2020 is the year of the Latin breakthrough. Bad Bunny was Spotify's most streamed artist of the year. Latin represented 30% of the global YouTube chart. And Latin is growing faster than any other genre. Proving, once again, that technology, distribution, affects the music being heard.
Used to be records broke on radio. Now they break online. And as word spreads, people play them over and over again and we can see their popularity in raw numbers. Yes, the internet has finally eviscerated the music business's propensity for lying. Well, not completely, there's still subterfuge, but even Justin Bieber couldn't buy a hit, couldn't run the numbers up. You might be able to make a dent by gaming the system, buying streams, but the top of the chart is all genuine. What is happening?
We no longer have a cohesive Top Ten. Ten tracks that everybody listens to. The business is doing its best to anoint said ten, newspapers print the manipulated numbers, but one check online shows them to be phony.
According to the disinformation society made up of the industry and the media, Taylor Swift was the artist of the year, with two breakthrough albums, that topped the chart consistently. Only in the real world, this is completely untrue. Check it out for yourself. She's got not one single track in the U.S. Top Tracks of 2020 nor the global edition.
"Top Tracks of 2020 USA": spoti.fi/2WIorFR
"Top Tracks of 2020": spoti.fi/38xYheF
I won't bother commenting on the quality of Taylor Swift's two lps, but I will say turnabout is fair play and leave it at that.
Once again, the media is out of touch with what is really going on. Hell, on a more important level it had no idea what was going on in the 2020 Presidential race, had no idea so many people would support Trump, and that the issue of packing the court was a nonstarter, although there's a chance the Democrats will eke out two victories in Georgia, but odds are not in their favor. But what do odds even mean these days?
TV might be a walled garden, Fox News might have undue influence, but that's not the case online, where there are no boundaries, and everybody can get a track on Spotify.
Then again, if we go to pure streaming numbers, the majors will lose control of the chart, and that just can't happen!
In other words, what is perceived to be big is just not so. Rock rules on the road, the Spotify Top 50 doesn't correspond. But forever, touring gets no respect, it's all about record sales/streams. But don't ticket sales represent true demand, when people put their dollars down for ducats?
What we've got here is a multifarious music business. The usual suspect powers have lost control. As for their supposed market share, how much of that is made up of distributed indies?
As for genres... Turns out people have a desire for much more than hip-hop and pop. Hip-hop did put a dent in rock, no doubt about it, not that rock did not shoot itself in the foot, not that rock is not moribund, but will Latin eclipse hip-hop as the next major genre?
I'm not holding my breath, but the history of the modern music business is just when something becomes gigantic, supposedly indomitable, it's replaced by something new, with energy, and the old falls by the wayside, can you say "hair bands," that were eclipsed by grunge?
Then again, rockers have been anti-streaming from day one. Meanwhile, hip-hop artists and fans embraced the new distribution format, as did Latin fans and even country fans. Want to win in today's world, don't criticize Spotify, EMBRACE IT! Check the numbers, if you're at the top of the chart you're making more money than ever before. And you're gonna get paid until the end of the track's copyright. As for the de minimis numbers of old acts that once had record deals...maybe people just don't want to listen to your music that much, or maybe you're really a live act. You cannot change the past.
And the past is filled with dirgey celebrity/charity records. Songs no one would put on an album under their own name. Meanwhile, this rendition of "Feliz Navidad" is upbeat, it swings! It's hard to stay motionless while you're listening to it. Especially today, if you want traction, publicity only goes so far, it's got to be in the grooves.
So, I dare you to watch this clip and know who everybody is. No way. Most of the acts are Latin, and those who know the Latin acts probably won't know Big & Rich, never mind Sam Moore and Tommy Shaw. And the youngsters probably won't know Moore or Shaw either. But Styx sells tickets every summer, and Sam, with his departed partner Dave, are the original soul men.
Hold on, they're coming. The Latinos. And we've seen the same thing with hip-hop. All the oldsters who are racist would be stunned to find out their kids love the "urban" sound. Ditto on the music of the minority group known as "Latinos." As for "Latinx"...if you've been following this story, most Latinos don't like it and don't use it, just like Black people may be against police brutality, but not policing in general.
Then again, now I've gotten your hackles up, by speaking truth. Ain't that America, where not only do people not utter the truth, but people can't HANDLE THE TRUTH! Especially on the left, with trigger warnings...IT'S A DAMN BOOK!
But today we embrace the holiday spirit, and nothing I've seen this year has done a better job of it than this clip. Watch it.
Oh yeah, before you do, click "SHOW MORE" under José's name, to see who's involved, you can't tell the players without a scorecard!
P.S. For more Latin info/statistics, I point you to this fact-filled "Billboard" article, "Inside Latin Music's Global Takeover": bit.ly/37QyYW9
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