Carole King - August 26, 2024
Her biggest hit, "It's Too Late," is one of those staples that always gets played on U.S. terrestrial radio stations. In the past year, the song had over 21,462 weekly airplay spins, a number that has grown nearly 33% in the past year.
Lizzo - August 12, 2024
An artist's ability to generate streams is not always correlated with an artist's ability to sell concert tickets. One great example is Lizzo. As of August 11, she has 5.73 million Spotify followers, which is 559th on the platform. But she's part of a much smaller group of contemporary artists who can sell out a nationwide arena tour in the U.S.
"Not Like Us" - August 5, 2024
As of August 5, Drake's Spotify monthly listeners are at 74.6 million, which is the lowest it has been in the past six months and now less than Kendrick Lamar, who has 75.2 million. Drake has always been seen as the commercial machine in hip-hop. But at the moment, it's his rival Kendrick who has won the beef and has a few more people behind him on Spotify.
Empire State of Mind - July 29, 2024
On July 24, Jay Z and Alicia Keys "Empire State of Mind" achieved Diamond certification from RIAA. The song has over 1 billion streams on Spotify, topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 5 weeks, and is arguably the biggest hit of Jay Z's career.
50 Cent's Diamond Triumph - July 19, 2024
We have an upcoming 50 Cent One of Ones episode, so here’s a teaser stat for you. On November 1, 2023, 50 Cent's "In Da Club" was certified Diamond by the RIAA. His hit single reached Diamond status in the middle of his The Final Lap Tour, which is fitting. A tour that generates buzz can often increase demand for an artist's entire catalog, especially the hits.
SZA's Fan Profile Insights - July 8, 2024
Both CTRL and SOS have proved that streaming-era artists like SZA can release music that consistently gets played week after week. Here are a few stats about SZA's loyal fanbase: 47% are in the United States, 4% are in Brazil, 70% are female, and 42% are ages 25-34.
Michael Jackson - June 28, 2024
The Michael Jackson catalog is often believed to be one of the most valuable of all time. A lot of that comes from the three albums that Jackson worked on with Quincy Jones, Off The Wall, Thriller, and Bad. Those albums include some of the most popular songs of all time that still get plenty of radio play and streams today. Michael's music is currently on over 1.02 million Spotify playlists that are tracked by Chartmetric.
Charli XCX - June 21, 2024
The British singer's tour may not have taken off as expected, but Charli XCX fanbase still shows up to stream her music. Her Spotify popularity index is at 82, which is the highest it has been for her since the stat has been tracked.
Ariana's TikTok Growth Amid Conflict - June 14, 2024
Ariana Grande had the less-than-ideal timing of releasing an album in the middle of UMG and TikTok's three-month spat. Despite the timing, her TikTok Followers still grew by around 900k (2.63%) from February 27 to May 26.
Nicki Minaj's Revival in Spring Breakers - June 7, 2024
One of the original A24 films is Spring Breakers, which has a bunch of fun needle drops like Nicki Minaj's "Moment 4 Life" with Drake. It's a 13-year-old song that has gotten at least 233 spins per week in the past year on terrestrial radio.
The Weeknd Dominates Charts - May 31, 2024
The “Blinding Lights” singer is one of the artists mentioned who has a more favorable deal with the majors. As of May 26, he’s the #1 artist based on radio spins, #1 for Spotify Monthly Listeners, #11 for YouTube Monthly Video Views, and the #3 most Shazamed artist.
NPR Tiny Desk Boosts Spins - May 24, 2024
NPR Tiny Desk is highly sought after and the numbers back it up. Since Ne-Yo’s April 26 performance, his Spotify monthly listeners have jumped from 35.8 to 37.4 million. Similarly, 311’s listeners have grown from 3 million on their March 11 concert date to over 4 million today. The concert series gets hundreds of pitches per week, and this is a big reason why.
Future Beats Drake on YouTube in Atlanta - May 17, 2024
21 Savage once said that a lot of people in Atlanta think that Future is bigger than Drake. Well, we ran the numbers. Drake’s monthly YouTube views in Atlanta are 3.3M (as of May 7) while Future has more than doubled in his hometown, with 7.5M views. But on Spotify, Drake has over 831,000 monthly listeners, compared to over 721,000 for Future. It’s platform-dependent, but it’s close!
Drake's Spotify Stats Dip, Wikipedia Views Soar - May 10, 2024
Drake has dominated headlines, but his monthly Spotify listeners were at 82 million (as of May 7), which is still below the 85.1 million he had on February 7, during his It's All A Blur Tour. Meanwhile, Drake's Wikipedia page had a 20x increase in daily views after the release of “Family Matters” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” Page views jumped from an average of 14.5k per day in March and April 2024 to over 320,000 in the two days after their release. Despite the decline in streams, Drake’s still getting attention.
Kendrick's Verse Elevates Metro Boomin - May 3, 2024
The "Rap Civil War" kicked off after a Kendrick Lamar verse on Metro Boomin's new album, We Don't Trust You, released on March 22. Since then, Metro's Spotify monthly listeners have jumped from around 50.9M to over 62.9M as of April 30. He's benefitted from all the attention and continues to be a staple in hip-hop.
The Weeknd's Spotify Reign - April 26, 2024The prize jewel of the Chord Music catalog is The Weeknd’s publishing, and that’s for good reason. He and Taylor Swift are currently the only two artists on Spotify with over 100 million monthly listeners. The Weeknd has the only song with 4 billion streams “Blinding Lights,” and has three others in the top 50: “Starboy at #5, “The Hills” at #41, and “Die For You” at #47.
Taylor's Cruel Summer in TikTok - April 19, 2024
Taylor Swift's most popular song on TikTok is the late bloomer, 2019's "Cruel Summer." Back in April 2023, there were around 2,000 posts on the platform that included that song. By September 2023, the song had crossed 2 million posts. It was one of the biggest songs of the summer, and the stats back it up.
Biggie's L.A. Surprise - April 12, 2024
The Notorious B.I.G.'s brand is as "New York" as it can get, but his #1 city for estimated audience size…. Is actually Los Angeles! An estimated 5.48% of his overall audience (based on Spotify, YouTube, and Instagram followers) is in Los Angeles, compared to 5.29% in New York City.
Coachella Bump Power - April 5, 2024
On April 16, 2023, Frank Ocean gave one of the more forgettable Coachella headlining performances (so forgettable, he was replaced on the second weekend by blink-182!). But Ocean's Spotify Monthly Listeners increased over 9% after his show, and have grown over 36% in the past year, reaching 33.42M listeners.
That Coachella bump still has power, regardless of how good the performance was.
XXXTentacion's Spotify Impact Continues - March 29, 2024
The late XXXTentacion is one of the most successful artists to come from the record label, EMPIRE. It’s been over 5 years since his death in June 2018, but he’s still one of the most popular artists on Spotify. As of March 26, he has over 44M Spotify followers, #23 of all artists on the streaming service. In fact, the only two deceased/inactive artists in the Spotify top 30 most followed are Queen (17th) and XXXTentacion (30th).He’s an artist with a complicated legacy, but the listeners are as active as ever.
Bluey's Spotify Stats on the Rise - March 22, 2024
If you’re a parent of a young kid, you probably know the Bluey theme song by heart. Well, in November and December 2023, the official Bluey account on Spotify averaged just over 920,000 monthly active listeners. That number has jumped to over 1.4 million listeners as of March 19. That lines up with the release of 10 episodes of Bluey on January 12 on Disney+! The Bluey popularity train continues.
Beyoncé's Renaissance: Climbing the Chart - March 15, 2024
Beyonce’s Renaissance film made its released on December 1, 2023. The week before its release (Nov 22-28), her average Chartmetric artist rank was #20 of all the artists in the world. By the end of December, her rank jumped up to #13.
Music Fan Dynamics - March 12, 2024
K-pop is known for its superfans, and the data backs it up. On Spotify, both BTS and Blackpink have a fan conversion rate (followers over monthly listeners) that’s well over 200%. Meanwhile, artists like The Weeknd and Dua Lipa have conversion rates below 70%. This says a lot about whether it’s fans, passive listeners, or algorithmic plays that drive the playlist!
AI's moment - March 8, 2024
In April 2023, Grimes became one of the first commercial artists to allow her fans to use her voice in AI generated songs. GrimesAI is the 'artist name' that her AI voice is released under.The most popular song, "Cold Touch" by Kito and GrimesAI, has been streamed over 1.7 million times on Spotify.
Lady Gaga's Radio Hits vs. Streaming - March 1, 2024
For many artists, their most streamed song is often different than their song with the most airplay on the radio.“Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, the 2019 Best Original Song Oscar winner from A Star Is Born, is Gaga’s 5th most-played song on the radio for the last 180 days. #1 is Poker Face, #Bad Romance, #3 is Just Dance, #4 is Paparazzi, then #4 is Shallow.By when we move to streaming, “Shallow” has over 2.3 billion streams, nearly twice as “Poker Face,” which has 1.178 billion streams!
Virgil Abloh - February 23, 2024
The late Virgil Abloh was primarily known for his fashion, but he also made music! On Spotify, his top three cities by monthly listeners are #3 Paris, #2 London, and #1 Lagos. It's a reminder of how global his influence truly was.
Brand Partnerships Explored - February 16, 2024
We've talked a lot about Kanye West's brand partnerships in this episode. Chartmetric measures each artist's Audience Brand Affinity: how much an artist's followers on Instagram overlap with a particular brand.As of February 7, Louis Vuitton is #10 on the "Louis Vuitton Don's" list. Adidas, the former home to Yeezy is #3. Nike, the original home to Yeezy is #2. And number 1 is… Supreme! If Yeezy needs a future partner, that may be his best bet.
Usher's Rise: From Las Vegas Residency to Super Bowl Halftime Show - February 9, 2024
A few months before Usher first announced his first Las Vegas residency in May 2020, his average Chartmetric Artist Rank was #132 out of all the artists in the world. Today, he’s #44, with an upcoming performance in that same city on the biggest artist stage in entertainment, the Super Bowl halftime show.
A Contrast in Artist Success - February 2, 2024
The top five most streamed artists of 2023 on SoundCloud were, in order NBA Young Boy, Juice WRLD, Rod Wave, Yeat, and $uicideboy$.But when we compare that to those artists' Chartmetric artist rank, the numbers are quite different as of Monday, January 29th, 2024. NBA Young Boy is the 138th artist on that list, Juice WRLD is 101st, Rod Wave is 502nd, Yeat is 454th, and $uicideboy$ are 640th.It's a reminder that Soundcloud is distinct in both the artists who rely on it and in the fans who listen.
SZA's "Kill Bill" Dominates - January 26, 2024
2024 Record of the Year nominee, SZA’s “Kill Bill,” is currently on 103 editorial playlists on Spotify, 107 on Amazon, 64 on Apple Music, and 12 on Deezer! This song has been everywhere this past year, and the playlist counts show.
"Jake From State Farm" - January 19, 2024
State Farm's "Jake From State Farm" spokesperson is so popular that it's the also song title for at least 15 songs currently available on streaming.One of the most notable is from salem ilese, who has over 5.3 million Spotify monthly listeners. Her song "Jake From State Farm" has been streamed over 359,000 times on Spotify and viewed over 188,000 times on YouTube.
Country music radio vs Spotify - January 12, 2024
As of January 7, 2024, there are two artists who are in the top 10 for global radio airplay but not in the top 20 for Spotify monthly listeners. That’s Tate McRae, who is currently 39th on Spotify monthly listeners, and Luke Combs, who is 345th on Spotify!It’s a fascinating stat that says a lot about country music’s popularity on Spotify compared to other platforms. Similarly, Morgan Wallen is 13th on radio airplay and 255th on Spotify.
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