Episode 103

Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck, with your host, Mark Bradbourne.

What is up, friends? Welcome back to Songs That Don’t Suck. I am your host, Mark, and every week, I listen to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of newly released songs. If you are a first-time listener to the podcast, thank you so much for giving me a chance and checking it out. If you’re a long-time listener, you know that I love you to pieces. And thanks again for stopping by and checking out this week’s music. Now, this week is probably one of my favorite weeks, because this is the week where all the data comes out about music.

So I got two year end reports this week, one from Luminate and one from Chartmetric. So just to give you kind of a baseline, Luminate is a top entertainment data company. And it basically runs the Billboard charts. That’s what fuels it. And it’s really reliable. And it gives you information about music in all the places that it shows up. So music, movies, TVs, games, basically anywhere. They have a ton of data. 500 sources are being tracked. And they say that they manage 20 trillion data points. Now, as a data analyst, I will tell you, that is a shit ton of data. And I wish I could play with it. Chartmetric, on the other hand, that is a platform more for artists and music industry people. They provide data around streaming, social engagement, and audience data.

The thing that I really like about Luminate is that they’re very transparent. I remember an episode last year where I was talking about how vinyl had been reported as sales or down. But that was due to a fact that Luminate had changed their methodology and data capture, which really made things look bad, which actually wasn’t the case. Because a lot of the independent record stores just couldn’t put the data in the format that it needed to be. They came out very transparent about it, said, hey, we fucked up, and we’re going to fix it.

This year, the first thing out of their mouths around the report was that 2023 had an extra week compared to 2024. And it was just due to the way the calendar shifts from year to year. But honestly, when I’m looking at the report and you see the size of some of these numbers, it’s probably just a rounding error that there’s an extra week of data last year. So let’s get into some of the chart metric stuff first. On-demand streaming, obviously, is still the king. It grew by 14% globally when compared to the previous year. So 4.2 trillion in 2023 to 4.8 trillion in 2024. Now, when we exclude the US, the numbers grew 17%. So it went from 2.9 trillion to 3.4 trillion. That is a shit ton of music. It really, really is.

And while streaming is up, or as I like to describe it nowadays, music rental, purchases of actual physical media or digital media are both down. It’s down almost 10% for digital album sales and down a percentage point for physical sales. My guess is that’s just an economy thing. It’s an inflation thing, although I think vinyl costs are out of control and we need to fix that. But that’s just my opinion.

Genres, okay, R&B and hip hop continue to dominate, but they are down. They’re down 2.3 points when compared to the previous year. Rock is number two, pop is number three. Country and Latin are four and five respectively. But honestly, they continue to battle it out. Depending on when you look at the report, they are really, really close, which is fine, but they’re way below the top three.

Now, even while rock is ahead of pop, pop is the fastest growing genre. And make way for the ladies, ’cause they’re the ones really driving it. Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter, Ariana Grande, Olivia Rodrigo. We actually don’t see our first male artist until number seven, and that was Benson Boone. Now, to catch Taylor Swift, Benson only needs a mere 10.5 billion more streams. And to put it in perspective of how big Taylor is right now, Taylor is eight billion streams in front of Billie Eilish at number two.

Okay, let’s shift gears and look at the fans. Now, when it comes to fandom, it is estimated that about 20% of US music listeners are considered super fans. Most are generationally either Gen Z or Millennial. Some other demographics, they say that most of them are single, and/or they are part of the LGBTQ+ community. Now, what is a super fan? Well, it’s a fan that engages with an artist in multiple ways. It’s like I say at the end of every podcast, go out and support these artists. That’s what they’re doing. They listen to the music, they buy the music, they buy merch, they go to concerts, they share social content, and they talk to their friends and family about their favorite artists. In fact, 81% spread the word to those who are close to them. 90% are going to live shows, and 73% are purchasing physical media.

Now, as far as live shows go, who’s spending the most? Well, it’s Gen Z, followed by the Millennials, and then Gen X. All three generations are above average consumers when it comes to spending for live shows. Now, when you break it down a little bit further between regular concerts and festivals, Gen X far prefers a regular concert. We don’t need to camp and shit in a bucket. We’re good. We want to go to the show and we want to go back to bed. Millennials appear to have the same preference, but Gen Z do love a festival. I’m not sure what’s up with that, because I’ve seen some of the festival lineups, and they are shotgun-scattered. Like, genre be damned. It’s really, really odd, but that’s probably a conversation for another show.

Now, switching reports, looking at the chart metric year-end report. There are a couple of things that I wanted to mention. Now, like I said, chart metric is more for artists and music industry. So they track 11.3 million artists, and of those, 66% are solo acts, and 34% are a group of some description, whether a duo, a trio, a band, what have you.

They break the artists down into different categories. So this year, they added 818,000 artists to their undiscovered category. They added 62,000 to their developing artist category. 8500 were added to the mid-level, 2,800 added to the mainstream, 308 were added to the superstar group, and 65 reached legendary status. Now, legendary status is basically artists who have been releasing music over a 30-year period. And honestly, at this point, it’s kind of uncommon to see, ’cause you don’t see artists longevity like that in a lot of cases. So that’s why there’s only 65 that reach that stage this year. And if I was to dig into the data, my guess is, well, they’d have to be artists from the ’90s.

Yeah, so anyway. So as far as songs that they track, I said they track 11.3 million artists, they track 129,567,900 songs. And on average, they are seeing almost 29,000 songs released per day, which is up from last year. And it’s really funny, ’cause they actually showed the release count by month. And now I really understand why December sucks for finding new music, and it’s why we have the don’t suckies now. Each month sees about anywhere between 700,000 and a million tracks released. December sees less than 300,000. January and February are very slow ramp up to that, you know, 700,000. The busiest months are March, April, and May. And then it kind of slowly drops from June to November, and then the bottom just drops out. At least my assumption was correct as to what was happening with that. So I feel a lot better. I didn’t see that stat last year.

So last thing from their report, the tracks continue to get shorter. I don’t know if it’s a tension span or just the way the social media is working, trying to get viral hits and whatnot. Medium length of a song is two minutes and 50 seconds to three minutes and 10 seconds. Shortest song released, 32 seconds. The longest song released, one hour and 13 minutes.

And I checked them both out and they both sucked. They will not be on the podcast.

So how about we get into some music that doesn’t suck? Shall we? The first song this week is “Sleeping In” by Alexander Biggs. I like when vocal effects are used to set a premise or an idea inside a song. And I think that’s what’s happening at the beginning of “Sleeping In.” There’s this cloudy or watery effect that’s added to the vocal and the guitar. And it gives me this feeling of someone who is just waking up and kind of coming out of that days you have in the morning. And then it kind of pivots into the second verse that Cloud lifts and the song continues. Really well done, if that’s what was intended. This song uses what I’m going to refer to a lot in this episode as space. And it uses it really, really well. When I’m talking about space, a lot of new songs that I hear feel the need to throw everything at you at all times. And that’s cool sometimes for that wall of sound. Taking up all that audio space though, it doesn’t allow the listener to kind of absorb what is happening. It doesn’t really allow for appreciation in the moment. It’s like when the song ends, is the only time you can really think about what you’re listening to. Every instrument and voice needs space to be appreciated in full. And then in turn, we can appreciate then the ensemble that’s giving it all together. Like for example, in this song, at about the two minute mark, it’s just vocal and drums. The guitar has fallen really, really back in the mix, back in the distance. And it allows the song to build back up as it moves towards the conclusion. Give a listen, this is “Sleeping In” from Alexander Biggs.

The 2nd song this week is Ankles by Lucy Dacus. Lucy is part of BoyGenius. So technically this is her second appearance on the podcast. And this is just, it’s a really interesting song. It’s a sexy song, but at the same time, there’s a sweetness to it. It’s a mixture of what she wants in the bedroom and what she wants from a partner. Throughout the whole song, the vocal is doubled in this very consistent harmony and it adds this really lovely layered texture. A composition, really well done. I love the percussion and drums that are happening in here. I think the strings set a great tone at the beginning of the song. And there’s what sounds like, it’s probably keyboards, but it’s either got a harpsichord sound or a dulcimer maybe, that plays this really cool accompaniment part after the first verse. And like “Sleeping In,” you’ll notice there’s a lot of great space within this song and the listener gets to breathe and kind of get ready for the next part, the next emotion, if you will. So here is a taste of Ankles from Lucy Dacus.

The third song this week is “Mirror” by the Weather Station. Now this is one to put headphones on for. There’s some cool production things that happen where the sound kind of gets tossed around left to right, and it gives us really cool feeling when you’ve got the headphones on, so give that a try. The first thing that caught my ear with this song is going to be very obvious if you were a long time listening to the podcast. It’s the drums and percussion. I think it’s really cool, some of the things that they’ve kind of put together here. And while there’s a lot going on, this song fits in the theme of the week where these artists are all respecting the space. And it’s been a really great week for that, and I was really thankful for it. In listening to her, she reminds me a bit of a Canadian singer-songwriter that I’m a fan of, Sarah Sleen. If you want, go check her out. I’m a big fan of her album, Blue Parade. But anyway, this song, Mirror, is just really lovely. So put on some headphones as you listen to this one and enjoy a sample of Mirror by the Weather Station.

The fourth song this week is Cold Like This by The RumJacks. This one’s a pivot from the first three songs. But if you are putting a playlist together for St. Patty’s Day, this is one you’re probably gonna wanna add. This is a collaboration that The RumJacks did with Dropkick Murphys, and it is fantastic Celtic Rock, exactly what you would think it would be. And honestly, in keeping with the theme, even in a healthy, hearty, Celtic Rock jam, meant to fire up a crowd and keep the party going, there’s a little bit of space. They drop instruments in and out. It’s really great. Like the only thing I could think about was St. Patty’s Day, and I will absolutely be putting this on my St. Patty’s Day playlist. I’m not a huge St. Patty’s Day person, but I do enjoy Celtic Rock, like more than I should probably. Anyway, raise a glass with me and crank up Cold Like This by The Rum Jacks.

The fifth song this week is Trouble Calls My Name by Shade. Shade is making their third appearance on the podcast with Trouble Calls My Name. Now to these boys’ credit, every time they come out with a new release, they actually send me a message, letting me know that they have a new song coming out, because the playlist shift, and I may have missed this one if they didn’t do that. So bravo to you guys for continuing to like wave your flag into your horn. These guys are from Manchester, and I’ve mentioned it in the past. The first two songs I got from them had a really strong Oasis vibe. But I think in this song, they’re actually coming into their own a little bit. All three songs are really well written, but this one is probably my favorite that I’ve heard. Great guitar riff, really memorable guitar riff, honestly, and really fantastic chorus on this one. And I’m beating a dead horse, but every song this week, and maybe it was just my state of mind, a lot of space, a lot of different things happening. There’s a really, really cool part where the bridge is, where they’re really kind of changing the mood, which is absolutely missing in a lot of modern music. It sets up the end of the song really, really well. So enjoy Trouble Calls My Name by Shade.

That is it for this week’s thematic episode called Space. It’s so funny as I was listening to all these songs, and it’s really interesting the way that it’s kind of fallen this week with the music. Usually it’s really diverse, but there was a common thread going through the songs this week that I picked. Anyway, contact me, connect with me, interact with me on social media, threads, Instagram, Facebook, and Blue Sky are the places. If you go to songs that don’t suck.net, that’s probably the best place to find links to everything. There’s a Discord community. We can chat about music in there. Granted, there’s not a lot happening in there right now, but I hope that you will join. You can also send me feedback. You can send me a note, recommendations. You can subscribe to the newsletter. You can even buy merch from the website. So songs that don’t suck.net is the place to go. Don’t forget to like, review, subscribe to the podcast on whatever your platform is. It helps me get up into the algorithm and find new people to listen to. And that’s the whole point, right? Getting people to find new music that doesn’t suck. And hey, just tell your friends, that’s the easiest thing to do. As always, thanks again for listening. And as always, go out and support these artists.

Thanks for listening. And until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.