Major labels usually dominate top music playlists, but Apple’s Global Release Day playlist, Best of the Week, tells a different story.
Mission
Good morning, it’s Jason here at Chartmetric with your 3-minute Data Dump where we upload charts, artists and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world.
Date
This is your Data Dump for Tuesday, May 28th, 2019.
New Music Friday Monday:
Hope the American listeners enjoyed Memorial Day and those in the UK Spring Bank Holiday, welcome back to the work week.
On this New Music Friday Tuesday, we’re revisiting the newest adds to Apple Music’s Best of the Week playlist in the US storefront since we last looked in late March.
Like Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist, it updates every Global Release Friday.
With a 28-Day Add Ratio of 100 percent, it’s obviously the most frontline of frontline playlists, and brings 67 new songs to our attention this week.
In the No. 1, 2, and 3 spots on Friday’s playlist positioning are Ed Sheeran, Young Thug, and YG, with tracks released by Warner and Universal subsidiaries.
No real surprise here, but new deals and labels are making the spread a bit more interesting: only 11 of the 67 tracks this week were owned and operated by majors, just over 16%.
At the #5 position on the US Best of the Week is Clairo with chilled-out track “Bags,” who is operating under a 12-song licensing deal with the FADER Label, something that’s becoming increasingly popular for artists wanting to retain ownership and creative control over their copyrights.
With over 12 million monthly listeners on Spotify, Chance the Rapper released the mid-tempo jam “Cross Me” with Ed Sheeran in the #1 position, still a poster boy for the DIY artist career track.
Flying Lotus is back in the mix, with a Denzel Curry cameo on “Black Balloons Reprise” and the Warp Records release of his sixth studio album, Flamagra. While presumably a traditional deal, the British electronic label Warp is another notable indie at the top of this week’s best.
Throwing in other new releases from Google-backed 300 Entertainment, indie country giant Big Machine Label Group, and K-pop’s enormous SM Entertainment agency…what defines “major” and ”indie” starts to get dicey at best.
The majors might still have the lion’s share of the industry, but this week’s Best of the Week mixes things up and shows today’s artists what a variety of potential career options could look like.
Outro
That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Tuesday, May 28th, 2019. This is Jason from Chartmetric.