TikTok’s impact on the music business is hard to dispute.
The app serves as an A&R tool for labels and a distribution and promotion tool for DIY artists, and the virality lottery has made global winners of acts behind music released decades ago.
But just how old is the majority of popular ‘old’ music on TikTok really, and is the recorded music business’s current definition of ‘catalog’ music becoming increasingly dated alongside changing listening patterns amongst consumers?
A new report from respected digital data analysis platform Chartmetric suggests that it’s time to rethink how we define ‘catalog’.
A quick reminder of terminology: tracks are considered ‘frontline’ releases if they’re less than 18 months old. ‘Catalog’ is any music older than 18 months.
Technically speaking then, Dua Lipa’s US No.3 album Future Nostalgia, and Bad Bunny’s streaming smash of an LP YHLQMDLG, both released in 2020 – an important year for reference, which we’ll come back to later – are ‘catalog’ releases, as they’re both over 18 months old.
Before we dive into Chartmetric’s findings and methodology within its H1 report, it’s important to point out that the publication of the study comes on the heels of the news that ‘Current’ music in the United States is getting statistically less popular.
According to a new midyear report published by US market monitor Luminate (formerly MRC Data / Nielsen Music), ‘Total Album Consumption’ of ‘Current’ recorded music in the US in H1 2022 fell 1.4% in volume versus the equivalent metric from the same period of 2021.
‘Catalog’ music, according to Luminate saw a 19.0% YoY increase in its streaming volume in the first half of 2022, while the volume of on-demand audio streams of ‘Current’ music, specifically, fell 2.6% YoY.
This specific story, and indeed the phenomenon of catalog’s growing popularity in the streaming age has become one of the biggest talking points in the music industry, with the debate raging about why this trend has started to emerge.
As noted last month when we reported on Luminate’s H1 report, a lack of blockbuster releases over the past two years could be one reason behind ‘current’ music’s waning popularity.
Another reason is that ‘old’ music is being treated as if it were ‘new’ music by young listeners, with their musical discoveries being driven by cultural ‘events’ like Stranger Things (Exhibit A: Kate Bush) and virality on popular social platforms like TikTok, as seen with the likes of Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams or Boney M’s Rasputin.
According to Chartmetric’s new report, in spite of the ‘oldies going viral’ narrative doing the rounds in the media, old ‘catalog’ hits, as in, tracks released decades ago, are actually few and far between.
The analysis firm says that it charted every track in its database that has received over 10,000 TikTok posts against the release dates of those tracks.
Chartmetric found that the majority of tracks that got “significant traction on TikTok” were, in fact, released in the last five years (see below).
Furthermore, most TikTok hits so far, according to Chartmetric, were released in 2020.
And what of tracks released before the 2010s? According to Chartmetric’s report, and as you can see from the graph above “there really wasn’t much activity happening at all”.
The company suggests that defining ‘catalog’ as anything older than three to five years would be more appropriate than the current 18-month measurement.
Adds the report: “The one-off pre-2010s sensations (Kate Bush, Fleetwood Mac, etc.) we hear about in the press are really more the exception and not the rule.
“Maybe the real trend is not that catalog is blowing up, but that our definition of catalog is outdated, and we should consider widening the window from 18 months to anywhere from 3-5 years.”
“Maybe the real trend is not that catalog is blowing up, but that our definition of catalog is outdated, and we should consider widening the window from 18 months to anywhere from 3-5 years.”
Chartmetric
Chartmetric’s suggestion to widen the timeframe for what we define as ‘frontline’ tracks correlates with an argument put forward by former Spotify Chief Economist Will Page in an MBW op/ed penned back in 2017, in which he wrote that ‘new’ releases should be considered anything released within the prior 36 months.
This, said Page at the time, “all leaves the global record business with a crucial question to answer: what changes when year two of an artist’s campaign actually earns you more than year one?”
Elsewhere in Chartmetric’s report, the company states “there was a dramatic peak in the diversity of tracks released in 2020 that generated TikTok activity”, with that diversity narrowing in the subsequent year and a half.
Chartmetric reasons that there might be a number of interrelated factors driving this trend, including that, “tracks from two years ago tend to be the most popular on TikTok” and the acceleration of the adoption of TikTok by independent artists during pandemic lockdowns in 2020.
TikTok was also still available in India (population 1.4bn) for the first half of 2020, before it was banned along with a bunch of other apps over security concerns.
“Because virtually any track is available to any music consumer irrespective of release date, we’ll likely continue to see more pre-2010s releases get their second chance at capturing the limelight, but in the grand scheme of things, these instances are likely to remain outliers.”
Chartmetric
Another reason for this lack of diversity of TikTok hits according to Chartmetric, is that “big music companies caught on to the power of TikTok and have now started to consolidate the market power of their priority tracks on TikTok, which may account for the decreasing number (so far) of unique post-2020 tracks generating TikTok activity”.
Adds Chartmetric in its report: “Because virtually any track is available to any music consumer irrespective of release date, we’ll likely continue to see more pre-2010s releases get their second chance at capturing the limelight, but in the grand scheme of things, these instances are likely to remain outliers.
“The more rule-defining trend is the widening timeline of what’s capturing the bulk of music consumer attention, i.e., within the last five years (market-driven) instead of within the last year and a half (traditional frontline).
“Of course, what captures attention on TikTok doesn’t always translate to consumption on streaming platforms, but it’s certainly an important digital signal of where to focus your resources to maximize engagement for your music.”
Read ChartMetric’s new H1 2022 report through here.Music Business Worldwide