Country Artist Discovery Matrix: Who’s “New” Varies by Demo

Scotty McCreery didn’t win Top New Artist at last night’s Billboard Music Awards (Wiz Khalifa did), but his nomination was appropriate enough (Scotty of course was the ACM Best New Artist winner this past April while The Band Perry was the CMA’s New Artist winner in November).  

One of the questions we ask in Albright & O’Malley’s annual online perceptual study ‘Roadmap’ is, “Is there a new country singer or band you’ve discovered in the last 12 months that’s becoming one of your favorites?” This year, 59.9% of respondents answered “Yes” (up from last year’s 56.7%).

Those who answered “Yes” were then asked to name the artist(s) in an open-ended question (top 7 results below).

Not surprisingly, “discovery” varied by demo. 

 

Also not surprising, these ‘discovered’ artists varied by demo as well.

Here are Roadmap 2012’s most frequently mentioned ‘new’ artists by 18-54s with the top demo for each artist highlighted (we asked this question in January of 2012 so the respondents’ frame of reference would be 2011).

Artist	18-24	25-34	35-44	45-54	18-54
Band Perry	12.4	17.9	13.9	13.1	14.3
Jason Aldean	5.3	11.1	11.8	6.1	8.4
Zac Brown Band	3.2	4.8	10.5	6.9	6.8
Brantley Gilbert	13.4	8.5	6.5	2.9	6.4
Luke Bryan	6.0	6.1	10.5	3.8	6.2
Lady A	5.3	6.5	5.9	5.7	5.9
Scotty McCreery	9.2	5.4	5.5	4.2	5.4

Other artists like Thompson Square and Eric Church had their highest discovery scores 18-24 while the Eli Young Band’s was split 18-24 and 25-34.

An ‘Artist Discovery Matrix’ like this is a good reminder of country’s idverse audience.  

It’s also useful as you consider your overall music-to-target relationship.