Rock Still Leads In Music Consumption

While it seems like a country and pop world when you listen to the radio, it's a completely different planet when it comes to total music consumption across all delivery platforms, according to a study by Nielsen Music. The study selected the top musical genres looking at albums, track equivalent albums (downloads) and streaming equivalent albums. This is what was found:

1. Rock - 29%
2. R&B/ Hip Hop - 17.2%
3. Pop - 14.9%
4. Country - 11.2%
5. Dance/EDM - 3.4%
6. Christian/Gospel - 3.1%
7. Holiday/Seasonal - 2.6%
8. Latin - 2.6%
9. Jazz - 1.4%
10. Classical - 1.4%
11. Children - 1%

When it comes to actual album sales, Rock had a commanding lead over the next closest genre with 33.2% over R&B/Hip Hop's 13.9%.

This goes to show that consumers of the Rock genre are used to buying albums and are still most comfortable consuming their music that way. That said, Rock consumers have embraced streaming as well at 24.7%, just behind R&B/Hip Hop's 28.5% and ahead of Pop at 21.1%.

While Rock may not have any artists in the top 10 of almost any overall sales chart, as a whole, the genre is still vibrant. In fact, since it no longer relies on a few huge sellers to prop up the numbers, it might actually be healthier than many of the other seemingly more popular genres.

What People Listen To At Work

Did you ever wonder about the musical tastes of the people you work with? Spotify recently did a study of what people listen to at work and why, and the results are fascinating. According to the study:

• 61% of people listen to music at their desks, and say it makes them happier and more productive
• 36% said it helps them through their day, specifically from 9AM to 1PM and 2 to 4PM
• 20% said music alleviates boredom
• 16% use music to drown out annoying co-workers

But it was the tastes of listeners at work that was most interesting.

• 34% gravitated to pop and chart toppers
• 29% preferred rock
• 22% played indie

Who were the artists that most listened to?

• Adele - 16%
• Arctic Monkeys - 14%
• Rihanna - 13%
• Mumford & Sons - 13%
• Bruno Mars - 12%
• Beyonce - 12%
• Katy Perry - 12%

Remember that this study is based around what people listen to on Spotify, and doesn't necessarily apply to any other distribution medium, but it's still interesting.

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The Hottest Social Network Today

If asked, most people would say that Facebook is the hottest social network on the planet today, and they'd be wrong. While it's true that FB has by far the most active users with more than a billion, the one celebrating the most rapid growth (with a whopping 23% in the fourth quarter of 2013 alone) is Instagram. But guess what? It's owned by Facebook, so by default, FB gets a boost as well.

Here's an infographic from research firm GlobalWebindex that shows the top 20 social platforms in terms of usage thanks to a recent study. I bet you won't recognize about a third of the names.

The study also shows that the vast majority of Instagram users are from 16 to 34 years of age (39% ages 16 -24), so if that's where your audience lies, then it's time to direct more marketing resources there.

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Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

More People Are Listening To Internet Radio

If there's any doubt about the popularity of streaming music, a new study by Edison Research should put it rest. The survey of more than 3,000 people age 12 and up about their online music consumption definitively proves that streaming has truly arrived. Here's what the study found:

• More than 80% of smartphone owners said they listen to some kind of Internet radio on their mobile gadgets. 

• A majority of Web users -- 53%, to be precise -- listen to Internet radio outlets, including personalized streaming, live online audio and music on-demand.

• Slightly more than two-thirds of those surveyed said they listen to more online radio than they did a year ago as they access content on more Internet connected devices. 

Surprisingly, that doesn't mean that terrestrial radio is losing listeners though.

• 90% of the survey participants still listen to terrestrial stations. 

• Almost 9 of 10 people listen to radio in their cars, but only 17% use Internet radio.

Expect to see these rates rise shortly as more users turn to iTunes Radio and Beats Music and the new YouTube music streaming services are introduced.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

A Like As Positive Reinforcement

A new study has found that if an article or post if Liked on a site like Facebook or Reddit, new readers are more likely to approve of it. This is from a study published Science journal that says that Likes create a "herding" effect in that it makes other readers more likely to react the same way.

This seems like a pretty obvious conclusion, but sometimes the obvious needs real data behind it for verification, which is what this study did. Another thing that the study revealed is that negative views don't seem to have the same impact on readers, meaning that people aren't more likely to follow that trend if it's presented.

On an unnamed news aggregation site, the researchers manipulated the ratings of over 100,000 comments on the site. They found that the ones that got the positive boosts received an average of 25 percent higher ratings as a result.

The conclusion they drew was that Likes perform a sort of positive reinforcement for readers. If someone else Likes something, then it's safe for them to Like it as well. If there are few Likes, then there's less comfort in doing so.

That said, other studies have found that Likes are a function of the number of followers or readers that you might have, where a level of 1% is a good result. In other words, if you have 1,000 followers, you can expect as many as 10 Likes on certain posts, and far less on most others.

It just goes to show that you shouldn't overvalue those Likes.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.