Olivia Rodrigo Dominated Pop Streaming in 2021, Beating Adele and Taylor Swift

There were many resounding album releases in 2021, but few dominated the media headlines more than those of three Pop heavyweights: Adele’s “30”, Taylor Swift’s “Red (Taylor’s Version)” and Olivia Rodrigo’s “SOUR”. But which release brought its author the most attention in terms of a growing Spotify fanbase? Music research and analytics platform Viberate looked into the data to settle the dilemma once and for all.

For unbiased results, Viberate examined how many new Spotify followers each artist gained in two weeks following each release (the surrounding hype usually brings in new fans within that time period), and looked at spikes in monthly listeners after the release. To see if the artists have fans among their peers (other artists and festivals), Viberate additionally checked out how many notable social media mentions each artist got throughout the year.

The results show Olivia Rodrigo was the overall winner.

Olivia Rodrigo brought the most attention to her profile, as she gained over 14M new monthly listeners and 969K new followers in just two weeks. Her top-performing track was (and still is) “drivers licence”. It was clocking in almost 800M daily streams at the time of album release and has already amassed 1.2B streams so far.

Taylor Swift placed second with similarly incredible numbers. She gained 11.9M new monthly listeners and 759K new followers in two weeks. “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)” was streamed the most, averaging 50M streams per day.

Adele came in third. She gained 7.4M new monthly listeners and 694K new followers in two weeks. “Easy On Me” was streamed the most, with 385M plays at the two-week mark.

All three artists were mentioned on social media by their peers and music festivals a lot, with Taylor Swift being mentioned the most.

What can we learn from all this?

It’s interesting to note how different release strategies impact the streaming numbers. Adele’s biggest leap corresponds to her announcing the album and releasing the “Easy On Me” single, meaning that she brought in the majority of new fans in the promotional period. Taylor Swift released two albums in 2021, so she was omnipresent throughout the year. Her releases were placed on a ton of Spotify playlists (her current reach surpasses 390M Spotify listeners), and the steady growth suggests she’s been successfully converting listeners into fans along the way. Olivia Rodrigo is the Pop newcomer of the year not only because of the industry awards won, but also because her strategic releases (hit single first, album second) increased her Spotify following 50 times over in 2021.

For more data insights such as these, visit Viberate.

Olivia Rodrigo Dominated Pop Streaming in 2021, Beating Adele and Taylor Swift

Why Is Fan Engagement Important To Artist Teams?

The artist-to-fan relationship is extremely mutual, with the artist giving the fans content and the fans showing their appreciation with revenue and support. Fans crave the feeling of a one-on-one connection with the artist to form meaningful relationships that benefit both the fan and the artist themselves!

Click to read more ...

Listening habits of Chinese music fans

As an artist or musician you may be curious about the listening habits of music consumers in China. Here at Musicinfo, we asked 38 Chinese students who worked on one of our recent research and development projects about the services they use, the kind of music they like, when they listen to music and more.

Click to read more ...

In search of meaningful engagement

In this article, we explore how to build meaningful engagement and suggest your website and first-party data has a bigger role to play.

Click to read more ...

Building A Community Around Your Music In Show4me App

Growing your fanbase and keeping it engaged is your key task when creating a sustainable music career or business. Your fans keep buying your music, concert tickets, and merch, providing you with steady profits.

One of the new tools you can use without any investment to engage, develop, and interact with your fanbase is Show4me app for fans.

The app offers an immersive world of music, shows, and socializing where fans can dive into your content, see your posts in ad-free feed, get notified when you interact with them and when your online concert is starting.

Let’s see what the app has to offer and if these tools fit your needs.

Click to read more ...

How To Leverage Live Streaming To Find Fans And Build Your Brand In 2020

Let’s face it. It’s harder than ever to get noticed as an artist. You’re competing against 3+ million artists uploading over 40,000 new tracks daily.

Only a handful of artists breakthrough every year, but what about everyone else?

You can continue competing against millions of artists on the same platforms for the same fans. Or, you can try new channels to find new fans and build your brand. 

Click to read more ...

How Musicians Can Ask For Fan Support During The Coronavirus Pandemic

Guest post by Dave Cool. This article originally appeared on the Bandzoogle Blog

The situation around the coronavirus pandemic is changing by the hour, let alone by the day. First SXSW was canceled, and many other festivals and conferences followed suit. Then thousands of live events and tours were postponed through March. 

As of March 15, the CDC is recommending that all live events with more than 50 people be canceled or postponed for the next eight weeks. This will have a huge impact on the smaller venues, clubs, and bars that are vitally important for performing artists and bands to earn an income. 

Click to read more ...

How To Promote Your Music And Grow Your Fan Base

You are fond of music and want to make your name in the music business. That’s a good thing, but in today’s music industry, talent and uniqueness alone is not enough to reach on the top. If you want to stand out from the crowd and gain recognition, you have to figure out your strengths. Many aspiring musicians are finding it hard to gain name recognition and fame in music industry. You cannot get them only on the basis of talent and uniqueness. You need to express your skills and target the right audience.

Click to read more ...

Find Your Fans: Using Data To Analyze Your Audience

Whether you like it or not, every social media site and music streaming platform is collecting loads of data about their users. This information can be used to your advantage to draw powerful insights about your audience.

Click to read more ...

7 Email Marketing Tips For Musicians To Reach Out To Their Fans

Guest post by Nora Mark of Academized and Stateofwriting.

While writing email marketing content might seem like the sort of thing a big business would do, especially if they’re trying to sell you something, there are plenty of benefits a musician such as yourself, or your band can enjoy from running an email list.

With the ability to reach your fans on a one-on-one basis directly into their inbox, the opportunities to further build a community are endless. However, this is only if you get it right! Today, we’re going to share seven need-to-know tips to help you write emails in the best possible way.

Click to read more ...

How To Create A Dynamic Website That Will Appeal To Your Fans (& Attract New Ones)

The heart of a musician is to make music.

From jazz to pop, punk to metal, and everything in between, a true musician is focused on their craft as often as possible. 

However, the pressures of surviving as a musician is difficult. Monetizing a passion can be frustrating and distract from the creative mindset that we’re always trying to maintain. That’s where having a good website can be critical to help with promotion while saving time for what really matters.

A website gives the world access to our music in ways that couldn’t be dreamed of a few decades ago. Anyone with a few hundred bucks (or even less) can pull together a site fit for a king, but just because you can build a site easily doesn’t mean it’s automatically going to be a good one.

Click to read more ...

Music Show Admission: Sales Management For Your Venue

Performing live at music shows is always such a rush. You play or sing to overjoyed fans and it seems like the rest of the world melts away. But it’s also necessary to think about practical elements such as admission and merchandise sales.

Click to read more ...

Why Uploading Your Music Online Doesn’t Get You Tons Of New Fans

Gaining tons of people to hear your music takes more than just uploading it to common music websites. Here is what you should do in addition to this:

The first thing to do is know that there is much more to getting new music fans that just putting your songs on a website online and waiting for people to check them out. This is one of the most frequent methods musicians use, and it isn’t very effective.

Click to read more ...

How To Accommodate Fans At An Outdoor Music Festival

Outdoor music festivals can be amazing experiences for people who adore great tunes. If you’re a fan of live music, good energy, and joy, you’re probably a big festival enthusiast. Festival organizers should always go above and beyond to make their guests feel 100 percent comfortable and at ease. They can do so in a handful of different ways, too.

Click to read more ...