ENGLISH-LANGUAGE MUSIC IS LOSING ITS STRANGLEHOLD ON GLOBAL POP CHARTS – AND YOUTUBE IS DRIVING THE CHANGE
Having consulted on behalf of 1,300 record labels, worldwide trade body IFPI launched Global Release Day (GRD), which united the music biz’s official weekly launch moment for singles and albums to Fridays across the world. There were some dissenting voices. Martin Mills, boss of Adele’s indie U.K. label group Beggars, questioned whether the initiative would “further cement the dominance” of the major record companies. Others argued that their qualms had been ignored; Martin Goldschmidt, the head of British label Cooking Vinyl, memorably remarked: “That was only a ‘consultation’ if the new dictionary definition of ‘to consult’ is ‘to tell to f*ck off’.”
Perhaps the gravest fear about the GRD, however, was that it would create a “gradual erosion of local music culture.” This concern was rooted in the idea that, with one unified release date, artists in individual markets would struggle to secure crucial promotional spots on the likes of Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music. This, it was posited, would subsequently disintegrate the strength of native artists, while inflating the planet-straddling power of U.S. pop behemoths.
It was a logical worry – but, as it turns out, an unfounded one. Because not only is non-English language repertoire dominating key individual territories today – it’s also taking over the world.
There is no better current measure of the world’s music listening tastes than YouTube (much to the music business’s fiscal annoyance). The service reaches more than 1.9 billion people every month – nearly half the planet’s entire internet-connected population. According to IFPI research, 85% of YouTube’s audience uses the service to listen to music, putting the platform’s current music-consuming reach at approximately 1.6 billion people.
As a comparison, Spotify, the oft-cited “market leader” of music streaming, reaches 200 million people every month, 12.5% of the size of YouTube’s music audience; Apple Music, the second biggest audio subscription platform, reaches somewhere close to 60 million (50 million paid and around 10m on trials), 3.8% of the size of YouTube’s music audience.
Further IFPI data shows that, in 2017, 46% of all global music listening hours on streaming services belonged to YouTube alone – more than every single paid and free audio streaming service in the world combined.
In other words, when YouTube’s charts say what’s popular, you better believe it. And, right now, “what’s popular” applies increasingly less to U.S. pop stars.
A quick glance at this week’s global YouTube artist chart reveals that the world’s top four biggest acts perform non-English language music: Anuel AA (who is Puerto Rican), Neha Kakkar (Indian), Kumar Sanu (Indian) and Alka Yagnik (Indian).
In fact, Ariana Grande – currently breaking global records on Spotify – is the only artist in the entire YouTube Top 10 whose first speaking/singing language is English. (The rest of the Top 10, if you were wondering, is made up of three Puerto Rican artists – Bad Bunny, Farruko and Ozuna – plus one Indian, Udit Narayan, and one Colombian, Karol G.) This may surprise those of us who rarely step beyond an Anglo-American pop-cultural bubble. But, out in the big bad world, it’s been a long time coming.
Across the 12 months of last year, YouTube’s biggest music videos were led by two songs which were entirely in Spanish. Number one was the “Te Bote” Remix – by Casper, Nio García, Darell, Nicky Jam, Bad Bunny and Ozuna – whose current YouTube plays stand at 1.6 billion. The runner up was “X” by Nicky Jam and J. Balvin (current streams: 1.4 billion).
Looking at YouTube’s entire Top 10 biggest songs of 2018, eight were non-English language (all in Spanish) with only two songs in English: Maroon 5’s “Girls Like You” at Number Three, and Drake’s “God’s Plan” at Number Eight. The year before, in YouTube’s global 2017 Top 10, six tracks were non-English language (again, all in Spanish), led by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” at No.1 – which remains the biggest video in YouTube history, on the cusp of 6 billion views today.
Go back another year, 2016, and YouTube’s annual Top 10 had just one non-English language placing – Nicky Jam’s “Hasta el Amanecer” at Number Three. And guess what? Completing the backward trend, in 2015, there were zero non-English songs in YouTube’s global Top 10.
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