For those of you who didn’t read the introductory blog last week, here’s the deal- I’m looking at the plays/views for an individual musical act’s MySpace site(s) to determine who is most popular, at least of the ones that I can remember to include. Obviously MySpace could probably just click a button and list them all in order, but they haven’t done that yet, and by the time they do, or if anybody knew they were doing it, the results might be manipulated and therefore useless. So this is a snapshot in time, all relative to July 2008, a point at which I figure every act that cares to join MySpace is already on the band-wagon without a lot of ones who are now out-of-date, like much of the Internet itself, barely a decade old. What does it all mean? That depends. Though there are obvious advantages and disadvantages inherent with any count of MySpace ‘hits’, and the results are nothing if not unscientific, they are nonetheless interesting, at least to me. If someone took a scientific survey, the results might be different. But how would you do that? Would minorities be accurately counted? Would youth? At what age would you start counting? What about people without access to electricity, much less computers, much less Internet, as if computers were anything but Internet-machines these days? What about overseas?
The biggest skew is toward initiative; only those motivated enough to log on will be included here of course. The next biggest skew will be toward technological proficiency. If you can’t navigate the Net then you won’t be counted here. Such considerations are obvious and don’t really discriminate. The main discriminatory tendencies will be toward youth and toward the wealthy, those most likely to have the means and the lifestyles (i.e. the spare time) to show up here. Given population demographic skews toward older populations in Western countries anyway, maybe this balances out. There is certainly a bias toward Western countries, particularly the US, where Internet usage is high. Using the terminology of physics, numbers would probably fall off in inverse proportion from a line extending through space from LA through New York to London and in time from the moment NOW back into the past. The older the act, and the less memorable of course, then certainly the less likely they are to score highly here. They might score more highly here than in CD sales, though generally I suspect the ratios are similar.
Countries within that Western spatial orbit, including Canada, Mexico, Scandinavia, even Russia, still count strongly, then fall off precipitously. For example, T.A.T.U. the Russian femme-pop sensation led by ‘fierce brunette Julia Volkova’ and ‘sprightly red-head Lena Katina’ easily score 5 million MySpace hits while Puffy AmiYumi, superstars from Japan, who have courted the English-speaking audience far longer and far harder, barely get a quarter million and play small clubs on the US West Coast like Slim’s in SF and the Key Club in West Hollywood. Shonen Knife only get half that and I can’t even find a site for Umeboshi Plums. The numbers are similar for Faye Wong from China and Coco Lee from Taiwan, zip for Korea’s BoA (not the bank). Even sexy Anggun from Indonesia, on record as the best-selling Asian artist outside Asia, barely scores 50K, though she now lives in France, where she records albums heavy on the drum machine and poses semi-nude on the beach for mail-order bride ads touting the ‘smoothness of Indonesian women.’ She can’t do that back home in Bali, though the white girls do, hence 10-12 aftershocks to 9-11 (a popular name for mini-marts there). Of course these MySpace numbers don’t mean much until you compare them with well-known Western acts, so we’ll let the results speak for themselves, remembering that I have to actually search an act’s site to get the numbers, so there could be some gross omissions. Anyway here goes:
Number one overall in MySpace plays (drum roll here please): Lil’ Wayne at 140 MILLION MySpace plays (just as a point of reference Russia with a population of 141 million is the ninth most populous country in the world). At about half that number are slinky umbrella girl Rihanna followed closely by the rapper ‘50 Cent’ each with some 70 million. Chris Brown is not far behind with 65 million, though with some 85 million views. Surprised yet? Don’t be. Hip-hop and rap have tremendous pull in the third-world, with its universal themes and individual screams and schemes. You don’t pull these kinds of numbers with sales in south LA and Bed-Stuy alone. They may not have poster-boy status overseas equal to Che Guevara and Bob Marley yet, but whoever emerges on top of the rap race certainly could. Ready for the country? Rascal Flatts comes in at 60 million. Number 6? Guess. It’s time for another sexy girl, right? They’re legion. Another rapper maybe? Lil’ Wayne, 50 Cent, and Chris Brown are hardly unique. Guess again. Now for something completely different: a girl yes, but the anti-Britney. How about Avril Lavigne at around 60 million? Now if a country full of hip-hop fans was scary, what about a country full of raccoon girls, all wearing too much make-up and laughing at us men when we try to come on to them? Now that’s scary! But don’t worry. The dollhouse girls Danity Kane right behind prove that all is right with the world.
Who’s next? I’ll give you a clue: white men can be sexy, too. Would you believe Justin Timberlake? This should hardly surprise, former Boy Band boy going out on his own and learning to cop a pretty decent hip and a hop in the process. Ready to Rock? My Chemical Romance is right behind Linkin’ Park at Number 9. Then Fergie has over 50 million plays ON HER OWN, without the other Black-Eyed Peas, so factor that in later. What color are her eyes anyway? Then come Kanye West and Beyonce’ with around 50 million also. Country super-star Taylor Swift is right there, followed by rockers Nickelback. The pubescent Jonas Brothers also have around 50 million views also, but not that many plays, so I won’t count them here, though I would if the other way around. Like I say, this is a snapshot; who’ll remember them in ten years? Want to know Hanson’s rating? It’s not bad, actually. Next on my list, hardly scientific I reiterate, are the hip-hop acts Plies, Ne-Yo, Jim Jones and Snoop Dogg with around or over 40 million, as well as Nelly Furtado, country pop-star Carrie Underwood and MySpace’s own star, the neo-singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat, who showed that MySpace could not only map the stars, but it could create them too. In the mid-30’s are Mariah Carey, Evanescence, and soft-rocker Jack Johnson. This completes my outer circle, the strato-pause, beyond which you’ve truly achieved escape velocity and start to form your own countries and governments. Let’s get a little more down to Earth, the mere stratosphere.
So far there seems to be a strong pattern favoring hip-hop and exotic females, and sure enough at around 30 million plays we find Alicia Keys and fellow mighty not-so-modest Mouseketeers Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, still holding up after all these years, after growing up on our TV screens, after baring all for public consumption. Then there are rap and soulsters Timbaland, Ray J and Gnarls Barkley and ‘emo’ superstars Boys Like Girls. Where’s the rock and freaking roll? It’s there with Coldplay, neo-classic Daughtry, the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, alt-rockers 3 Doors Down and even heavy-metal old-timers Metallica and new timers Disturbed, all there at around 30 million. Thought maybe things might move a little slower out in the country? Think again. Country stars Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban are right there at 30 mill. Then there’s R&B singer Keyshia Cole at over 25 million, and a little closer to Earth at around 20 million plays are teen idols Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers (though 50 million viewed, only 20 million actually listened), and also hip-hoppers Tech N9ne and Flo Rida, Vanessa Hudgens, pop-punks Relient K, and the UK chart-topper Natasha Bedingfield. Black-Eyed Peas are right there also, which gives Fergie an enormous figure (heh heh) if you add this to her total. Amy Winehouse is there too, bottle in hand (fitting name, eh?), as well as rockers Death Cab for Cutie, Maroon 5, Weezer and Foo Fighters, looking grungier every day, and rappers Usher and Jay-Z. We’re measuring popularity here remember, not wealth. And don’t forget the emo stars Good Charlotte and centerfold rockers Pussycat Dolls. Any comment would be superfluous.
This is boring so far, right? That’s the Top 50+ artists by my measurement of Myspace hits, subject to gross omission. There are no surprises there. Almost all of these are at or have been at the top of the charts recently (not all the Top 100 have millions of MySpace hits, however). That’s where I found most of them, and admit to listening to many for the first time in the last 2-3 days. Some have been on the charts since the birth of MySpace some three years ago, so these results are expected and to some extent negligible. Where’s the classic stuff you ask? This is where it gets interesting, and this is the reason I started this project. These numbers may even stand up over time. Now enter Robert Nesta Marley at over 20 million MySpace plays, and that doesn’t count his protégés and prodigal sons. Dead almost as many years as he ever lived, he is still a genuine third-world hero, arguably the father of world music, and still in the Top 100 on Hardie K’s list of MySpace popularity. It was only after his death that Record executives began scouring Africa for suitable replacements, even though they probably didn’t ‘get it.’ Marley is the only poster-boy who can compete with Che Guevara on third-world T-shirts, except for another rock-and-roll hero. Guess who. You might be shocked. I’ll tell you next week. I need a drink. Let’s take a break here. Next week we’ll continue getting more down-to-earth. That is where it gets even more interesting. Remember we still haven’t heard from the genres of jazz, bluegrass, and blues or the decades of the 80’s, 70’s, 60’s, 50’s, 40’s, 30’s, and even 20’s. That’s a lot of territory to cover. Can you believe it? They’re all here. Stay tuned, and feel free to tell me how many great artists I overlooked. This is a democracy, remember.
