The Beatles A Bigger Hit On Spotify Than Current Artists

After all these years, it's surprising how popular The Beatles music still is, and the band's presence on Spotify proves it. The Fab 4 have been on the streaming service for a mere 100 days, yet the it's been one of the most popular, even more so than current artists like Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande and 5 Second of Summer.

The band has averaged 6.5 million listeners a month, with 67% of them being under the age of 35. All told it's been estimated that the several hundred million plays add up to more than 24 million hours of listening.

Surprisingly enough, Beatlemania is strongest in Mexico City, followed by London, Santiago, Chile and Los Angeles, and Thursday at 5PM is the peak time for listening. The top 4 countries that listen are the USA, UK, Mexico and Sweden.

The 4 most popular songs globally are "Here Comes The Sun," followed by "Come Together," "Let It Be," and "Yesterday," while the most popular albums are 1, Abbey Road, The White Album and Let It Be. The band's songs also now appear on 4.2 million playlists.

It's pretty amazing that the music from any single artist could be so enduring and popular.

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Different Age Groups, Different Beatles Favorites

The Beatles music truly transcends generations, and it's even more apparent now that the Fab 4 have embraced streaming. What's interesting is that each generation has its favorite Beatles songs. Here's a list from Spotify Insights that shows the top 10 for each age group.

17 & Under

1. Here Comes The Sun
2. Let It Be
3. Hey Jude
4. Come Together
5. Twist And Shout
6. Yellow Submarine
7. Yesterday
8. I Want To Hold Your Hand
9. Love Me Do
10. Penny Lane

18-24

1. I Want To Hold Your Hand
2. Here Comes The Sun
3. Come Together
4. Penny Lane
5. You Never Give Me Your Money
6. With A Little Help From My Friends
7. Twist And Shout
8. Hey Jude
9. Let It Be
10. Yellow Submarine

25-29

1. I Want To Hold Your Hand
2. Penny Lane
3. You Never Give Me Your Money
4. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
5. Love Me Do
6. From Me To You
7. A Hard Day’s Night
8. Something
9. Can’t Buy Me Love
10. Get Back

30-34

1. She Loves You
2. Paperback Writer
3. Ticket To Ride
4. The Long And Winding Road
5. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
6. Hello, Goodbye
7. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
8. Day Tripper
9. Can’t Buy Me Love
10. Blackbird

35-44

1. We Can Work It Out
2. A Day In The Life
3. Ticket To Ride
4. The Long And Winding Road
5. She Loves You
6. Paperback Writer
7. Back In The U.S.S.R.
8. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
9. Please Please Me
10. Something

45-54

1. Back In The U.S.S.R.
2. We Can Work It Out
3. Ticket To Ride
4. A Day In The Life
5. Yesterday
6. Let It Be
7. Got To Get You Into My Life
8. I Feel Fine
9. She Loves You
10. Help!

55+

1. Rock And Roll Music
2. Back In The U.S.S.R.
3. Mean Mr Mustard
4. Nowhere Man
5. Drive My Car
6. Glass Onion
7. We Can Work It Out
8. Long, Long, Long
9. Do You Want To Know A Secret
10. A Day In The Life

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Beatles Songs Stream 50 Million Times In 48 Hours

The Beatles were one of the final major holdouts to streaming, and many thought that they waited far too long to be able to take advantage of the medium. That view seems to be unfounded as Beatles songs were streamed more than 50 million times in just 48 hours since they went live on Christmas eve.

What's most interesting about all the streams is demographic that's listening the most. According to Spotify, 65% of listeners are age 34 or younger. Beatles tracks were also added to more than 673,000 playlists during that time.

There's also been a lot of buzz around the Fab 4 coming to streaming, as Brandwatch found that there were 46,000 mentions of "the Beatles streaming" in the hours after launch. 87% of those were positive.

So what Beatles songs were listened to the most? Here's the top 10 worldwide.

1. Come Together
2. Let It Be
3. Hey Jude
4. Love Me Do
5. Yesterday
6. Here Comes The Sun
7. Help!
8. All You Need Is Love
9. I Want To Hold Your Hand
10. Twist And Shout

We should have a better idea of the impact The Beatles catalog has on streaming in a few months, but for now its off to a great start.

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The Beatles Finally Coming To Streaming

All signs are pointing to one of the last major remaining holdouts, The Beatles, finally coming to a streaming network near you. Billboard, MBW, and Hits Daily Double all report that the Fab 4 will finally be available on either Apple Music or Spotify (or both) on Christmas Eve.

There's also some speculation that The Beatles music might be the first available only on Spotify's Premium tier. Last month CEO and founder Daniel Eck seemed to indicate that the company was softening its stance on making certain superstar artists available only on the paid tier and not on the free one.

This seems like a good strategy that may not only get more people to upgrade their accounts (which pay much higher royalties to artists, publishers and labels), but to appease the music industry as well.

The music business has long been railing against giving away music for free, although money is still generated via advertising, just at a lower rate.

The Beatles haven't been absent from streaming altogether though. They've been on Pandora for some time because of a more encompassing license for the non-interactive format.

Just as a point of reference, the band has sold 178 million albums in the US to date, according to the , and their music has been available on iTunes since 2008.

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Who Are The Most Covered Artists?

One of the goals of a songwriter is to write a song that is covered by many artists. This is the ultimate stamp of approval, in that the song is considered so good that singers want to sing it, and artists feel compelled to record their own versions.

Whosampled.com did a study to determine the most covered artists of all time. Not surprisingly, The Beatles lead by a wide margin, with Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, and other musical icons in the mix.

When it comes to the most covered songs, The Beatles have no less than 6 out of the top 20, and are the only artists to appear on the chart more than once, a fitting tribute to their writing abilities.

While the artist covers chart seemed about right, the song cover chart has a few entries that are head scratchers, but still is very interesting.

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Platinum After 46 Years

There's always been a big injustice in the UK when it comes to issuing gold and platinum record awards. For instance, the 5 original Beatles engineers never received either award for the huge selling records they worked on because no record released before 1973 was eligible. After that point in time, if a record reached silver (60,000), gold (100,000) or platinum (300,000) levels, the awards were only issued if it was requested by the record label, and in many cases they never were (like in the case of Apple Records and The Beatles).

That all changed last month when the BPI (Britain's version of our RIAA) decided to automatically grant these awards regardless if the label requests it or not.

That means that all those who worked on big selling albums from 1973 onward will finally be getting their just due. It's been a long time coming, and it's too late for many who deserve it, but it's finally great that all those who were essential to the big hits from that era that we still love so much will finally be recognized.

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What Sony/ATV's Direct Negotiation With iTunes Means

In a move that may signal a change in the way business is done in the music industry, music publisher Sony/ATV Music will soon negotiate directly with iTunes, Amazon and every other online music distributor directly. In effect, they're cutting out the traditional performing rights organization middlemen of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC.

Sony/ATV with begin this new policy with The Beatles catalog, which obviously carries considerable leverage; so much so that The Beatles now have their distribution deal directly with iTunes that bypasses their record label EMI (let's see how long that lasts now that EMI is owned by Universal Music).

It should be noted that the direct negotiation is only for online distribution and doesn't apply to broadcast performance or physical product mechanical royalties.

By bypassing the PROs, Sony/ATV sets a precedent that the PROs should be very wary of. One of the things about online music distribution online is that the detail of information is high. You know exactly where every sale is coming from and can easily have that info at your fingertips. The PROs have a stranglehold on the analog world in that they do blanket deals directly with the broadcasters then pay out to publishers and songwriters by their own complex formulas, since the royalty data is a lot more nebulous.

While it seems a bit far-fetched that any publisher would even dream of cutting a PRO out of the picture, you have to believe that at some point the airplay info will become granular enough that they may begin to wonder why they need a PRO in the middle of everything.

Then again, The Beatles are such a unique case that they still warrant special handling. Regardless, keep an eye on this since it may be a harbinger of things to come down the road.

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Music's Top 10 Moneymakers

Billboard Magazine recently came out with it's top 40 moneymakers of 2011. Here are the top 10, which probably won't be much of a surprise. Keep in mind that these are not gross numbers, just estimates of the final rounded off net that went into the artist's pocket.

10. Adele - $13,000,000

9. Jason Aldean - $13,400,000

8. Celine Dion - $14,200,000

7. Bon Jovi - $15,800,000

6. Sade - $16,400,000

5. Lil Wayne - $23,200,000

4. Lady Gaga - 25,300,000

3. Kenny Chesney - $29,800,000

2. U2 - $32,100,000

1. Taylor Swift - $35,700,00

Interestingly, Journey came in at 12, the Cast of Glee at #11, and Foo Fighters at #31. Also, The Beatles came in at #24 just on the basis of CD and download sales alone.

Read the full list for yourself here.

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Music Sales Are Up, But Is It Due To The Beatles?

It seems that music sales in the U.S. are up 1.6 percent in 2011, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That doesn't seem like much, but there are some interesting facets to that number.

• Digital album sales were up 16.8 percent and single track purchases by 9.6 percent over last year.

• Catalog album sales are up 5.4 percent in 2011, which believe it or not is mainly attributed to the availability of  The Beatles’ albums on iTunes for the first time. 

• Vinyl sales were up by 37 percent in the beginning of 2011 over the same period last year. 

• Album sales at independent record stores increased by 39 percent the week of Record Store Day (April 16) from the prior week – an increase of 180,000 units – and 12.7 percent compared to 2010.

• In a bit of a surprise, rock has returned as the most popular genre of music, with 32 percent album share, while pop music represents 40 percent of all current digital tracks sold.

• Ninety-three of the 100 best selling vinyl albums in 2011 fall within the Rock or Alternative genres.

So it looks like music has made a bit of a comeback this year so far. Let's see it the good news continues.
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What The Beatles Unique iTunes Deal Means For Other Artists

It's recently been revealed that The Beatles/EMI deal with iTunes has a very unique feature. iTunes pays all royalties directly to both The Beatles Apple Corps and their publishing company Sony/ATV Music Publishing, bypassing EMI.

This type of payment arrangement is normally never done. The record label normally gets the payment from iTunes, then distributes the money to the artist and the publisher. By being paid directly, The Beatles made sure of a couple of things.

1) There'd be no hanky panky with the books by EMI.

2) They don't have to wait until the end of EMI's payment cycle to get paid.

But wait. There is one case where an artist is paid directly by a distributor (which is what iTunes is) and that's in a licensing deal. What's the difference? In a record deal, the record label manufactures the product. In a licensing deal, another entity is given the right to take on the burden of manufacturing from a duplicated master, but the royalty rate to the artist is then increased to as much as 50% (up from 12 to 25% on a record deal, depending upon the contract). But if EMI isn't manufacturing any product (because it's digital) and iTunes is the distributor of duplicated master, isn't that a license?

There's been a number of artists that have been arguing this is the case for the last couple of years. As I reported here, Eminem's production company F.B.T. lost its first court battle with UMG then won the appeal, but UMG has asked the court to review the decision, so the result isn't as cut and dried as it initially seemed. Cheap Trick and the Allman Brothers have also taken their labels to court for just the same issue. Cheap Trick eventually settled the case with Sony Music, but the Allman Brothers case is still continuing.

While EMI vehemently denies that the deal with iTunes is not a licensing deal, if it looks and sounds like a duck, it probably is a duck, and that sets a precedent. While you have to have some hits to play in this league, the fact that EMI agreed to such a deal (probably because they just wanted to get some revenue through the door) may ultimately cause the courts to rule against other labels the next time this situation comes up.

That doesn't mean that all artists will ultimately benefit from The Beatles/EMI/iTunes deal, but it does bring it into the realm of possibility. And once the ball starts rolling downhill, it only picks up speed.

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Big Beatles iTunes Sales Not What They Seem

Apple Corps announced today that The Beatles have sold 450,000 digital albums and 2 million digital singles worldwide in the first week that they've been available on iTunes. On the surface these look like fantastic numbers, but dig a little deeper and you see that they're not what they seem.

First of all, 450k albums in the opening week should nowadays be great for any artist, let alone a band from 40 years ago. But this figure is not for one album, it's for 13, which tempers the numbers a great deal. Then the fact that these are worldwide figures tempers the figure even more. Only 119k of these album sales were from the US, which is much less than I would've anticipated.

As a comparison, Take That sold more than 520,000 of their new Progress album last week in the UK alone. In the US, Abbey Road came in at #6 (at only 16,000 sales) and The Beatles Box Set came in at #10 for the week, behind the likes of Rhianna and the cast of Glee.

"Here Comes The Sun" was the most purchased Beatle's single, but only came in at #54 while "Let It Be" ranked #60.

Bottom line, despite the numbers, this was a tremendous marketing failure for both iTunes and EMI, the band's distributor. If they would've released the albums incrementally instead of all at once, they would've kept the momentum going over a longer period of time, made each album release an event, and sold more product in the long run. In the end, they violated one of the main rules of Music 3.0 - Release more product more often. But then again, what do you expect from the epitome of the "old school" music business.

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What The Beatles On iTunes Means For EMI

I received a couple of emails today regarding how The Beatles music finally being offered for sale on iTunes will affect the future of EMI, the major record label currently under siege, so I thought I'd expand on my response that I personally made to them.

First of all, despite what everyone may think, EMI did not go bankrupt. The company was purchased by the private equity firm Terra Firma with money borrowed from CitiBank, which Terra Firma could not pay back. Instead of trying to renegotiate the deal, Terra Firma sued Citi, claiming that the bank tricked them into paying too much for the label (what a wacky premise), but lost the case last week. Now Citi wants to liquidate EMI to get its money back, which may begin to happen soon.

A popular misconception is that EMI kept The Beatles off of iTunes, but that wasn't the case at all. In fact, it was the remaining Beatles and their company Apple Corps (not to be confused with Apple, the computer and iTunes company) that said no for so long. Even though EMI owns the master recordings, the band has veto power over new uses of the masters. Although it's been thought that the band and Apple Corps were too old-school anti-technology in their thinking, the real reason has been speculated that the band was unhappy with the terms demanded by Terra Firma, which if true confirms that this was a company that had no reason being in the music business in the first place. Of course, another reason to hold out this long is that all parties make more money on CDs, but that market's been saturated for some time now.

So what does the new deal with iTunes mean for the future of EMI? In the short term, this will help EMI greatly thanks to a quick infusion of cash, but will probably not change the ultimate future of the company too much. In fact, it might even hurt it a bit, since a prospective buyer no longer has the upside of the initial iTunes offering to look forward to (although they can look forward to the possible release of Bob Seger, who is still holding out on digital downloads).

Regardless, soon enough EMI will be purchased for pennies on the dollar and most likely disappear into history. The next legal battle will be over what happens to the master recordings of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Bob Seger, Queen and other major artists if the label is sold, since it's thought that many of those masters will revert back to the artists if that should happen, thereby bringing the price down even further.

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How Not To Do Business

It's tough enough to try to work with a major record label if you're an artist, but if you're a producer, engineer, studio, or anyone providing services to a label, it can be completely maddening.

For instance, it used to take 60 days to get paid after you turned in your invoice, which seemed like an eternity. Then the majors lengthened it to 90 days, which is totally unreasonable. Now the norm is more like 120 days (4 months) or more, which is outrageous. But you have to draw the line when they ask for sensitive personal information, and then negligently share it with the outside world.

The following is an email I received from famed producer/engineer Ken Scott (The Beatles, David Bowie, Jeff Beck, Missing Persons, among many others) regarding trying to get paid for a Supertramp DVD mix from Universal Music.

"Some information for you to use however you see fit, whether that be with your friend or in your blog or not at all.

I am in the middle of a battle with the accounting department of Universal Music, which you might or might not know is now based in India. Yes, they've outsourced it. 

The battle started initially because of slow payment through their incredibly ridiculous Uniport payment website. That is nothing compared to what is now happening. Uniport is a supposed "secure" website and so there is a certain feeling of safety when one HAS to insert full bank details, routing and account numbers, the usual. BUT when they start to send out ones full banking information via completely unsecure email I get very worried. 

I have raised my concerns several times, the last to which I received the following: 

"Just would like to inform you, your below bank details are completely safe as we are care taker for your account and we did not mark any outside people. We did mark only Jack as he is your label (provide good and services for you). If payment got rejected then we need to inform to you and label as well." 

Of course this email once again contained all my banking information.

What has brought me to "spread the word" is that subsequent to my concerns, they are still sending emails containing my information, just not copying them to me. The fact that a major company like Universal would make you give them your most valuable information, if you want to get paid that is, and then float ones most private information for any cyber criminal to obtain and use should be brought into the open so they are forced to change this completely negligent, bordering on criminal, practise.

As I said, use it however you see fit. Quote me if necessary."

If anyone connected to UMG sees this and can help Ken, let me know.

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Top Artists Still Not Distributing Digitally

One of the tenants of Music 3.0 is a theory called "The Economies of Free." It's an odd theory and one that's counter-intuitive because it states that the more you give away for free, the more you end up selling. Think of it as if someone gave you a sample of a chocolate chip cookie in order to entice you to buy more chocolate chip cookies. That's what's happened with music in the era of Music 3.0 - the more easily it's available for free, the more you're likely to increase your market size and as a result, the more copies you'll likely sell as well.

That's why it's so surprising that some of the biggest artists of the last 40 years still have not made their music available for digital distribution.

The list includes:

* The Beatles

* AC/DC

* Garth Brooks

* Bob Seger

* Tool

* King Crimson

* Kid Rock (some limited licensing, including album-only Rock N' Roll Jesus on AmazonMP3)

* Def Leppard (some limited licensing, including songs from the Sparkle Lounge)

One of the reasons that these acts have never released their catalogs on iTunes is the fact that they don't want to break up their albums into a la carte offerings, but the primary reason is their fear of piracy. Perhaps if they understood the Economies of Free, they'd change their minds and see their sales increase.

Top Selling Albums Of The 2000's

Here we are at the end of the decade and it's a good time to take a look at just who sold what during the transition from Music 2.5 to Music 3.0.

Believe it or not, The Beatles had the top-selling album of the 2000's with their greatest hits package "1." The album had sales of over 11,448,000 copies since its release in November 2000, according to Nielsen SoundScan’s decade-end sales numbers. The Fab Four sold a combined 30 million units during the decade.

But rapper Eminem was the 2000s’ top-selling artist with 32.2 million combined in sales, with two albums in the decade’s Top 10 - The Marshall Mathers LP selling 10,195,000 and Eminem Show right behind it at 9,789,000.

It used to be that a real bona fide hit was pretty much guaranteed to sell diamond (10 million sales), but only ‘NSync’s No Strings Attached (11,111,000) and Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me (10,523,000) managed to hit those numbers along with The Beatles and Eminem.

But what really showed the decline in CD sales was that only two albums released in the years between 2005 and 2009 managed to get in the Top 20 of the 2000s’ bestsellers - Nickelback’s All the Right Reasons and Carrie Underwood’s Some Hearts at 14 and 17 with sales under seven million.

Flo Rida’s Low was the 2000s biggest-selling digital single, while Coldplay’s Viva La Vida was the best-selling digital album.

Wonder what the numbers will look like at the end of the next decade?

Bestselling Albums of the Decade
1. The Beatles - 1 - 11,499,000
2. *NSYNC - No Strings Attached - 11,112,000
3. Norah Jones - Come Away With Me - 10,546,000
4. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP - 10,204,000
5. Eminem - The Eminem Show - 9,799,000
6. Usher - Confessions - 9,712,000
7. Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory - 9,663,000
8. Creed - Human Clay - 9,491,000
9. Britney Spears - Oops! ... I Did It Again - 9,185,000
10. Nelly - Country Grammar - 8,461,000

Bestselling Digital Singles of the Decade
1. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain - "Low" - 5,214,000
2. Lady Gaga feat. Colby O'Donis - "Just Dance" - 4,690,000
3. Jason Mraz - "I'm Yours" - 4,619,000
4. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic - "Apologize" - 4,439,000
5. The Black Eyed Peas - "Boom Boom Pow" - 4,349,000
6. Soulja Boy Tell'em - "Crank That" - 4,315,000
7. Lady Gaga - "Poker Face" - 4,200,000
8. Coldplay - "Viva la Vida" - 4,140,000
9. Taylor Swift - "Love Story" - 4,005,000
10. Katy Perry - "Hot N Cold" - 3,945,000