• Highlights  
  • What happens when a global artist gets sued by another for copyright infringement? Not much for the former, but a notable increase for the latter...we’re talking about music data by the way, not legal damage payments.
• 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, 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, August 7th, 2019.
• Katy Perry, Flame and the Effects of Publicity
  • We’ve all seen industry gossip and trade news before...but have you ever used it to measure the impact of publicity?
  • For the past week, both general and industry news sources have been reporting on the lawsuit of American rap artist Flame and the alleged copyright infringement of Katy Perry and team on her widespread 2013 hit, “Dark Horse”.
  • Though debate still rages in the industry on whether it was valid in the eyes of copyright law, the jury itself decided it was indeed infringement, and ordered the American pop star and songwriting team to pay $2.78M in collective damages to the defendant.
  • From a data perspective, what’s interesting is how this kind of news affects their digital profiles.
  • For example, looking at the past week of social and streaming data for Katy Perry since news of the lawsuit first broke around July 30th, there was….basically no effect.
  • No extra playlists or apparent correlation to Instagram follower count or Spotify monthly listeners….just more Katy Perry-level numbers, which is more than 7K new daily Spotify followers, 13M more daily YouTube views and 21K new daily IG followers….all in a day’s work.
  • But for a lesser known artist like the Christian rapper Flame, he did experience a notable increase in digital profile.
  • As of late, Flame in comparison had only gained about 67 new daily Spotify followers and 184 new YouTube daily views….and actually did score a few new charts.
  • For example, “Joyful Noise”, which was the 2009 Flame track that was allegedly knowingly copied from by the Perry team, charted on official Viral 50 Spotify daily charts for the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada.
  • It was for one day on August 2nd, a few days after the news had been able to make the news rounds in places like the Guardian, Rolling Stone, the BBC and Associated Press, and the track itself sat in the 13th, 15th and 24th respective positions on the 50-track viral charts.
  • Its YouTube video went from 1800 daily views on Monday July 30th to more than 580 times that, peaking on July 31st at over 1M daily views….even the track’s Genius page, which only had less than 10 daily views the week prior, jumped to 740 the week of the proceedings.
  • More than the track itself, Flame’s general artist profile gained 331 Spotify followers on July 31st, almost 5x his recent daily average, and his Spotify monthly listener count as of Monday August 5th has more than doubled in size to over 500K from his count only a week prior.
  • He experienced similar multiples of increase in Twitter followers, retweets and Wikipedia views.
  • So what does this mean for the rest of us? Possibly, a way to measure the effects of publicity….it’s virtually impossible to do so on a global superstar, but with an artist with a relatively little daily digital footprint, we can see which platforms are most affected by such news on certain given sources...and maybe be able to plan for future publicity expectations when working with your own artists.
  • Because as they say in the show biz, “Any publicity is good publicity.”

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Wednesday, August 7th, 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.
• Free accounts are available at chartmetric.com 
• Article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
• Happy Wednesday, see you on Friday!

• Highlights  
  • Spotify, Apple Music, and Deezer’s biggest playlists are growing — both in terms of follower count and also track count — but what does that mean for artists looking to land a big add?
• 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.
• Feature: Labels Page
  • Hey Rutger, it’s Jason — sorry to interrupt, but can I just do a quick product update? 
  • Of course, what’s up?
  • Thanks, man. Hi Chartmetric fans, you may or may not have gotten a chance to check out the new Labels Page feature that we discussed in the last podcast episode this week.
  • We’ve temporarily pulled the feature back from its soft release because we just don’t think it’s up to the music analytics standard we strive for.
  • If you’ve been with us for some time, you’ve seen how dedicated we are to innovating and as we say in the tech world, sometimes “breaking things”.
  • Well, we’ve gotten a lot of your feedback and realize that we jumped the gun a bit early and we need to better clean, organize and visualize the label metadata that we have, which is what we do best.
  • So we recognize the issue, and we are working swiftly to bring the Labels Page back with verve and more importantly, accuracy!
  • Back to our regularly scheduled program, take it away, Rutger!
  • Thanks, Jason!
• Date
  • This is your Data Dump for Friday, August 2nd, 2019.
• How 2019’s Playlist Growth Might Affect Emerging Artists
  • These days, getting onto streaming’s top playlists is sort of the name of the game.
  • It really determines the visibility of emerging artists and cements the longevity of established ones.
  • So, it got us wondering…. What’s been going on on the top playlists in 2019?
  • Hitting the Playlists tab on the Chartmetric homepage brings up tons of playlist information for Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, and Amazon.
  • From there, we can compare everything going on when it comes to the playlists claiming the top spots across a number of different measurements.
  • On Spotify, Today’s Top Hits maintains the highest follow number, starting the year off with 22.3M and hitting 23.6M by the end of June.
  • That’s 5.8 percent increase for that six month period.
  • On Deezer, Les Titres Du Moment claims the top follower spot, and over the same period, experienced only about 1 percent growth from 9.8M followers to 9.9M followers.
  • Digging in a bit deeper, we can also compare playlist length, aka number of tracks.
  • For that six month period, for example, Spotify’s Hot Country playlist grew 31.4 percent in length, while Apple Music’s The A-List: Pop playlist grew the same amount.
  • But those aren’t the highest numbers. 
  • Spotify’s EDM-focused Mint playlist grew 35.8 percent, and Apple’s Hip-Hop-oriented Gymflow playlist grew 66.7 percent.
  • Overall, Apple added more tracks to its top playlists than Spotify did — about 11 percent vs. 23 percent, to be exact. 
  • The growth of these playlists, both in terms of follower count and also track count, means a higher chance of an emerging artist landing on one of them and a significant increase in visibility if they do.
  • However, it also makes it more likely that they get lost in the noise, making it hard to capitalize on an otherwise super exciting add.
  • Knowing the genre breakdown of tracks and also the country distribution of artists can help, but we’ll have to save that for another episode. 
  • You can also tell us what you find by doing your own digging at chartmetric.com!

Outro

• That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Friday, August 2nd, 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.
• Article links and show notes are at: podcast.chartmetric.com
• And if you like what we’re doing, don’t forget to leave us a rating or review!
• Happy Friday, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next week!