Jun 09
14
Doing The Numbers
I grew up with a fascination for the Pop Charts.
I loved to see whether the records that I liked would go to #1. I used to watch Top Of The Pops on TV in London during the early days of TV when the pictures were still in Black and White when Pirate radio was about rebellion and the record companies loved the Pirates because that was the way that new music got noticed.
When I got into the music business, in Australia, the thing that I wanted to do more than anything, was to get a #1 record. And once I had done that, I wanted more…
Now, 35 years after having my first #1, I imagine that kids are still fascinated by the charts, whether they are consumers of music, or whether they have a band, or whether they work in the business. Getting a #1 is pure adrenaline.
But the weekly chart is about weekly sales. What might be interesting would be to look at cumulative numbers.
What sort of insights can be derived from looking at the total downloads of a song over long or even short periods of time? What would the chart look like if, for instance, you measured the sales, or the downloads, over a day – or a month – or a year instead of a week. Would that tell you anything different about the popularity of a certain kind of music?
I ask this question, because I am no longer a big fan of the music that dominates the pop charts, even though I still love to listen to music, and I still buy CD’s. And there are a lot of people that I know who seem to buy the same music that I do. But I rarely am aware of it going onto the charts.
Take for instance the albums released by composer/orchestrator, Paul Schwartz. They are productized under the name “Aria” and are all based on contemporary arrangements of classical operatic pieces. They are really excellent. And I am certain that they have a big following, just as the Buddha Bar series of albums has done phenomenally well.
Since I am a baby boomer, and I still buy music, along with a lot of other baby boomers, and since there are more of us than any other demographic, I wonder why the charts aren’t dominated by artists and music that we like. I suspect that there is one significant reason: We tend to make purchases over a longer period of time than teen audiences. So our buying power has length but perhaps not breadth. If you looked at sales over a longer period than a week, you might start to see a whole different picture of what is popular.
The download marketplace may be one place where a more robust picture of popularity can be easily constructed, even though the demography then becomes an issue…
Wouldn’t that be of interest to concert promoters, or to brand managers, or to radio programmers? To look at the historic download profile of an act before confirming a tour… And even better, to be able to isolate the geographic areas where the most downloads of an artist took place before booking the venues for a tour, or before confirming an ad campaign on TV… To be able to see that an unusual ambient record has a bigger audience that the hot new artist that is all over the airwaves….
Understanding marketplaces is not about the weekly numbers, just as corporate health is not about the quarterly results. It is about being able to look at sustainability of numbers and growth over time.
This is the information that we don't see in the weekly chart.