When it comes to navigating the music world – be it here in Australia or on the global stage – there are myriad rules, regulations, and advice that artists or industry insiders are expected to follow.
Some of them might seem antiquated or illogical, but for the most part, they're all followed with the intent of providing the artists, labels, promoters, and more the highest income stream possible. But, what does the data say?
That's exactly the question that Matt Rogers, the Chief Commercial Officer at GYRO Group, was asking at this year's Music Data & Insights Summit, presented by the Victorian Music Development Office (VMDO).
With GYRO Group presenting itself as "a connected ecosystem of distribution and artist services, built to take artists from debut to superstar," Rogers is well-positioned with plenty of data at his disposal to help shed some light on the realities of the music industry.
Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter
During his appearance at the Summit on Monday, May 18th, Rogers reached deep into the comprehensive dataset of GYRO Group to reveal how independent artists are building audiences and releasing new music.
In his presentation, Rogers took a look at four common pieces of advice, running it against data from GYRO Group's catalogue, and presented information that might surprise the average music-lover.
The Album Is Dead
In the increasingly algorithm-led musical landscape, the industry narrative presents that artists have been abandoning longform albums in favour of a shorter project – often just a single – in hopes of feeding the streaming algorithms.
"The logic is intuitive," Rogers said. "Streaming algorithms reward regular activity. Playlist placement favors singles. Listener attention spans are shortening. Albums, the argument goes, are a legacy format that the streaming era has made obsolete for independent artists without major label backing."
As Rogers points out, the data doesn't quite confirm this narrative. Looking at two cohorts of data – Cohort D comprising 9,750 Australian users to present their "broadest and most representative view of what independent Australian music looks like at scale", and Cohort A comprising the 500 top-performing local artists on their platform by revenue – it does appear that singles account for the majority of releases, with 76% for Cohort A and 79% for Cohort D.
However, a deeper picture shows that album and EP tracks make up the majority of tracks in the catalogue, "meaning larger bodies of work are still being made and distributed at a genuine scale, even if individual albums or releases are less frequent."
Ultimately, the result shows that while singles generate roughly 10.7 times more revenue per track than albums and EPs, the latter portion are taking up a significantly larger part of the total catalogue.
"The top artists appear to be using both formats with clear intent," Rogers explains. "Singles as the commercial engine, albums and EPs as a deeper creative statement used selectively. That is not an either/or choice, it's a portfolio approach.
"The conclusion? The album is definitely not dead. It's been repositioned as a vehicle for both deep and sustained listening, while singles handle discovery and revenue volume."
Make Songs Shorter
Conventional industry wisdom submits that streaming platforms algorithmically reward shorter tracks, with artists suggested to target a runtime of under three minutes so as to reduce skip rates, to maximise playlist placements, and to remain competitive in an algorithm-driven world.
The logic behind this makes sense, largely because of the fact that if listeners skip before the song reaches 30 seconds, no royalties are paid and the algorithm "receives a negative signal".
This is largely why song lengths appear to be getting shorter, or in some cases, sped-up to get to the good bits sooner.
As Rogers explains, the weighted average of their 9,750 Australian users finds songs sitting at 3:56 – far beyond the suggested industry standard.
"Only 29% of all tracks fall under those three minutes, while nearly 33% run longer," he says. "The best-performing duration band by both revenue streams is 3:00 to 3:30, which punches well above its share by both measures. The 3:30 to 4:00 band is the second-strongest contributor to revenue.
"There's a real drop-off after four minutes, but it is gradual rather than a cliff edge, suggesting listeners have a tolerance ceiling that sits far above the short song narrative," he adds.
However, while the tracks in this 'prime' runtime do appear to generate the highest streams per track, those in the 3:00 to 3:30 band are leading in terms of revenue. This, in Rogers' mind indicates that while top artists are making a deliberate trade-off to create shorter content, the traditional advice of keeping it under three minutes appears to go against what is working the best.
"They're not shorting their music in response to streaming pressure, and the data suggests that's the right call," Rogers concludes for local independent acts. "The race to the bottom in track length is not reflected in data, even at the top of the commercial spectrum for independent artists."
Release More Often
Though every artist would likely dream of being a prolific act like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Buckethead, or Guided By Voices, many settle by reaching a sweet spot that includes releasing smaller projects more often.
Again, the idea here is to continually feed the algorithm so that the artist stays visible, the audience continues to grow, and therefore more output results in more growth.
"The argument is that streaming algorithms reward consistent activity, that playlists need a regular stream of new material to consider, and that audience attention requires regular re-engagement to maintain," Rogers says.
"The implicit promise is that more releases translates to more streams, more listeners, and more revenue."
However, GYRO Group's data instead indicates that the vast majority of its users are not following the advice. Instead, 39% of its 9,750 Australian users released only once during a year-long measurement period, with 38% released only two or three times – meaning 77% of all artists are operating below the suggested metrics.
In fact, only 2% of the user base released ten or more times, with the average length of each project in these frequent releases equating to 2.5 tracks – indicating less ambition with this increased output.
Meanwhile, their top 500 artists showed striking contrast, with 18% releasing just once, 40% releasing between four and nine times, and 14% releasing ten or more times.
As Rogers explains, this seems to indicate that the advice is largely correct. "Releasing more does not guarantee commercial success, and some artists in the top five hundred may have built their audiences through other means before becoming consistent releases," he states.
"But the alignment between high-frequency releasing and high commercial performance is consistent and impossible to ignore. The 'release more' advice may be oversimplified, but the artist performing best on the platform appear to be living it regardless."
Always Release On A Friday
Fun fact: the widely-accepted standard of releasing new music on a Friday has only been the standard since 2015, with a surprise-released Beyoncé album in 2013 the reason for this shift. Prior to that, it varied globally, with North America releasing on a Tuesday, and many other countries using Monday as their new music day.
These days, major labels have consolidated the Friday standard as a means of attempting to maximise chart performance, though more independent artists will attempt to veer from the norm to occupy a space otherwise devoid of new releases.
According to Rogers, of their 9,750 Australian users, Friday accounts for 47% of all tracks released, making it four times more popular than any other day of the week. However, its revenue share only equates to 50%, with revenue share from Tuesday and Wednesday making up 32% of revenue, despite making up only 25% of releases.
Meanwhile, in the top 500 artists, Friday makes up 45% of tracks and equates to 56.5% of revenue, indicating that artists with established audiences and coordinated marketing campaigns do better when releasing on a Friday.
"Friday works best when you have the machine behind you," Rogers notes. "For artists building towards that midweek release and chart debut, a mid-week release may offer more room to be heard, but it's harder for that chart debut.
"The picture is not that Friday is wrong, it's at the most crowded moment of the week, and for independent artists without the marketing infrastructure to cut through, that crowding carries a cost that Thursday and Wednesday do not."
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
