Introducing Chartmetric's 6MO:
Music Industry Trends From H2 2021

Welcome to the sixth edition of 6MO, our semi-annual report on music industry trends (if you're looking for music trends from H1 2021 and earlier, click here).

In Part 1, we take a look back at the second half of 2021 (H2 2021, July 1-Dec. 31) to try to get a sense of the future of the music business, uncovering the world’s breakthrough artists and tracks on music streaming platforms and social media. In Part 2, we collaborate with fan-powered platform Fave to examine the passionate fandoms of Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, and BTS.
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As always, while you make your way through our report, don’t forget to click through the animated infographics, and enjoy the latest important music industry trends and statistics!

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

Breakthrough: Chartmetric Artist Rank

Our Chartmetric Artist Rank (formerly Cross-Platform Performance) is a one-stop metric to measure global popularity across many streaming and social media platforms. In H2 2021, these 10 artists rose above their peers, and all of them had TikTok play a role in their rise, cementing the ByteDance platform as a permanent fixture in the breaking of music today.

The No. 1 spot goes to Toronto-based RealestK, an alternative R&B artist whose dark track “WFM” recalls the spaces that Drake’s “Marvin’s Room” established more than a decade ago. The track took the RealestK to 14M+ TikTok Likes, 21M+ YouTube Channel Views, and 4M+ Spotify Monthly Listeners by year’s end. While the inescapable “Love Nwantiti” remix by Dj Yo! (No. 9) found success on virtually all platforms, the real diamond in the rough (at least for those of us in the non-Arabic speaking world) is Jordanian singer siilawy (No. 10). While Hype Magazine claimed him as “The Emotional Singer Trending in the Middle East,” his low-key, Reggaeton-style beat fueling October release “قدام الكل” sent him past 100K Spotify Monthly Listeners and 91M cumulative YouTube Channel Views, a platform with a more established footprint in his home region.

Breakthrough: Music Platforms

In the digital era, music platforms aren’t necessarily all about the pure consumption of audio. Music today frequently combines with other forms of entertainment, whether through social media, television, or online videos. This section highlights four different music platforms — Spotify, YouTube, Pandora, and Shazam — and the Top 10 rising artists and tracks within them.

Spotify Monthly Listeners Growth

Seven of the Top 10 rising artists are TikTok-driven, with Pnau having a “regular” hit cycle, JID featuring on a Netflix series theme song, and Romy (Indian singer) and SUGA (of BTS) finding their own grooves later in the year. Taking the No. 1 spot is Australian dance music team Pnau, synthesizing four Elton John songs with “Cold Heart (PNAU Remix),” a relaxed lounge take on the English legend’s repertoire that features fellow Brit Dua Lipa. The Aug. 13 release launched Pnau into a 930 percent increase in Spotify Monthly Listeners, topping out at 29M+ by the end of the year.

YouTube Channel Views Growth

Staying true to form, YouTube again showcases the sonic and geographic diversity of artists on the platform; however, an American influencer still ends up on top. Lo Beeston (No. 1) might not have generated all of her YouTube channel views from her music, but that doesn’t mean she’s any less of an artist — in fact, her 4.8K percent growth on YouTube only illustrates the changing nature of what it means to build a successful career in music. Beeston’s YouTube channel, The Beeston Bunch, is primarily focused on her family, and she’s managed to rack up more than half a million subscribers and 200M+ views in four years by giving viewers a lighthearted look into her family life. Add 3.6M+ TikTok followers into the mix, and she has a pretty solid foundation on which to build an audience base for her music. Beeston has only been on Spotify since late 2020, but she’s accrued a combined 1M+ Spotify streams on her top tracks already.

Pandora Stream Count Growth, Track-Level

Pandora may be landlocked at the moment, but that hasn’t stopped tracks by non-American artists from going big on the platform. At No. 1 is “love nwantiti (ah ah ah)” by Nigerian Afrobeats star CKay, which blew up on TikTok in the early fall of 2021, skyrocketed on Shazam in September, and took off even more on Pandora into November. Though the track was released in 2019, it had less than 2K streams on Pandora in late August 2021. By the end of the year? 5.6M. And while it's not surprising to see some Country tracks from Seth Anthony and Luke Bryan in the Top 10, the real breakthrough here might be "The Days of the Week Song" (No. 6) from children's YouTube channel Cocomelon. As we covered in our study on how the coronavirus pandemic affects music genres on Spotify, children's music has found a bigger audience on various streaming platforms during the pandemic, and we can now count Pandora among them.

Shazam Growth, Track-Level

Kaleb Di Masi and Alan Gomez’s “Matatan” (No. 1) first went viral on the Spotify charts in Latin America in mid-August, about two and a half months after its release in early June. It was likely gaining traction on TikTok at the same time, charting on the TikTok Weekly Chart by the end of August and accruing almost 300K TikTok posts before October. Simultaneously, listeners started Shazam’ing the track, taking it to a total of 213K Shazams by the end of the year — a staggering 1.6K percent increase.

Breakthrough: Social Platforms

Social media has always been inextricably linked to music, from the early days of Myspace to the viral explosion of TikTok. Increasingly, the line between social and music platforms is blurring, and that’s likely to continue. For now, however, social media remains a key digital marketing and audience engagement driver for music consumption on other platforms and not necessarily a medium for consumption in itself. Like the music platforms covered above, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Wikipedia all represent different ways that music fans interact not only with the artists that they love, but with each particular track that resonates with them.

TikTok Track Growth

It’s been a few years since TikTok took off as a serious launchpad for music, yet viral challenges and trends still seem to be the platform's golden ticket to developing hit songs and breaking new talent. ACRAZE's "Do It To It" (No. 3) and Fave's "Baby Riddim" (No. 7) both saw significant growth thanks to fun dance challenges, while Dreya Mac, FelixThe1st, and Finch Fetti's "Own Brand Freestyle" (No. 9) even got TXT's Yeonjun to take part. Lip syncing and matching video content with song lyrics were the other popular trends in the second half of 2021, helping Clarissa's "nada contra (ciúme)" (No. 4), Lyn Lapid's "In My Mind" (No. 5), and Jenna Raine's "see you later (ten years)" (No. 6) achieve viral success. Reminiscence and reflection were the common thread for many of these videos and this nostalgic feeling is also what drove Curtis Roach's "COMMA$ (feat. Whyandotte)" (No. 1), as the backing track to the "What's your most viral video of 2021" trend, to the top of this list.

Instagram Followers Growth

On Instagram, follower growth isn’t always about the artists themselves — sometimes, it’s about everything going on around them. Such is the case with Brazilian singer Murilo Huff (No. 8) and Atlanta-based pastor-producer Darrell Kelley (No. 10), both of whom rose to the top as a result of tragic circumstances. Huff is the fiancé of late feminejo (sertanejo or Brazilian Country music by and for women) artist Marília Mendonça, who died in a plane crash on Nov. 5, 2021. Kelley, meanwhile, was a prominent voice on the journey to justice for Ahmaud Arbery, releasing a ballad called “Ahmaud” after his death and joining other pastors on the steps of Glynn County Courthouse to support the Arbery family during the trial in late November 2021.

Twitter Followers Growth

In H2 2021, Korean artists and Latin artists dominated. All Top 10 gainers are either Korean or Latin artists, and some top gainers from H1 2021 consistently gain followers. Four out of the Top 10 gainers are K-Pop groups. ENHYPEN (No. 1) and aespa (No. 2) both debuted at the end of 2020. Within one year, they grew the most followers on Twitter, and their followers are still growing. BLACKPINK (No. 9) and TREASURE (No. 10), both top gainers in H1 2021, also show constant Twitter follower growth in the second half of 2021. Internet celebrity also seems to thrive in Latin America’s music world. The Latin Grammy-nominated Argentine producer Bizarrap (No. 3), known for his BZRP Freestyle & Music session that consistently generates multimillion views on YouTube, was also one of the Top 10 gainers from H1 2021, thanks in part to viral collaborations with Duki.

Wikipedia Views Growth

Adele's (No. 7) long-awaited album, 30, was released on Nov. 19, 2021, and the lead single, "Easy on Me," charted No. 1 in various countries. Her interview with Oprah was also followed by a peak of 710K Wikipedia views. Unfortunately, not all growth on Wikipedia came from good news. The death of Virgil Abloh (No. 4), the founder of Off-White and the artistic director of Louis Vuitton, continues to sadden the world's fashion and entertainment industry, but his death also reignited the public's attention on his DJ career, bringing a significant increase in streams of his music on DSPs. Sadly, the shooting death of rapper Young Dolph (No. 1) also gained national attention, sending streams and views on DSPs soaring for his music as well.

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Following The Heart of a Music Fandom

Editors' Note: This report was created in collaboration with Fave, "the home for passionate fans" app. Without the experience and insights of Founder & CEO Jacquelle Amankonah Horton and Ami Patel, this report would not be possible. Enjoy!

When you love something...a vibe speaks to you. Something about a piece of art or song just speaks to you, and you respond. At first, it's a more rapid beating of the heart, a shifting in your seat, a focusing of the eyes to a digital screen. Your blood gets pumping and you transcend regular life. For a moment, you're transported to a place only that artist can take you. It's not for us to dissect that magic...but suffice it to say: it's the reason art exists.

Second, comes a like, a follow, maybe a share on social media. Comments ensue, and connections are made...sometimes between the artist and their fans, but much more interestingly, between the fans themselves. Over time, a community is formed, based around the common love of the artist's creative work. It's the social nature of humans at its most basic. We want to belong and identify with like-minded others, and in music, we nowadays call these fandoms.

Fandoms didn't always exist, and for most artists, they don't have one. But what differentiates fandoms versus the "mainstream" or general public, is the organization. It's the same difference between a few mildly interested engineers hacking away in their room and coming together as a fully formed tech startup....a few kids kicking a soccer ball around in their backyard and an elite football organization like the Premier League...it's a conscious, formed community.

What it isn't is a top-down, well-funded marketing campaign for a new release put on by professionals for the general population (e.g., think 9-to-5ers nonchalantly walking by a street billboard). Instead, a fandom is an organic movement identifying with an artist’s work and values, put on by passionate supporters for the artists, and in a way, themselves. They stan an artist and want to see them shine, but at the same time, it's just fun.

Swifties, Hooligans and ARMY: First to the Show, Last to Leave

We'd like to focus on the quantitative and qualitative nature of fandoms, primarily through the lens of three: Taylor Swift “Swifties”, Bruno Mars “Hooligans”, and BTS “ARMY”. They are all global, top-flight artists with an enormous amount of professional and fandom support. With the insights of Fave and Chartmetric, we'd like to explore what makes fandoms so unique from mainstream attention, both by the outside, market-level numbers and then by learning about the fandom activities underpinning some of those signals.

It would be unfair to pin every success of these artists solely on their fandoms, as general population will always be a part of any measurable surge of success…but as any sports team will live and die by their most dedicated fans, so do music artists. This article is about juxtaposing those two sources of popularity, not declaring causes and effects.

We'll explore a mix of market-level data from Chartmetric (global music analytics tool), as well as an inside look at fandom-level data from Fave (fandom social app), that can begin to tell a story through the streaming and social media platforms fans spend time in. What kind of on-the-ground fan activity do press highlight numbers allude to? What kind of content are those fans creating for themselves?

2021: A Big Year for All

Though our first year fully mired in COVID, 2021 was still a banner year for all three acts. Swift began to reclaim her music rights with her Fearless Re-Release (April 9), joined TikTok (August 23), and had a multi-pronged campaign for her Red Re-Release (November 12). Mars came out of a long off-cycle period to hook up with Anderson .Paak, releasing their soul duo Silk Sonic’s debut single, “Leave the Door Open” (March 5). Their second hit “Smokin’ Out the Window” (November 5) preceded the release of their much anticipated album, An Evening with Silk Sonic (November 12). BTS certainly made good in 2021, with three major releases (“Film Out” - April 2, “Butter” - May 21, “Permission to Dance” - July 9) and two collaborations (“Butter Remix” with Megan Thee Stallion - August 27 & “My Universe” with Coldplay - September 24). They also made waves with several high-profile events: coming out with a BTS McDonald’s Happy Meal (May-June), sporting high fashion at the Louis Vuitton Fashion Show (July 7), and speaking/performing at the United Nations (September 20).

Anything artists at this level do will garner attention capturable on one or more platforms. But for the sake of brevity, we focus on one highlight in each of these three artists’ 2021, first examining the market-level statistics. Then we dig deeper into each act’s fandom and what each was busy doing to help fuel their artists’ success.

Taylor Swift “Swifties”

• November 12 2021: featured the “Red” Re-Release, “All Too Well” Short Film Release, a Starbucks Collaboration, and an SNL host appearance the next day

From the outside looking in, the multi-event marketing blitz surrounding Swift’s re-release on November 12th was successful, showing clear growth across four major platforms (YouTube, Spotify, Instagram and TikTok). Not that she needed more Instagram Followers, but that November weekend, a 5x increase (350K) in daily Followers added to her then 180M total. Her former streaming platform adversary, Spotify, saw her daily Monthly Listeners change blast past the previous week’s dithering around zero, peaking with a 1.6M daily change, and over the 47.7M total mark. Towards the end of the weekend, Swift’s daily TikTok Likes also rose above 9.3M, over 30x her previous week’s numbers. While her previous two months of Daily YouTube views hovered in the 7-8M view range, her content saw at least a 6x increase that weekend. Of particular note, her Spotify listening increase took nearly a month to return back to normal levels, correlating this particular cocktail of marketing events with resonant Spotify activity.

Fandom activities: Fans analyzing lyrics, sharing on TikTok, breaking down new re-releases

Fans of Taylor Swift are part of the Swiftie community. Swifties admire Taylor for her imaginative and symbolic lyricism and her strong presence in the music industry. Swifties are also bright detectives who enjoy seeking out easter eggs cleverly hidden by Taylor Swift and her team for fans to dissect. After the release of Fearless (Taylor's Version) in March, fans were eagerly waiting for Red (Taylor's Version) after Taylor announced on her Instagram in June. Fans were especially looking forward to the extended version of “All Too Well” with new and raw lyrics from Taylor. Red (Taylor's Version) dropped on Nov 12th, breaking numerous records, including the largest vinyl album sales in one week and “All Too Well” being the longest-running song (10 minutes and 13 seconds) to go #1 on Billboard Hot 100.

On TikTok, Swifties shared their initial reactions to listening to the album and the highly anticipated track, “All Too Well”. Fans were in awe of Swift’s writing skills, with lines such as: "You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath." Fans would break down the lyrics, explore the layers of emotions, and connect with other Swifties over similar interpretations and findings during the release. Swift also released a short film she wrote and directed for “All Too Well”. Similarly to the track, fans shared their first reactions and dived into critical scenes from the film. Fans sparked creativity by recreating specific shots or shooting their own music video. The re-release of Red (Taylor's Version) initiated conversation and creation within the fandom across multiple platforms. Some fans were already speculating what album Taylor would re-record next after finding and connecting subtle easter eggs in her other music videos and messages she put out. Giving fans the tools to create content that allows them to express their sincere and honest feelings during rollouts helps strengthen the relationship between an artist and fan as well as build loyalty within the fan community.

Bruno Mars “Hooligans”

• November 12 2021: An Evening with Silk Sonic Release exclusive Atlanta listening party hosted by Atlantic Records and Instagram

Coincidentally, Bruno Mars’ big weekend was the same as Swift’s, and from a data perspective, a little more complex. On November 12th, Silk Sonic, of which Mars was one-half of the soulful duo, released their debut album, An Evening with Silk Sonic. Silk Sonic exists on most platforms as its own entity, except for YouTube. With each platform, there is a different approach.

For example, Bruno Mars saw the least reaction on Instagram (6K+ daily bump), despite his 24M+ followers at the time. While Silk Sonic existed on its own IG profile, that seemed less of a reason than how Mars just doesn’t seem to be personally invested in social media. His Instagram engagement rate currently sits at 2.6%, which is only slightly higher than the median of similarly sized artists, with his posts feeling more like a press photo and announcements channel.

On Spotify, the platform features Mars, Anderson .Paak, and Silk Sonic as three unique entities, all earning the same Monthly Listeners with the album’s release and the tracks therein. So .Paak saw a similar increase in daily Monthly Listeners, as did Mars, with the latter’s daily change going from a marginally negative trend to over 937K that weekend.

On TikTok, Mars is seemingly as distant, posting mostly announcements, fan uploads and music video clips. But the platform’s viral way of sharing audio clips with user-generated video was the perfect way for the album to get out. With the second hit “Smokin’ Out the Window” releasing the Friday before, the single drove a 300K TikTok Likes bump for Mars on a trend that brought him over 18M overall before the year was through.

On YouTube is where Mars really wins out. While .Paak and Silk Sonic are listed in all the Silk Sonic’s videos’ titles, the videos themselves live on Mars’ YouTube channel. With the lack of a Silk Sonic channel and no double-posting on .Paak’s channel, the massive attention driven towards their November release more than doubled Mars’s daily views average the week prior, peaking at 15.8M daily views that weekend.

Fandom Activities: Most engaged fans posting videos on Fave, Fave sent 3 fans to the exclusive listening party

Fans of Bruno Mars are part of the Hooligan community. Hooligans are devoted fans of Bruno Mars who admire his musical range and vibrant performances. The fandom, much like Mars, is creative with a cheeky sense of humor.

Silk Sonic’s single, “Leave the Door Open”, was a massive hit amongst the general audience and the fandom. Fans created various content on social media, showing off their creativity. The Nov 12th An Evening with Silk Sonic release was cause for a series of events the Hooligan fandom were ready to celebrate.

Atlantic Records hosted multiple listening parties in different cities to celebrate the release. Fave had an exclusive invite to the Atlanta listening party hosted by Atlantic Records and Instagram. To ensure true fans had the opportunity to attend, Fave ran a campaign where Hooligans could upload a video proving their fanship is deserving of an invitation to the party. Fans showcased dance covers, make-up & outfit inspiration, and shot their own music videos to some of Bruno's biggest hits. They rallied their friends to engage with their uploads to help increase engagement points. In the end, Fave was able to send three Hooligans and their plus-one guests to the listening party in Atlanta. The real Bruno Mars fans were the ones who glammed and turned up to enjoy the listening party to the fullest from beginning to end. They sang along to all the tracks word for word and partied with other Hooligans right in the center of the dance floor. Inviting honest and passionate fans to these events instead of keeping it exclusive to industry friends or label staff results in a successful and lively experience with lasting impact. When real fans celebrate and experience the success they contributed to, it produces commitment and value that persists with every release.

BTS “ARMY”

• November 27 2021: First of four Permission to Dance concerts in Los Angeles, USA

On Sept 27th, BTS announced a string of concert dates (Nov 27th, 28th, Dec 1st, 2nd) for the Permission to Dance on Stage tour in Los Angeles, ending a two-year concert drought. From the market-level, it’s actually the announcement that seemed to play a bigger role in terms of platform metrics. It correlated with a nearly month-long surge in Spotify Monthly Listeners, bringing the group from a neutral daily change to breaking 2.2M within the first week. The concerts themselves didn’t bring as much of an uptick as the holographic appearance they made on popular American singing competition show The Voice, with Coldplay on Dec 14th.

As for TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, the November concerts dates were undetectable from an outside perspective. No surge in Spotify Monthly Listeners from fans building themselves up to the shows appeared. There was a possible 3.2M TikTok Likes spike on Nov 23rd, a few days prior to the concert dates, which would be a 10x daily increase, but we should remember this is only for official BTS audio clips on the platform. The fans generated a significant amount of concert-related footage both during and after the events on both TikTok and Instagram Reels. Though record-breaking YouTube views regularly happen for BTS upon the release of new music videos, the concert series did not affect this platform at all. As for Instagram, the concerts also showed no blip on the radar, though the members getting their own Instagram accounts on Dec 6th still caused such a press storm that the main BTS accounts saw a roughly 20x increase in Followers, likely from new converts reading about them.

Fandom activities: “Permission to Dance” concerts, fans creating merch around those concerts

Fans of BTS are part of the ARMY community. ARMY is a diverse and spirited group of fans who re-defined the meaning of fandom through their social power, innovative endeavours, and strong support of BTS. Their impact is incomparable to any fandom and unreplicable.

When BTS announced the Permission to Dance (PTD) on Stage in Los Angeles concerts at SoFi stadium for four nights, fans were ecstatic about and celebrated in numerous and creative ways. ARMYs provided tips on ticket-buying strategies, travel & lodging plans, concert fit ideas, COVID protocols, reviewing the stadium rules, activities to do in Los Angeles, and so much more. During the concert week itself, fans hosted cup sleeves events, 18+ dance nights, met up at Koreatown, and gathered throughout Los Angeles to reunite with long-time friends and make new ones. Fans also spent time creating freebies (hand-made goodies like photocards, snacks, stickers, etc.) to hand out to other fans. These activities and events were organized and planned by ARMYs to have fun and celebrate with other ARMYs.

Fave partnered with select ARMY shops to design and sell PTD inspired merchandise to encourage creativity and commemorate the PTD concerts. ARMY creators designed pins, COVID cardholders, bags, keychains, postcards, and PTD inspired apparel sold exclusively on the Fave marketplace. The results showed excitement and anticipation for the shows regardless of whether fans could attend or not. One shop from Brazil saw one of the PTD t-shirts they were selling on Fave worn by an ARMY at the concert after the fan shared their excitement on Twitter. The kind of joy and satisfaction of seeing a fan show off and wear one of their creations is encouraging for fan creators. Fans feel inspired to continue to design to create more memorable interactions like these within the fandom. Fan merch does not take away from an artist's own merch but rather is a significant additive practice facilitating exposure and inventiveness. These sincere and palpable interactions between fans develop long-term bonds and friendships that result in a lasting fan community over shared interests.

Permission to Fandom

Understanding the what and how of fandom activity isn’t the key to the platform metrics Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars and BTS see here. That’s the blood, sweat, tears, talent and money that they’ve earned. But understanding more where the beating heart of that kind of success drives from, is important.

The diffusion of innovations theory, first published by Professor Everett Rogers in 1962, is now an idea that’s been popularized throughout the technology and business worlds, and one applicable to fandoms. In it, Rogers theorized that innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards, were the five phases of consumers a successful product goes through.

While artists are a creative entity, if in the music business, they are also a financial one. The first 2.5% of that consumer curve, Innovators, are known to be very keen on adopting a new idea or product, younger, and very sociable, especially with others who share a similar progressive mindset. It’s not a stretch to say that fandoms are these artists’ Innovators, not only holding the torch for the artists, but the first ones to light the fire.

We’ve all seen talented artists come and go. Many of them had major company support, the looks and voices, and award-winning industry songwriting and production talent behind them. Yet, a mild charting single and then silence is sometimes all we ever get to hear from them.

What is that x factor? It will always be hard to prove, but knowing that there is a powerful and passionate fandom behind an artist has to be their best hope. With this kind of support comes the ability to perform higher-level tasks: they can win awards for artists, make them hit #1 on any chart, sell out a stadium, embarrass a president. Some of these capabilities are career milestones that music companies spend millions to do, while a fandom does that and more organically.

So the point is not to "how can I leverage fandoms?" It's more about how they can be supported, and how they can be empowered to be self-sustaining. By giving these fans an inch, they’ll be able to run a mile. Don’t try to control it though…they don’t need permission to dance.