Kantar data on free U2 album consumption by Apple device users.
- Thread starter Super Yo
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Anyway, I was actually in this thread to contribute some last.fm data. I don't entirely feel like wading into the wider debate, especially since it seems to come with the assumption that criticism of SOI, its release method, or the OP data equates to criticism of all three. What I was hoping is that last.fm had an easy way to display total plays of an artist for a specific month, but evidently it either doesn't or it's hard to find. I can't be arsed spending too much time on this.
My point, however, is that last.fm draws on a much larger sample of music listeners than the data in the OP, and I would certainly place a lot more stock in it as an indication of what people are actually listening to (especially as you have to listen to over half a song for it to scrobble; it does not count skipped tracks).
So, since there's been some discussion of "zomg U2 had more plays than Taylor Swift and Katy Perry combined!!!!", here's the last.fm plays for the top three songs for all three artists, for both the past week and the past six months.
U2
Last week: With or Without You (5,025 plays); Beautiful Day (4,576); One (3,284); the highest SOI song is Every Breaking Wave in fifth with 2,739.
Last six months: With or Without You (75,893 plays); Beautiful Day (71,091); The Miracle (65,387).
Taylor Swift
Last week: Blank Space (17,193 plays); Shake It Off (13,625); Style (13,084); all of her top twelve songs have more plays than U2's #1.
Last six months: Shake It Off (188,875 plays); Blank Space (86,657); Style (59,607).
Katy Perry
Last week: Roar (9,486 plays); Dark Horse (9,378); This Is How We Do (6,330). Her #4, Firework (5,914), also outdoes U2's #1.
Last six months: This Is How We Do (126,905 plays); Dark Horse (117,892); Roar (112,397). This time, fourth place - Birthday on 66,246 - is below U2's #1.
Make of that what you will.
I suppose I better end this with a disclaimer that I have no particularly strong opinion on Taylor Swift or Katy Perry - from casually hearing a handful of songs in passing, I suppose you could say a tendency towards dislike that I have not bothered to confirm (except for "Roar", which blows chunks) - and, I really shouldn't need to say this, I like U2.
My point, however, is that last.fm draws on a much larger sample of music listeners than the data in the OP, and I would certainly place a lot more stock in it as an indication of what people are actually listening to (especially as you have to listen to over half a song for it to scrobble; it does not count skipped tracks).
So, since there's been some discussion of "zomg U2 had more plays than Taylor Swift and Katy Perry combined!!!!", here's the last.fm plays for the top three songs for all three artists, for both the past week and the past six months.
U2
Last week: With or Without You (5,025 plays); Beautiful Day (4,576); One (3,284); the highest SOI song is Every Breaking Wave in fifth with 2,739.
Last six months: With or Without You (75,893 plays); Beautiful Day (71,091); The Miracle (65,387).
Taylor Swift
Last week: Blank Space (17,193 plays); Shake It Off (13,625); Style (13,084); all of her top twelve songs have more plays than U2's #1.
Last six months: Shake It Off (188,875 plays); Blank Space (86,657); Style (59,607).
Katy Perry
Last week: Roar (9,486 plays); Dark Horse (9,378); This Is How We Do (6,330). Her #4, Firework (5,914), also outdoes U2's #1.
Last six months: This Is How We Do (126,905 plays); Dark Horse (117,892); Roar (112,397). This time, fourth place - Birthday on 66,246 - is below U2's #1.
Make of that what you will.
I suppose I better end this with a disclaimer that I have no particularly strong opinion on Taylor Swift or Katy Perry - from casually hearing a handful of songs in passing, I suppose you could say a tendency towards dislike that I have not bothered to confirm (except for "Roar", which blows chunks) - and, I really shouldn't need to say this, I like U2.
Hater 
LemonMelon
More 5G Than Man
Why are you even posting here? Go find some Agalloch fans and worship Satan or whatever it is metal fans do.
OP
OP
Super Yo
New Yorker
The most surprising thing is people is still using last fm.
Sent from my iPad using U2 Interference
Sent from my iPad using U2 Interference
CosmoKramer
Rock n' Roll Doggie
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2004
- Messages
- 3,325
What is Last FM? Is it a streaming service of some sort?
Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
I was thrown out of the Agalloch cabal when I gave Marrow of the Spirit just four stars out of five.
HATER 4 LYF.
Oh, just some obscure website with over forty million users: Last.fm - Listen to free music and watch videos with the largest music catalogue online
Basically, it records all the songs you play and spits the data back as fun charts - your own personal stats, artist stats, weekly charts, etc.
I've been on there ten years and have over 331,000 tracks recorded (or "scrobbled"). It's kind of fascinating to see the trends, but then of course the guy who runs a setlist database is interested in statistics.
LemonMelon
More 5G Than Man
It's a tool that keeps track of all digital plays by a user; iTunes, Spotify, etc.
The issue with using last.fm as a data source is that the numbers are more likely to be influenced by demographic than drawing data from all iOS devices. But it is what it is, another source to draw from. And it does have a very large userbase indeed. U2 was #56 last week.
Salome
you are what you is
No, the goal was accomplished when a couple of months later people still have some of those songs playing in their iTunes. While barely any none-U2 fan played any of the No Line songs on their iTunes, let alone months after the release.
Of course U2 aren't as popular as Taylor Swift or Katy Perry, let alone more popular than the two of them together. Because of the release method - at least on iTunes - they are able to be heard alongside them. Which sure as hell didn't happen with No Line. And I don't think releasing Moment of Surrender as a first single would have changed that either.
womanfish
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Wow! What i take from this is that U2 is FAR more popular than I imagined. Taylor Swift and Katy Perry are the two biggest music forces right now. That U2 even comes close shocks me.
I commute about 45 to and from work each day, and listen to pop and A/C stations with my daughter in the car. I usually hear Katy Perry once and Swift about 3 times each day. I have heard EBW maybe 3 times in the last 3 months.
So that they have any songs near the same amount of plays as those two artists current hits is pretty amazing.
But that's a bullshit answer.
OF COURSE it's going to be in more iTunes libraries. It was forced there.
Of 23 million users, let's say 5 million purposefully kept the album because they like it, and 5 million deleted it because it's an affront to their delicate sensibilities to have a U2 album. That still leaves the album in 13 million accounts of people who just really don't give a shit either way.
Is it really more impressive to have a higher play count because you simply forced your way into the accounts of millions of people? No Line still has millions of people who actually bought the album because they wanted it.
It's like iTunes payola.
Galeongirl
Galeonbroad
Hewson
Blue Crack Supplier
Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate...
Now where have I (and only 11% of folks)heard that before?
Registered Dude
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
I'd hazard if this were Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Kanye, shit, even the Rolling Stones, no one would be using the word "forced." Sure some would still cry foul, but there'd have been much less noise about it, because these artists are still associated with "cool"
The narrative of the SOI release has become one of an album that was shoved down peoples' throats. This is a narrative that was shaped by a blogosphere that largely dislikes U2. It's important to remember this.
Some artists could get away with it. Others cant.
/aside
The narrative of the SOI release has become one of an album that was shoved down peoples' throats. This is a narrative that was shaped by a blogosphere that largely dislikes U2. It's important to remember this.
Some artists could get away with it. Others cant.
/aside
i would say that if the stones had done the same thing they would have had a very similar reaction. if kanye had done it, there would have been a million outraged soccer moms.
popacrobat
Rock n' Roll Doggie FOB
I don't know if any artist could've gotten away with it unscathed. Taylor Swift would probably be the best bet but I still don't think she would've.
CosmoKramer
Rock n' Roll Doggie
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- Aug 19, 2004
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- 3,325
Ah. Nice. I guess times have changed since September.
DaveC
Blue Crack Addict
I for one would be quite annoyed if a album from a band I had no interest in listening to just showed up in my music and started playing songs from it on shuffle mode. Especially if there was no way to get rid of it at first.
So I do understand a bit of the reaction from people who had no interest in U2 suddenly having SOI appear in their playlists.
Of course, this being the Internet, there are always the hyperbolic jackasses that will claim that something which is really no more than a minor personal annoyance is basically the worst thing to happen on earth since the Holocaust, but the trolls are never going away.
Overall I don't think the people claiming the release was an overwhelming home run success are correct, but neither are the people claiming that U2 just committed career suicide. It worked, maybe not as well as they had hoped but like others have said, if the goal was simply to get people talking about U2 and to have more people listening than heard NLOTH, it worked quite well.
Hawkmoon269
War Child
I guess I'm part of their 40 million users, because I was using it like 5 years ago. So it would be nice to know how many active users they actually have now.
They say 23% of all ios users are listening to u2. How can they say that when theve only asked 2-3000 people??
The info is so inaccurate its untrue. Ill take it though and i will be telling everyone that a 1/4 of apple users are listening to u2
The info is so inaccurate its untrue. Ill take it though and i will be telling everyone that a 1/4 of apple users are listening to u2
DaveC
Blue Crack Addict
They say 23% of all ios users are listening to u2. How can they say that when theve only asked 2-3000 people??
The info is so inaccurate its untrue. Ill take it though and i will be telling everyone that a 1/4 of apple users are listening to u2
Bad Exit
Acrobat
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I'll really try for this to be my last post on here because we're running in circles.
People has argued that the release method was a failure, fubar, a huge mistake.
This stat proves that it still worked. The album release accomplished what it was meant to do. Many people hated it (not their target market anyway), but many people "accepted" it, kept it and still listens to it.
Surely this people are not your friends with whom you have those deep discussions about those 50 best albums released last week (who likely don't care about U2 and are not really their target market neither), and while obviously it doesn't mean that they're now more popular than swift and any other pop star (which I doubt was their intention in the first place) it shows that the release method far from made them the most hated and despised musicians in the world (or despite that in any case) it also made them reach and be accepted and remain in people's music in 2015, 5 months after the release date, the delete option and with no promotion whatsoever.
Fubar? Of course not. It didn't went smooth, but it worked far beyond the "they were forced to listen to it!" argument and -imho- way better for them than if it had been released in a traditional way.
People has argued that the release method was a failure, fubar, a huge mistake.
This stat proves that it still worked. The album release accomplished what it was meant to do. Many people hated it (not their target market anyway), but many people "accepted" it, kept it and still listens to it.
Surely this people are not your friends with whom you have those deep discussions about those 50 best albums released last week (who likely don't care about U2 and are not really their target market neither), and while obviously it doesn't mean that they're now more popular than swift and any other pop star (which I doubt was their intention in the first place) it shows that the release method far from made them the most hated and despised musicians in the world (or despite that in any case) it also made them reach and be accepted and remain in people's music in 2015, 5 months after the release date, the delete option and with no promotion whatsoever.
Fubar? Of course not. It didn't went smooth, but it worked far beyond the "they were forced to listen to it!" argument and -imho- way better for them than if it had been released in a traditional way.
Seriously?
elevated_u2_fan
Blue Crack Supplier
I mean, why don't they just ask all the people with an iOS device? duh.
RaisedByWolves
War Child
Very true Bad Exit. Enough said.
Hollow Island
New Yorker
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- Jan 16, 2011
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- 2,947
I don't know, U2 seem to want critical respect just as much as for people to listen to them, and their critical standing is at an all-time low. This is by far their worst reviewed album, and it's mostly the fault of the release. And people not using their ears to review an album, but when you create such a stir there's no room to talk about the music. The best way to get people to listen is through word of mouth, and the word of mouth was bad. Had they released this wonderful record in a traditional way, people wouldn't have had anything else U2 related to compete with it. Word would have spread about the quality of the record. Instead word spread about U2 being digital soul rapists. The release was a failure, there's no way to argue that it wasn't. There are no hits. The album isn't a hit. It has a very poor reputation. And this apple data is meaningless.
bono_212
Blue Crack Distributor
Of course, for the Last.Fm stats, without total plays, it's meaningless since U2 has more songs .
(just ribbing, absolutely not surprised by those numbers, except for thinking that fans of pop music didn't use last.fm.)
i think if the Stones have done it, it would've looked more pathetic, and people would've reacted more with pity for how far they've fallen.
Taylor might have had even bigger backlash. She is incredibly popular, but that's come with burning some bridges along the way.
. (just ribbing, absolutely not surprised by those numbers, except for thinking that fans of pop music didn't use last.fm.)
i think if the Stones have done it, it would've looked more pathetic, and people would've reacted more with pity for how far they've fallen.
Taylor might have had even bigger backlash. She is incredibly popular, but that's come with burning some bridges along the way.
popacrobat
Rock n' Roll Doggie FOB
Of course, for the Last.Fm stats, without total plays, it's meaningless since U2 has more songs
(just ribbing, absolutely not surprised by those numbers, except for thinking that fans of pop music didn't use last.fm.)
i think if the Stones have done it, it would've looked more pathetic, and people would've reacted more with pity for how far they've fallen.
Taylor might have had even bigger backlash. She is incredibly popular, but that's come with burning some bridges along the way.
Yeah, I agree. I still think she's probably the safest bet to get away with something like this. My point more or less is that anybody who did this was going to take some punches along the way. I'm sure U2 had to know that. If they didn't, well, then I guess they haven't ever logged onto the internet.
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