September 7, 2009
Christian Music Market Share
So I’ve made some comments about Christian radio, and it’s about time that I try to back it up with some market analysis. You might remember me saying that Christian music is 34% Casting Crowns, 33% Third Day, and 33% Chris Tomlin. I went on WayFM.com and captured what 88.7 Nashville was playing throughout the day for about 24-26 hours, give or take.
Here we have the top 10 (out of 165) songs played during August 27, 2009 with a few hours into August 28. TobyMac seems to be ruling the airspace with a whopping 9 songs played in one day with his “City On Our Knees” accounting for 3 of those plays with 4 other songs accounting for the other 6 plays. That’s impressive… like Kelly Clarkson impressive. In fact, “City On Our Knees” is a pretty good song that shows tobyMac’s response to the changing trends of Rap/Hip-Hop with him utilizing digitized voice enhancers (that work wonders with his voice), so now he can sing more instead of rapping or doing his famous dc Talk whisper-singing. Tenth Avenue North is in a close second place with 8 plays divided between 3 songs their hit “By Your Side” getting 5 plays. While Third Day and Chris Tomlin made the Top 10, Casting Crowns did not make the cut (top 20 instead). Casting Crowns didn’t even make the top 20 in songs that got played, they were only played 3 times in a day.
- The Top Ten song played during August 27, 2009
Britt Nicole’s
“The Lost Get Found” and FM Static’s “Take Me As I Am” are the most played songs on the radio during a typical day with 6 plays each. FM Static’s popularity is surprising since virtually nothing was played from their 2nd album despite having a sold first album. Certainly Thousand Foot Krutch’s popularity has helped Trevor gain support for his side project’s 3rd album.
Third Day and Chris Tomlin have a presence with “Born Again” getting 5 plays and “Sing Sing Sing” getting 3 plays. Now with 165 songs played, these top 20 songs account for 79 songs (48%). While the Top 10 Artists that get played account for 63 songs (38%). While there is overlapping here, this is really significant because only 16 songs got played once which means that 10% of the music played on the radio only played one time, and this includes Jars of Clay’s “Love Song for a Savior”, and nothing from their album that they released this year.
So, while I almost always hear a Casting Crowns song on the radio during the hour that I drive, I most just have awesome timing. While I have about the same probability of hearing a tobyMac song as I do someone who only gets played once a day.
So there it is. In other news, Relient K’s Forget and Not Slow Down is hitting shelves October 6th and their new song under the same title can be heard at their myspace. As far as Derek Webb’s new record Stockholm Syndrome, guys I’m just not a fan. Yes it’s different from his usual blend of white guy with guitar, but he is still pointing fingers but now he openly cusses in his music which is either cool or the worst thing ever depending how you stand on the issue. Despite his music being different and his words being stronger, to me it’s still pretty typical of his newer music. If only some band could come along and break the spell of the typical… that would be sweet.
May 19, 2009
Jars of Clay Live with a Derek Webb update
Before I get into the Jars of Clay concert last night, I’ll give you a little update on Derek Webb’s Stockholm Syndrome project yet to be released due to a dispute with his record label. He has sent out two messages to his fans sort of explaining the situation with the label. I say “sort of” because he essentially says he can’t really talk about it. He did say that the dispute is over one particular song that Derek feels passionate about that has a lot to do with race and sexuality. That’s scarey because I do not know what Derek is going to say in the song. He has since then reported that he will not be using his twitter account for updates and has created a new twitter account named “ssyndrome”. He seems to be dishing out clues about something to somebody, but I haven’t figured out what is going on. As far as I know the label trouble is real; however, I think he has turned this into a marketing opportunity to get people excited about the album’s release. It seems to be working. This morning when I started following ssyndrome, I was one of like 600. Now there are over 3000. To read the messages that he sent out to fans, go to derekwebb.com. From what I heard him say live about the album, it is almost purely digital with the possiblity of a little bit of guitar. He said he was bored and wanted out from what is the typical. I bet Mute Math could identify. On to the Jars of Clay Concert… Read the rest of this entry »
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