The charts, artists & genres:
The Official UK singles & albums charts at the time of writing
The charts are amongst the clearest indicators of popular music. Recently, pop artists such as Justin Bieber, Drake and Nicki Minaj have developed a huge following across multiple platforms, and have seen their consistent presence in the charts translate into commercial and critical success. However, the emergence of the Electronic Dance Music (EDM) genre in recent years has also seen its influence on the charts grow, with artists such as Major Lazer & Chainsmokers growing in success and stature as the genre's interest increases. Other artists have found success via other routes. Chainsmokers, for instance, were already known for their previous hit '#Selfie' which went viral - and Calum Scott - a Britain's Got Talent success who amassed over 70 million views with his audition video.
With regards to the albums charts, it is perhaps interesting to note that besides Drake, there are no mainstream pop artists (currently) in the top 10 of the UK album charts. Furthermore, overall UK album sales fell 13% to 26 million in 2015.
(please click to enlarge)
Statistika graphs detailing popular genres (2014 data)
How are people consuming music?
 |
Whilst the benefit for
artists is debatable... |
If UK album sales fell according to industry data last year, amazingly vinyl sales were up 64.2% on last year - 2.1 million units were sold in 2015. This, however, seems to be a trend which has re-started away from the pop and electronica genres - thus may not be so relevant to us particularly. What may be of much more importance is that last year alone, audio streams increased 81.7% - soaring from 14.8 billion (2014) to 26.8 billion (2015) - or 22.1% of all UK music consumption in the UK. Such streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music have provided audiences with instant gratification, as they are able to quickly and easily access a vast library of songs on-the-go and across multiple platforms. The most popular method of music consumption last year, however, was via online video services like YouTube and Vevo, which resulted in 26.9 billion streams, although it is of note that in the second half of the year, audio streaming services outpaced the popularity of video sites - most likely due to the eventual impact of Apple Music which was founded in June 2015 and now has around 20 millionsubscribers. Whilst there is also a continuing debate over whether streaming benefits artists, it is undoubtedly changing how we consume music.
What does this mean for us?
 |
...streaming services are certainly
changing how we consume music,
and are the latest growing trend
in terms of consumption. |
As I mentioned in my previous post, I believe therefore that there is a possible USP as a female electronica or pop artist with EDM and rock elements, which could appeal to secondary audiences of fans of these genres, and could thus generate popularity and sales as the EDM genre continues to grow in stature, as well as album sales which appear to be driven by fans of the rock genre, as demonstrated by the current album charts and industry statistics. Meanwhile, how we will allow fans to consume music, and how we generate sales will be crucial, as we will have to take into account the ever-increasing prevalence of online video and streaming sites.
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