Description of the Data
My proposal is to compile and compare statistics released by independent publications and services to more traditional and controlled publications and mediums.
I would compare Last.fm’s global charts to those released by Billboard magazine over the course of a one month period to track artists’ weekly rankings in both publications. Because the music industry has changed so dramatically over the past few years, I would also be interested in comparing the iTunes Store statistics of artists sales during the said time period.
How we can obtain the data:
All of this data is readily accessible on existing data statistics. A sample Excel file for doing this is here: music.xls.
http://www.last.fm/music/+charts/track/
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/charts/chart_display.jsp?g=Singles&f=The+Billboard+Hot+100
http://www.apple.com/euro/itunes/charts/top10songs.html
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/best_new_music
Why this data is interesting:
Tracking five artists, to be selected once the data has been compiled and compared, would provide insight into the listening habits of a wide scope of individuals. Last.fm users, iTunes users, and Billboard charts would provide a spectrum of insight into music trends and the way the nation absorbs the enormous amount of information/music available to the public through radio and internet.
I would then take the rankings and statistics of said 5 artists, determine their sales stats on iTunes.
What specific questions can the data answer:
Who is listening to what?
Where are they listening?
What does the data reveal about listener trends in technology savy users compared to traditional radio spin statistic? What about iTunes downloads? What do independent music reviews have to say about particular artists and does this have any effect on the success of particular artists?
It would be interesting to then investigate the Last.fm user demographics for top listeners of the 5 particular artists and determine who is listening to what, and where in the country. To focus the scope of the project I will focus on US based membership only. The main user info that will be collected for the project is gender, age, and location of users. Once the project evolves into a more focused set of data, it would be interesting to use all of the different statistic information available through Last.fm in regards to top listener rankings for the said artists.
A little background information about Last.fm is included below… [all info taken from wikipedia]
Last.fm is a UK-based internet radio and music community website, founded in 2002. It is the world’s largest social music platform with over 20 million active users based in more than 232 countries. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for £140m (US$280m), making Last.fm the largest European Web 2.0 purchase to date.
Using a unique music recommendation system known as “Audioscrobbler”, Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user’s musical taste by recording details of all the songs the user listens to, either on the streamed radio stations or on the user’s computer or portable music device. This information is transferred to Last.fm’s database (”Scrobbled”) via a plugin installed into the user’s music player. The profile data is displayed on a personal web page. The site offers numerous social networking features and can recommend and play artists similar to the user’s favourites.
Users can create custom radio stations and playlists from any of the audio tracks in Last.fm’s music library, but are not able to listen to individual tracks on demand, or to download tracks unless the rightsholder has previously authorised it. Registration is required to acquire a profile but is not necessary to view any part of the site or to listen to radio stations.
Global charts
Last.fm generates weekly “global” charts of the top 400 artists and tracks listened to by all Last.fm users. To prevent the artificial boosting of an artist or song by deliberately repeated tracks from a single listener, these charts are based on the total number of individual listeners (the reach) and not the number of actual plays.
The result is notably different from traditional commercial music charts provided by the UK Top 40, Billboard magazine, Soundscan and others, which are based on radio plays or sales. Last.fm charts are less volatile and a new album’s release may be reflected in play data for many months or years after it drops out of commercial charts. For example, The Beatles have consistently been a top 5 band at Last.fm, reflecting the continued popularity of the band’s music irrespective of current album sales. In addition the Last.fm charts are much more rock, indie and alternative influenced and less pop-influenced than regular charts.
The main reason behind the differences is that the charts reflect the musical taste of the particular demographic of the service’s users, not that of the general public. Last.fm users generally have an Internet connection, may be more computer-literate than average, and may have wide collections of music from which to choose, due to the ability to download MP3 files from the internet.
The Global Tag Chart shows the 100 most popular tags that have been used to describe artists, albums, and tracks. This is based on the total number of times the tag has been applied by last.fm users since the tagging system was first introduced and does not necessarily reflect the number of users currently listening to any of the related “global tag radio” stations.
For the week ending October 14th 2007, Radiohead broke the last.fm record for both weekly plays and weekly listeners following the release of In Rainbows. Track 15 Step set records for weekly plays and listeners and the ten tracks from In Rainbows made up the weekly top 10, with the lowest charting In Rainbows song having almost three times the number of listeners of the next highest placed track (Stronger by Kanye West, which had itself set a record for number of listeners a few weeks previously). The Radiohead album held the top 10 spots for the four weeks after its release.
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