Monday, July 15, 2013

Before And After Pictures: Country's Musical Landscape In 2009 and Now

“Before and after” pictures can sometimes be startling. Especially when something that was iconic has changed dramatically, is no longer present or when something new “suddenly” appears.

Because we’re paying attention to our formats on a daily basis and appropriately navigating our stations through changes, good programmers aren't generally subject to before-and-after-shock.

Even so, side-by-sides of the past and present can be both interesting and useful in giving us a perspective on the pace of change.

Here’s a “before and after” look at Mediabase’s Top 10 Most Played Artists (all stations) for the year 2009 and just 3 ½ years later the most played artists to date in 2013. Only three artists - Kenny, Tim and Brad – appear in both snapshots. Seven artists from 2009 have been replaced by seven different artists so far this year.

2009
Artist
Spins

2013
Artist
Spins
1
KENNY CHESNEY
1093702

1
CHESNEY, KENNY
529588
2
TOBY KEITH
1043185

2
SHELTON, BLAKE
481823
3
TIM MCGRAW
882167

3
ALDEAN, JASON
481657
4
GEORGE STRAIT
847920

4
PAISLEY, BRAD
458663
5
BRAD PAISLEY
846708

5
UNDERWOOD, CARRIE
426473
6
RASCAL FLATTS
835130

6
BROWN, ZAC BAND
404099
7
KEITH URBAN
825170

7
MCGRAW, TIM
381991
8
ALAN JACKSON
750887

8
BRYAN, LUKE
359250
9
TAYLOR SWIFT
636428

9
LADY ANTEBELLUM
345478
10
BROOKS & DUNN
625323

10
LAMBERT, MIRANDA
331575


If we pull the lens back a bit to look at the Top 20 most played artists over the same time period, we can see more consistency in names but a number of rankings are significantly different and  there’s quite a bit of churn at the bottom of both lists.

2009
Artist
Spins
2013
Artist
Spins
1
KENNY CHESNEY
1093702
1
CHESNEY, KENNY
529588
2
TOBY KEITH
1043185

2
SHELTON, BLAKE
481823
3
TIM MCGRAW
882167

3
ALDEAN, JASON
481657
4
GEORGE STRAIT
847920

4
PAISLEY, BRAD
458663
5
BRAD PAISLEY
846708

5
UNDERWOOD, CARRIE
426473
6
RASCAL FLATTS
835130

6
BROWN, ZAC BAND
404099
7
KEITH URBAN
825170

7
MCGRAW, TIM
381991
8
ALAN JACKSON
750887

8
BRYAN, LUKE
359250
9
TAYLOR SWIFT
636428

9
LADY ANTEBELLUM
345478
10
BROOKS & DUNN
625323

10
LAMBERT, MIRANDA
331575
11
DIERKS BENTLEY
606851

11
URBAN, KEITH
327423
12
MONTGOMERY GENTRY
570204

12
THE BAND PERRY
326189
13
CARRIE UNDERWOOD
560249

13
STRAIT, GEORGE
310322
14
SUGARLAND
526223

14
KEITH, TOBY
306397
15
DARIUS RUCKER
511694

15
BENTLEY, DIERKS
299723
16
JASON ALDEAN
499024

16
RASCAL FLATTS
280816
17
ZAC BROWN BAND
474769

17
BRICE, LEE
279473
18
BILLY CURRINGTON
458349

18
CHURCH, ERIC
277111
19
GARTH BROOKS
447462

19
FLORIDA-GEORGIA LINE
276032
20
RODNEY ATKINS
444324

20
HAYES, HUNTER
271619


A look at album sales yields a similar picture; fully half of the artists making up this year’s top 10 selling albums (Florida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan, The Band Perry, Hunter Hayes and Little Big Town) weren’t in the top 25 for the year 2009.

Again, this is not particularly surprising. Back in February at CRS, A&O&B reported that listeners claimed to have '"discovered" four of these five acts within the past 12 months (Florida Georgia Line being the exception). 

As a "before and after" side note, not too long ago, stations’ “Core/Key Artists” lists often numbered somewhere between 6 and 9.  For many stations today that list is 50% longer.  And that’s a good thing for the format.

None of this should be surprising of course, and that’s the point.

“Before and after” is fun and makes for an interesting look at the speed with which things change (or don't change). But staying on top of listener trends is a far better way to be relevant.

A&O&B provides clients free, ongoing opportunities to keep up with their listeners’ preferences and attitudes with online music surveys including twice-monthly testing of currents, and quarterly testing of gold titles; plus, our annual online Roadmap survey which reports listener behavior and perceptions on a large number of topics. Learn more here and at aandoandb.com.


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