A West Midlands YouTube chart - August 2017

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 But by definition all totals will be out of date by the time I publish this.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

Some conclusions? Just a few

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.

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.

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:

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. 

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A West Midlands YouTube Top 50 - August 2016.

The 8th bi-annual Radio To Go video survey

Late August. Time to check who is doing well on YouTube. There are interesting conclusions to be drawn:

• The enduring appeal of some music genres
• A huge generational distance between different sets of fans
• Maybe suspicious increases in numbers - you'll have to work that one out for yourself, but the numbers are there
• A changing of the guard near the top. 

We still have the same leader as in February, but the appeal of her format may be on the wane. Details after the jump...

Young Man Gone West

So what happened after City Boy, Steve? If you didn't know already, you'd never guess in a million years...

1978. I was conducting an interview on BRMB. It might well have been Bill Nelson from Bebop Deluxe, but I can't be sure. It was someone on the arty side of pop-rock, in any event. 

A call from security. Someone to see me: Steve Broughton, real name Steve Lunt. We were pals; I'd been championing his band, City Boy, for a couple of years. And they'd finally had a hit, '5705'. 

I hadn't seen him for some time. So, up he came... to hand me a silver disc for sales of their hit. I was chuffed, of course. It led to slightly awkward chat in the studio, in between records, with the three of us: me, my interview guest, who might have been excused for looking slightly askance at my visitor with his very pop hit. 

The following year, City Boy were in the States, a million-dollar contract with Atlantic records under their belts. That was the year they sacked Steve. 

Pete Williams. What people remember. What fans want. What a performer is. Different.

Didn't you use to be...?

Pete Williams. On stage. In his element

Decades ago, I went to watch my beloved but useless football team (I could tell you but you'd die laughing) fold at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers. I was heading home on the train, when a friend, a Wolves fan, called to wind me up. The train was full of Wolves fans, who rapidly clocked that I was being razzed. They sat back to enjoy the spectacle.

I handed my phone to a pal. He loudly name-checked me. Big mistake. 

Amused consternation in the Wolves camp. Coo – they had a DJ in their midst to tease! To be fair, they were actually very nice... for the next interminable hour of ribbing.

But one phrase in particular stuck in my mind: “Didn't you use to be Robin Valk?”

Still am, pal, still am. And when I told this tale to Pete Williams, he fell off his chair laughing.

Hitting New Heights: A West Midlands YouTube Top 50: February 2016

BIG changes at both top and bottom of the 7th YouTube chart

Lady Leshurr on top; Laura Mvula and the Editors on the foothills.

Every six months I tot up YouTube numbers for local acts: the two most-viewed videos in the past three years, strictly defined. The totals let me do a bit of basic analysis - who is piling on the views? Who's made the biggest percentage improvement? 

A statistical health warning applies: I do this chart on my own, out of curiosity. It's perfectly possible I have missed your act. If so, please tell me and I will instantly rectify matters. 

There's some spectacular results to be picked out of this. 

Break on through to the other side: when the stars align and things happen

I'd call this a stonking great home run for BBC Introducing. Result! And not before time.  

Will that damn door ever open? 

Webby thinking is that all you need to succeed is to just do it: put it out there, get the recognition you deserve. Why, look at this vlogger, or that musician, or that podcast. They did it, so can you.

But that's a crock, and even the dreamiest of fantasists know that. For the few who go stratospheric using clickbait, provocation, or every weapon that heavyweight old-school marketing can devise (Hi, Adele!), there are thousands of people with something to say who don't get heard.

There's a doorway to go through, a barrier to recognition. Whether the door swings open is down to luck and circumstance. Of course, talent is still essential - unless you go down the X factor route - but nothing is guaranteed, and it gets harder every day.

The door swung open, just a tiny bit, for a few people this past week.

A West Midlands YouTube Top 50: August 2015

Here's the sixth bi-yearly local acts video views chart: who's making YouTube waves?

I do this ranking every six months. The exercise is starting to build up some long-term analysis potential. There's some interesting straws in the wind. I think YouTube viewing numbers are increasing overall, based on a rough analysis of upwards trends for many on the chart. But there are some caveats...

The headline? Laura Mvula still rules – just. But I think that she's going to be overtaken on the next chart by another spectacularly talented Birmingham woman who plays by her own rules. You may not have heard of her yet. But you certainly will.

Curtis Little: goodbye to one of the greats

On Friday, I went to another funeral. 

It was to send the great Curtis Little on his way, and to celebrate his life. 

When I landed in Birmingham, two generations ago, I was taken, very early, by Slender Loris, a band that mixed complex intelligent songs with delivery, from Curtis, that was punchy as hell. 

As a DJ, I couldn't believe my luck: a voice like that? On my patch?

Whip-thin, all sinew and muscle, not a spare ounce on his frame, Curtis was the epitome of a front man. He had a voice to die for, rich, soulful, deep, and he really knew how to use it. Where it came from, God only knows. But he was a joy to watch. 

A West Midlands YouTube Top 50: February 2015

If you don't know already, you'll be amazed at what goes over BIG from our patch  

February 2015 is here, so here's this blog's six-monthly roundup of West Midlands artists, ranked by viewing numbers on YouTube. There's a couple of surprises, and a fistful of impressive new entrants. 

This is statto heaven, and you can pick out seriously interesting patterns if you compare results over the time I've done these charts: links to earlier rankings are at the bottom of the post. 

Winners, losers, runners and riders after the jump.

Four lessons learned in 2014

Part 1 of the Radio to Go 2014 retrospective: more next week

We're heading out of 2014 at speed. As usual, it's been an eventful year. Lots of changes, and tons of great stuff to celebrate. I'm saving most of that for next week's review - some of the high and low points of the year and a look forward to 2015.  

Before that, a word of thanks to you for reading the blog in increasing numbers. As of publishing date, total page views were well over 237,000 - nearly double last year's total. Three years ago, when I shifted the focus more onto music, I'd hit 10,000 over four years. Writing the blog has led me to an awful lot of interesting topics, and hooked me up with some fantastic people. 

This week's post, also a yearly blog feature, is a lot more personal. Here are a few lessons that I learned - or, relearned - this year. They may be a bit counter-cultural, but, hey, that's how it looks from here. It's all about:

1. Webanomics, winners and losers, 
2. Things changing at media - slowly, slowly...
3. Yet another way the beeb is losing out
4. And...Albums. 

1: e-slavery...? 

The internet may be good for big business, and those who catch a wave, but for the rest of us? I'm not so sure. I feel like I'm there so someone else can make money, off me or from me, no matter what I do, or where I go. That's webanomics. 

Take voiceover work. I've been voicing (commercial and training videos, museum guides, that kind of thing) all my working life. It's a useful way to make a bit on the side. Here's my demo page if you're interested. Five years ago, I went online to reach new markets. I didn't really have a choice: most of the small indie producers I'd worked for had been squeezed out by web operations. And for a while things were OK. I paid a yearly fee to get job leads; I pitched a demo each time; I got some work; I came out ahead. 

The job lead agencies I used aren't fussy - they'll take anyone's money, and they'll post anyone's job spec. Now, anyone can set up as a voice guy. Kit is cheap; you don't really need a studio. So as the recession bit, more and more people came on board. Fees got smaller and jobs got harder to land. Clients failed to pay up. When you're stiffed by someone three thousand miles away, you're just not going to get paid. The job lead agencies wash their hands of the problem - all they do is introduce, you see. 

It's that famous web-powered level playing field again: a field so big you can't see the end of it. Great for producers; crap for talent. Now, people watch the job sites like hawks, and bash out a demo the moment a gig comes up. That works for some, but not me, not at least if I want to have a life. Spending my days welded to a computer screen for a chance to get work is not my idea of scraping a living. I met an ex-radio guy last year who told me he spent an hour cutting a demo for a ten quid gig. He didn't get it. Someone undercut him, by five quid. 

This doesn't just apply to my little market. There are sites like fiverr: places where you pitch for five buck jobs - or four bucks after commission. This is, effectively, e-slavery. A studio owner friend told me his market now splits between bedroom laptop warriors, a shrinking middle ground, and a top end in London where the big money goes. It's the same with voicing. Fine for the girl who voices for all the supermarket check-out machines - and good luck to her - not so fine if you're not in that market.

So I've bailed out of that way of working. Spending hundreds of hours a year chasing dwindling job prospects, while laying out over £200 per site for the privilege, just doesn't add up any more. I have some regular trusted clients who call on me to do work, and that's fine. I'm better off, I've got more time, less stress and I'm not funding companies - there's lots of them, and I've tried most - who make empty promises and then throw you sales pitches promising to help you get more business for yet another fee.   

Still, it could be worse. I could be a small business pitching through Amazon.

2: At LAST! signs of evolution at radio/broadcast media/video

But if webanomics are screwing you, there are upsides. Tech is allowing more flexible creativity. I've done a lot of really interesting and enjoyable radio and audio work this year. It's all been for the love of it, working with some astonishing people. And it's absolutely not conventional music radio. There are people who think differently, and some of them are starting to get traction. 

Change is coming, well away from 'conventional' radio. It's not just pert vloggers like Zoella rewriting the media landscape – there are now addictively good podcasts out there, and they're starting to find the means to pay their way.

I think the key is focus and direction. The big BBC and commercial radio platforms know exactly what they are doing. Whether you like them or not, they have a clear and solid idea of where they are going, and how they want to work with their audiences. The most successful of the new players do that too. That's something that small-scale radio often lacks.

It's also obvious that radio, the web and tv are converging. Formats and concepts dating back fifty years are being outpaced. Consider: dirt-cheap production software allows streaming of radio and video on the same channel. That opens up a ton of possibilities.

This converging broadcast/streaming world is going to continue to change. I can't wait to see what comes up - as long as it has focus, it stands a chance. Most of the time the web throws mind-rotting trivia at us: cute kittens, baby pandas and buzzfeed. That tide of trivia has a purpose: it's click-bait, it makes money. But a lot of radio has simply followed along, lapping it all up. Mistake. 

There's much more than that in play. If long-form television series, with demanding, intelligent plot lines and terrific characterisation, manage to punch through, breaking existing moulds, why not take that idea on to radio, and do it really well? That what Serial has done, with huge success.  

3: The BBC continues to cut its nose off to spite its face in the Midlands. 

Auntie, Auntie, Auntie! There's a screamingly obvious step you could take, right now, that would cost peanuts and boost your reputation no end. 

I've had long chats with the affable Tommy Nagra this year. He's Head of Business Development for BBC Birmingham. Part of his pitch is to sell Birmingham. No argument from me – I've been here since the early 70s. Tommy also praises the city's diversity. That's familiar ground as well. I was the first radio guy anywhere to put UB40 on air. Oh, and Ruby Turner, The Specials, Steel Pulse and The Selecter, too - all of whom wrote the book on Midlands multi-cultural creativity in the late 70s.

But here's the point I made to Tommy: it's even better now, and you're not doing anything about it. We're living though a new golden age of musical and literary creativity of all types. And where do we see this represented on our national broadcaster? Um...

If Auntie really gave a damn about the Midlands, rather than trousering the license fees we send down to London, while continuing to cut jobs up here, they would be all over this talent like a rash. It wouldn't cost much: this is a radio thing and radio is cheap. The BBC just needs an effort of will to lose its bunker mentality and actually connect with this market. Done right, this would be hugely powerful. All Auntie has to do is reach out for the low-hanging fruit, and find ways to celebrate it. 

It's deeply ironic: in 1927 the BBC had the biggest music studio in the whole country, right here in Birmingham. Even fifteen years ago they still had a gorgeous 16-track facility you could put a seventy piece band into. Now, that's a distant memory. There has never been any explanation for how and why the BBC came to so disrespect its largest region - the one which contributes a quarter of total license fee revenue. 

That hot talent isn't just in the Midlands, in fairness; it's all over the country... but this is my patch, and I am massively frustrated for all the local talent we have in our region, constantly passed over because the networks don't even bother to look. I'll come back to this, and what the beeb has done - or not - in 2014, in a few weeks. But remember: I still love and admire you, Auntie, and I always will. Right now, you're our best hope.

4: Albums matter. Oh no, they don't. Oh yes, they do.

Next week I'll list some of the corking albums that we've seen in 2014. This week I just want to flag up a question: why do we stick to the album format? I wrote about this a while back, and all the arguments are still valid. And here's a pertinent music industry blog piece from July this year.

Songs travel singly, especially when the web and mainstream broadcasters carry them, one at a time, on iTunes, Spotify and YouTube. So why do we stay loyal to a dated concept of a parcel of songs, originally physically gathered together around one concept, or one period of time? Well, we're not, really. Just ask Bono. As a mainstream business proposition, it's odd. Musicians lose out by handing their album over to streaming services. You have to pay, remember, to get your stuff up on Spotify. They make money, you don't - more e-slavery. 

Ah, but as an artistic proposition, it makes sense. Dated concept or not, an album is something that artists still buy into as part of their creative process. In some cases, it's pure vanity. In other cases, it represents a body of work, a milestone, a statement of intent. Musicians still plan out sets of songs for live work. So its logical that they would embody those sets on CD or Bandcamp downloads. 

The distinction is that the musician trades on a relationship with his or her audience, while the music industry trades on saleability of product. And at cottage industry level, the album stacks up. You go to a live gig and the artist blows you away; you take away a memory; the artist gets his or her due. In fact, it seems to me that, at local level, where so many excellent artists ply their trade, the ability to sell your own work directly has given local music-making a massive shot in the arm.

The paths that music and musicians take to reach listeners are many and varied. The only time that fashion comes into the equation is when you're being sold something. 

Bottom line? Creativity is in rude health. But many creators are not - yet - getting their rewards. Again. Still.

Have a peaceful Christmas. 

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