I was thinking yesterday actually about how some songs regarded as 'classics' have incredibly low streaming totals on Spotify, yet others are expectedly huge, and some are unexpectedly huge.

 

Like Cher's Believe is on 55m on Spotify, yet Kiss Me by Sixpence None The Richer, which came out around the same time is on 85m? Without a doubt the latter is a classic of sorts too, but more played than Believe now?

 

Alright by Supergrass is on 45m, yet Common People by Pulp is on 29m. Both Britpop classic #2 hits from 1995, but you'd think the latter would be on way higher streams!

 

And some of the pure pop classics are nowhere in comparison, suggesting that people don't go back to the pop of their childhood as much as the indie/MOR. Tragedy by Steps is on 4m and Don't Stop Movin' by S Club 7 is 8.5m, you'd expect these to be significantly higher.

It makes a lot of sense that the pure pop songs don't get as many streams as a lot of them are borderline novelty records (Steps, S Club 7, B*Witched) so people wouldn't feel comfortable playing them at parties. Also people move on from pop records very quickly especially the dated sounding ones, whereas most of the big indie songs are timeless and get remembered more fondly.

 

Also it depends largely on which classics get put in more Spotify curated playlists.

ISTM that streaming has created a fundamental shift in what the charts are measuring.

 

Before streaming, they used to measure how many people liked a song, but now it has changed into how often people listen to a song. This allows artists with large fanbases to dominate, to the detriment of artists who may have a wider appeal, but whose fans are less avid. Needless to say, I do not regard this as a change for the better. :no:

The ability of fanbases to manipulate is much stronger in the physical/download chart(s) than the streaming one.

 

As a fan you could buy (up to) 3 formats of a single which would all count (there is no limit in number of remixes on the download chart). Whereas streaming the song non-stop all week will get you 0.46 of a sale (10*7 / 150- which is rounded down to zero for chart purposes).

 

Fanbases < General public - so the ability to influence the songs popularity is much weaker within a streaming environment.

The ability of fanbases to manipulate is much stronger in the physical/download chart(s) than the streaming one.

 

As a fan you could buy (up to) 3 formats of a single which would all count (there is no limit in number of remixes on the download chart). Whereas streaming the song non-stop all week will get you 0.46 of a sale (10*7 / 150- which is rounded down to zero for chart purposes).

 

Ah, but in the pre-streaming age fanbase effects were generally limited to one week, usually the first, not continuing for months... :(

 

 

Yes, but in the pre-streaming age total sales of records were also limited by the time they were available on sale (usually 10-15 weeks). It's pretty clear that streaming hugely disadvantages records that usually rely on fanbase purchases - see the recent Take That single which limped to 13 and then disappeared.

But I wonder why Ed Sheeran or any artists are on top for so long?

 

If I was a Sheeran fan I would most probably buy his record in the first week and would be absent on the market in the following ones.

 

So do his fan buy a new CD every week or what?

But I wonder why Ed Sheeran or any artists are on top for so long?

 

If I was a Sheeran fan I would most probably buy his record in the first week and would be absent on the market in the following ones.

 

So do his fan buy a new CD every week or what?

Ed has a large fanbase AND has massive appeal to the general public who don't necessarily buy music on its first week of release.

 

But if you download a single, then listen to it 50 times, those listens aren't counted towards the chart, whereas streaming ones are... that leads to under-representation of music by artists whose fans prefer paid-for music.

Edited April 10, 20178 yr by vidcapper

But if you download a single you are contributing three times MORE to its chart sales than if you play it fifty times

But if you download a single you are contributing three times MORE to its chart sales than if you play it fifty times

 

But that's still a once-off effect, but streaming carries on week after week after week after week...

But that's still a once-off effect, but streaming carries on week after week after week after week...

At most you can contribute 0.06666... of a sale in a single day (10 plays), if you played it 10 times a day every single day for 2 weeks, it's still not a full sale. 140 of your plays is still not 1 full chart sale. I know I play songs quite a lot (albeit via iTunes) but it isn't very often a song will get over 140 plays, particularly within a 2 week period.

how many times you have to listen to an album on Spotify to generate 1 sale?

how many times you have to listen to an album on Spotify to generate 1 sale?

 

Well it doesn't really work like that because the most popular 2 tracks are neutralised to the mean of the 3rd-12th most popular.

 

Theoretically if the album has 12 tracks, you'd have to listen to it 1000/12 times, i.e. 83 1/3 times to generate a single sales unit. That's the minimum, because no matter how long the album is - only the 3rd-12th most popular tracks that you listen to (wherever they may be on the album) will count for chart purposes and so you'd have to listen to the whole thing that many times to generate the sale.

Edited April 10, 20178 yr by Doctor Blind

If streaming's being included, it needs to be ALL streaming, you can't just exclude those who don't pay subscriptions. It's not like recording onto a tape or illegal downloading because Spotify and the artists get money through the adverts. A stream is a stream and I don't think it's fair to separate those who want/can afford a subscription from those who don't or can't.

 

In that case everything should be counted then - YouTube, iTunes video downloads, radio plays etc.,

 

There is no difference from me playing a video on YT to streaming for free if we are going down that route.

The downside with including YouTube streams is that you cannot be sure whether the person listening/watching is there for the content in the video or the music played under it? I think “Harlem Shake” and to a certain extent “Black Beatles” illustrate that quite clearly.

In that case everything should be counted then - YouTube, iTunes video downloads, radio plays etc.,

 

There is no difference from me playing a video on YT to streaming for free if we are going down that route.

 

They are totally different, and here's why:

 

- YouTube is video streaming, not audio streaming. Huge difference, on Spotify you're going to listen to the song itself, but on YouTube, you might be more interested in the music video. It's a songs chart really, and videos are separate entities.

- The above applies to iTunes video downloads too really, not the same because it's not a song on its own, it's a video.

- Radio plays are also separate because the listener is not choosing what they play.

thanks, was trying to figure out if 1 person can generate an album sale from streaming and how long would it take? guess maybe only with an all-time favourite album that you've streamed for months, but I'm not even sure if I've listened to my big big favourites albums > 80 times

In that case everything should be counted then - YouTube, iTunes video downloads, radio plays etc.,

 

There is no difference from me playing a video on YT to streaming for free if we are going down that route.

 

youtube is even bigger coontribution as it usually gathers more customer /viewer focus than streaming play.

 

Besides youtube is not only about video, there arre loads of songs with audio or lyrics only.

 

How this can not be counted?

I don't think there's a definitive answer to the YouTube streaming debate, because I used to stream music videos on YouTube with that tab closed and others open, just to listen to the music. So, unless there's a way to tell if the user is actually watching the video or just listening to the music, there's no real solution.