New players? Yup. And Leshurr crushes it again.
This
post covers a Radio to Go fixture: The Summer 2017 Chart for local acts' YouTube views.
Up until last year I did this every six months.
Workload and illness put a stop to that in February, but I'm back
now.
House compilation rules are:
- The chart displays acts that are local to, or who have come the West Midlands
- Videos must be three years old or less
- The two most viewed videos go into the reckoning
- The numbers can change. One in particular is going up by tens of thousands a day right now, because it's so new: Lotto Boyz' Birmingham (Anthem). By the time you read this the numbers will probably need revising afresh. But by definition all totals will be out of date by the time I publish this.
- Official videos preferred where possible: no wobbly smartphone live stuff.
- I do make mistakes. I miss things; please so sing out if you spot something amiss and I will it fix.
- Totals were checked early this past week.
So
here's the chart, and I have a lengthy commentary
afterwards. There's a LOT to digest.
| Artists | Vid 1 | Vid 2 | Total |
| Lady Leshurr | Queens Speech 5 | Queens Speech 4 | 67213030 |
| Jacob Banks | Worthy | Love Me (with Wide Awake) | 11810818 |
| Jorja Smith | Where Did I go? | Blue Lights | 5608426 |
| Laura Mvula | Overcome | Phenomenal Woman | 3262702 |
| Lotto Boyz | Birmingham (Anthem) ft JayKae | Bad Gyal | 3010731 |
| Editors | Life Is A Fear | Ocean Of Night | 2722388 |
| Oceans Ate Alaska | Vultures and Sharks | Escapist | 1842741 |
| Mahalia | We The Generation (With Rudimental) | I Remember | 1558944 |
| Robert Plant | Rainbow | Turn It Up | 985199 |
| Tom Aspaul | Better By Your Side (with Aeble) | Do It Well (with Xyconstant) | 833986 |
| Claire Maguire | Elizabeth Taylor | Don't Mess Me Around | 742472 |
| Napalm Death | How The Years Condemn | Smash A Single Digit | 647834 |
| Tempa | Gimme Respect | Road rage | 582753 |
| Peace | Gen Strange | World Pleasure | 576992 |
| Tantskii | Storyteller | Storyteller pt 3 | 555374 |
| Broken Witt Rebels | Guns | Georgia Pine | 526214 |
| Anaal Nakraath | Idol | We Will Fucking Kill You | 348293 |
| Call Me Unique | Time To Love | 307020 | |
| Superfood | Mood Bomb | You Can Believe | 274546 |
| Ekkah | Last Chance To Dance | Small Talk | 259050 |
| Electric Swing Circus | Mamacita | Empires | 220919 |
| Swim Deep | Namaste | One Great Song And I Could Change The World | 217659 |
| Goldie | I Adore You | Prism | 215673 |
| Dapz On The Map | Oh My Days | Shinobi Pt1 | 209955 |
| Dexys | Both Sides Now | Carrickfergus | 194183 |
| Stone Foundation | Your Balloon Is Rising | Beverley | 159233 |
| The Enemy | It's Automatic | Don't Let Nothing get in the way | 125871 |
| Beverley Knight | Middle Of Love | Marvellous Party | 123927 |
| Slick Don | BRAP | Feds | 112523 |
| Scott Matthews | Elusive | Let's Get You Home | 104890 |
| Jaws | Right in Front Of Me | What We Haven't Got Yet | 90458 |
| Magnum | Crazy Old Mothers | 75535 | |
| Laurence Jones | Got No Place To Go | Touch Your Moonlight | 74527 |
| Jump The Shark | Robot Song | There's Always One | 64292 |
| God Damn | Dead To Me | Shoe Prints In The Dust | 57479 |
| The Twang | New Love | On The 24th | 51672 |
| Answer Back | She's into Rock'n'Roll | You've Got Me | 49660 |
| Rebecca Downes | Believe | Messed Up | 49637 |
| Harry and The Howlers | Hell In High Heels | 46167 | |
| Truemendous | OTYL | L.I.S.P. | 39314 |
| The Wonder Stuff | For The Broken Hearted | Don't You Ever | 33789 |
| Lion Art and Friendly Fire | Run Away | 33606 | |
| The Assist | Love | Tell Her How You Feel | 29738 |
| Ed Geater | Steady Strides (Enigma Dubz mix) | Don't Think | 26854 |
| Dissident Prophet | Human 2.0 | Writing on the wall | 24254 |
| Tayla | Call Me Danger | Coming Back Around | 24146 |
| Johnny Foreigner | If you can't be honest be awesome | Le Schwing | 23880 |
| Cantaloop | Dig It | 23597 | |
| Kioko | Tired of Lying | Deadly Roots | 23103 |
| Victories At Sea | Bloom | Up | 21857 |
This
chart raises almost as many questions as it answers. There are big
changes. New tech has barged in and upset the applecart - again. It also shows how videos are consumed, with
massive impacts on this chart.
We're
looking at two universes. I'm really not sure if the same
measurement criteria apply: one sector racks up
numbers far, far in excess of other genres, and in many cases these
do not chime with Spotify numbers or sales patterns.
So
it's a different game, again. We've always had record company
'assisted' numbers - that's just an extension of chart-fiddling
practises from last century, and I'm pretty sure that's always affected this chart at the top end. But there's more going on. As usual, the new stuff comes out of left-field.
Brum Grime - the BIG new factor
First it was underground. Now it's in the open, with truly startling numbers. Brum Grime is huge. Interestingly, Walsall's favourite son Goldie, now doing different things, places below the
current hot male acts (JayKae, Dapz, etc), who have racked up
sensational viewing figures.
Towering
above everyone is Lady Leshurr, whose two most-viewed videos do better than the rest of the chart put together.
Interestingly, her recent Queens Speech videos are made in bright
sunshine or with well-lit backgrounds, and they use lots of cute
post-production. They do better than her newer, darker, but still successful Unleshed series.
Leshurr hasn't stopped growing her numbers, unlike some of the mega acts that have preceded her at the top of the chart. Her already vast totals show a 40% leap up from last year. I strongly suspect that the vast majority of her viewers are female, in sharp contrast to her less successful male counterparts. There's a couple of reasons for this.
Leshurr hasn't stopped growing her numbers, unlike some of the mega acts that have preceded her at the top of the chart. Her already vast totals show a 40% leap up from last year. I strongly suspect that the vast majority of her viewers are female, in sharp contrast to her less successful male counterparts. There's a couple of reasons for this.
So who is looking at what? And where?
I do think the numbers
need to be taken with some caution - Grime videos, especially from blokes (the overwhelming majority of videos, if not by viewing numbers), might just be made for smartphone
consumption. It's certainly statement music. The only time I hear Grime, unless I tune in to 1Xtra or something more specialised still, is on
smartphones played by spotty white boys on the bus or the train. I also hear it from
amped up sound systems in muscle cars. So, yes, it's on the
radio and online, but essentially it's underground... just with massive numbers.
There may be, too, a different consumption pattern to that of conventional music
videos. The density of Grime lyrics makes for repeated visits; that's generally not the case with 'straight' music videos. A Grime video is an end
in itself; a straight music video is normally a sales tool, made to
sell a record.
Boys are still boys (sigh)
Interestingly, Grime shares values with old school Metal: Leshurr apart, it's largely young men with attitude
protesting an unfair world. Sometimes those protests are entirely justified. But often our boy is just bragging, or even lecturing, with
his heavy mates, all blokes, all on the bad side of town, or
looming from a muscle car with blackout windows. Where women are present, they
tend to be adoring girlie types wiggling in the background. Oh dear.
Fine,
if that's what you want, and a lot of people do. Me, I've seen all that just a few too many times, in Grime and elsewhere. Hard Rock used to be a particularly fertile ground.
Elsewhere? Not good news
Meantime,
over in video-as-promotional-tool territory, things are rough. You
can knock up a video on an iPhone, and many people do - it works great where the groove or the rhymes are the heart
of the project.
But that doesn't quite work for rock, folk, jazz, dance or indie. The past five years or so have seen less new videos being produced by acts at the lower end of the chart. Those videos cost, and times are tighter than ever. And there seems to be a slackening off of viewing figures for Indie and Rock; some big names are sliding down, or have even slid off this chart. Take a look at last year's chart for a comparison. And on the more current front, some of our hottest and most tipped new Indie outfits, who didn't make the chart, are scoring numbers that are, frankly, embarrassing.
But that doesn't quite work for rock, folk, jazz, dance or indie. The past five years or so have seen less new videos being produced by acts at the lower end of the chart. Those videos cost, and times are tighter than ever. And there seems to be a slackening off of viewing figures for Indie and Rock; some big names are sliding down, or have even slid off this chart. Take a look at last year's chart for a comparison. And on the more current front, some of our hottest and most tipped new Indie outfits, who didn't make the chart, are scoring numbers that are, frankly, embarrassing.
Winners? Look at the astonishing Male/Female splits.
Take a bow, Lady Leshurr, Jacob Banks, Jorja Smith, Mahalia, Lotto Boyz, Tempa and
a few others... Lower down, I'm delighted to see some pals like Harry and the Howlers, Ed Geater and the (big-time) return of Electric Swing Circus making inroads.
But take a bow, women artists: it's not just Leshurr's contribution that makes the views by gender split so interesting.
In this list we have 14 female or female-fronted acts, 36 male or male-fronted. Now look at these totals:
So, while the field is still dominated by blokes numerically, the reactions to their work is dwarfed by reactions to Female or Female-fronted videos. Even when you strip out Leshurr's extraordinary numbers, which you really should not. Lessons to be learned, maybe?
The improvers
But take a bow, women artists: it's not just Leshurr's contribution that makes the views by gender split so interesting.
In this list we have 14 female or female-fronted acts, 36 male or male-fronted. Now look at these totals:
| Views for Female acts | 79,517,768 |
| Views for Male acts | 25,983,582 |
| Average for Female | 5,678,941 |
| Without Leshurr | 946,518 |
| Average for Male | 72,766 |
So, while the field is still dominated by blokes numerically, the reactions to their work is dwarfed by reactions to Female or Female-fronted videos. Even when you strip out Leshurr's extraordinary numbers, which you really should not. Lessons to be learned, maybe?
The improvers
You want more? Big improvers on last year are shown in these two breakout charts, sorted by percentage and numerical increases respectively.
| Artists | % difference | Artists | Difference | |
| Electric Swing Circus | 1294.07 | Lady Leshurr | 20,012,294 | |
| Jorja Smith | 605.24 | Jacob Banks | 7,205,217 | |
| Laurence Jones | 183.34 | Jorja Smith | 4,813,180 | |
| Jacob Banks | 156.44 | Lotto Boyz | 3,010,731 | |
| Claire Maguire | 113.93 | Laura Mvula | 1,465,363 | |
| Dexys | 101.48 | Mahalia | 663,679 | |
| Beverley Knight | 90.03 | Tempa | 582,753 | |
| Stone Foundation | 81.65 | Claire Maguire | 395,405 | |
| Laura Mvula | 81.53 | Goldie | 215,673 | |
| Mahalia | 74.13 | Dapz on the Map | 209,955 |
So that's it. Lots to glean from a chart, which, while imperfect, still has trends to digest. I wrote over a year ago about the rise of female artists in the region. It's still going on.
And if I missed you out, holler.
More music business posts on Radio To Go
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I still do stuff on Brum Radio, a volunteer-run internet station. It's online here; download the Brum Radio app here. My Brum Radio page is here; scroll down for all the shows.
__________________________________________________________________________
I'd love it if you signed up!
The Mailing List is the best way to follow topics on this blog. You get a short Monday email with each post, with the big recent topics, and once in a blue moon, an offer or an exclusive freebie. I won't pass your address on, promise.
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