BILLIONS CLUB: Queen (5/376)

 BILLIONS CLUB

Queen (5/376)

78/376 = 20%

  I wanted to include a catalog artist in the first twenty percent- meaning an artist who hasn't released any new music in the Spotify era, and Queen is probably the most succesful example, with five songs in the BILLIONS CLUB including one,  We Will Rock You, that was added three weeks ago, just after I started this project.  Unsurprisingly, the "album" for four of Queen's five Billions Club songs is the 2018 OST for the Freddy Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody.

   That song- Bohemian Rhapsody, is a member of the two billion streams club.  Historically Queen was classified as a rock act though at this point you would be hard pressed to find any fans from their original, active period- the popularity of their songs on Spotify indicates that a younger generation has successfully connected with their classic hits.  If you go through their whole catalog on Spotify it is easy to see how the 2018 film is the point of contact for the streaming generation, with that OST overwhelming the totals for their actual records.  Another instructive element of looking at the Queen catalog on Spotify is just how much of a mess it can be trying to replicate the physical release history of a succesful act like Queen in the streaming context.  It seems like their of dozens of versions of the different studio and live albums, some of the songs appear to be the same on each record, whereas other songs have several versions scattered throughout the catalog.   Is Queen well served, one might ask, by having two different versions of their forgettable 1980 OST for the equally forgettable Flash Gordon film?

   Another interesting streaming era observation about the Queen catalog is the separationof We Will Rock You from We Are the Champions, which appears to be a product of the 2018 film.  In 1977, the two songs were released together as one single and before the streaming era the two songs were typically played back to back on the radio.  In the streaming era, We Will Rock You is a billion streamer and We are the Champions is stuck on 580 million streams.

   As far as personal experiences go, like all adults on the planet earth over the age of 40, I have plenty.  I was of a prime age to be influenced by the usage of Bohemian Rhapsody in the original Wayne's World film:

  That was a huge moment for me and many other young people growing up in the United States- the first Wayne's World was released in 1992 when I was in high school.   We Will Rock You & We Are the Champions were early examples of "jock jams"- music that would be played either in anticipation of or during professional sporting events- I can particularly hearing the into and chorus of We Will Rock You dozens of times at baseball and basketball games in the Bay Area growing up.  Under Pressure was an FM radio staple when I was a child and then in 1990 Vanilla Ice sampled Under Pressure and reinvigorated and expanded the audience for the original- which was only released in 1981. 

  The only one of the five tracks that I find surprising is Don't Stop Me Now, which has 1.5 billion streams.   I remember both Bicycle Race and Fat Bottomed Girls garnering more attention when I was growing up but neither song has more than 250 million streams.  Of course, Another One Bites the Dust is a stone-cold classic all the way around- that was a song I would sing on the school bus or like, hum to myself in the outfield when I was playing baseball as a kid.  The bassline, in particular, is practically a part of our common musical heritage in the 20th century- the very essence of pop culture. 

  I couldn't find any other songs from Queen that are close- Crazy Little Thing Called Love has over a half billion streams and Somebody to Love has over 700 million.  In addition to Bicycle Race and Fat Bottomed Girls having disappointing streaming numbers, the LGBTQ+ anthem You're My Best Friend only has 200 million streams, which suggests an even tighter connection between the 2018 film and the songs Queen has in the Billions Club.

    In conclusion, that is ten artists with 20 percent of the songs in the BILLIONS CLUB.  It's easy to see a difference between the artists in the first 10 percent- a couple artists with 10 or more songs and then artists with 9, 8 and 7 songs, and the artists from the second 10 percent- already down to five songs per artist.

BILLIONS CLUB: Eminem (7/375)

 BILLIONS CLUB

Eminem (7/375)

73/375  =  19%

  OK- almost to 20 percent- which has been harder than I thought. The first 10 percent of the BILLIONS CLUB comprised four artists: Sheeran, Post Malone, Drake & Dua Lipa- though that should have been Ariana Grande- but that is four artists for the first 10 percent.  Getting to 20 percent requires five  more artists, and that is taking into account I excluded Justin Bieber, who himself has 10 songs in the BILLIONS CLUB.

   Eminem just recently placed his seventh track in the BILLIONS CLUB, Mockingbird from his album Encore, which does not have any other billion stream tracks.  I was surprised that Lose Yourself, his anthem from the highly succesful Eminem biopic 8 Mile, only has 1.6 billion streams- I would have pegged that song to have over two billion streams for sure.  And Eminem isn't solely a catalog artist either, Godzilla, which features Juice WRLD who himself has three other billions stream cuts, was off his 2020 LP(!) Music to Be Murdered By (who knew?).  Godzilla was added to the Billions Club playlist in October of 2022 and then Mockingbird this week.  Another mild surprise in the Eminem discography is that Stan- a song that literally launched a Gen Z culture, only has 834 million streams.

In terms of a potential eighth track for Eminem in the billions club, Stan would be it but that seems far off in the future if ever.  Unlike almost all of the other artists I've looked at on this list, I have plenty of personal experience listening to Eminem. I had some awareness of his existence before he signed to Interscope via his participation in the underground hiphop/turntablist scene of the mid to late 1990's- I can remember owning a cd with an early freestyle of his.  Obviously the story of Eminem is pure major label malarkey after Interscope got involved- he was a real pop/MTV/cd selling machine during an era when artists made real money at that level. 

  His level of stardom peaked in 2002 and 2003 when 8 Mile was released in theaters.  It grossed 250 million, which was good, but it also cemented an idea of Eminem in the public consciousness and gave him Lose Yourself, which I would argue is his biggest hit.   Stylistically, Eminem emerged out of the loosely defined "horrorcore" which you can basically trace back to the Gravediggaz and Kool Keith and his record as Dr. Octagon.   Gravediggaz dates from 1994, and Dr. Octagonacology came out in 1996.  Both Prince Paul, the animating force behind Gravediggaz, and Kool Keith were from the world of turntablism and horrorcore emerged as a kind of high concept attempt to create a new genre of hip hop.  As such, there was always something artificial and inauthentic about the original wave of horrorcore.  No one, for example, though that Kole Keith WAS Dr. Octagon and neither RZA nor Prince Paul ever publicly identified as their Gravediggaz personas.

   What Eminem introduced was a personal narrative to couple with the outrageous lyrics about murder and dismemberment and obviously it landed with a wide, wide audience.  After 2002 he was basically done despite some commercial success- no one really took Eminem seriously after 8 Mile and he responded by fully embracing top 40 commercialism, continuing to release records that critics and audiences hardly know exist.   It seems unlikely that he will ever have another song make the list, but it's impressive that he still had one break through as recently as this week. 

BILLIONS CLUB: XXXtentacion (6/375)

BILLIONS CLUB

XXXtentacion  (6/375)

67/375 =  16%

  This was actually a big week for the BILLIONS CLUB with three cuts making the list- Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen, Losing My Religion by REM and an Eminem song.   All three represent the second main theme of the BILLIONS CLUB: catalog tracks that have endured and prospered in the streaming era. Call Me Maybe and Losing My Religion fit that bill.

   Meanwhile, XXXtentacion, today's artist, represents the flip of that and the main theme in the BILLIONS CLUB: Streaming era artists who either emerged just before streaming took off or came up during the streaming era.  XXXtentacion, of course, was murdered in 2018.  A whopping four songs from his 2018 album ? are on the list and one of those is closing in on two billion streams.

  Also, for the first time, I found two billion stream songs in an artist's catalog that haven't yet been included on the BILLIONS CLUB- suggesting that there are potentially many more billion stream songs than are on the list.   As far as personal experience with XXXtentacion goes, I don't have any beyond hearing that he is essentially the Kurt Cobain of his generation.  Not something I would care to argue about. 

   Perhaps it is the content of those two unplaylisted tracks that prevents them from being included on the Spotify Billions Club playlist. 

BILLIONS CLUB: Bruno Mars (8/373)

BILLIONS CLUB

Bruno Mars (8/373)

61/373 = 16%

   Yesterday a new song- The Business, by Tiesto, was added to the BILLIONS CLUB playlist, so now we are talking 373 songs, not 372.  That's the first new member in two weeks, which suggests that new billion streamers are not commonplace, as one might expect.   In many, many, many ways Bruno Mars is the least interesting artist member of the Billions Club in that his rise represents an utterly conventional music industry pairing a charismatic stage presence with strong writing credentials (he had a publishing deal before he was an artist) and an insider's understanding of the business (his AR contact was Aaron Bay-Schuck, who is now the CEO of Warner Records, largely based on the strength of Mars' performance since 2010.   As such, Mars isn't a streaming era artist, but rather an artist who was on top when streaming came on line.  Four of his eight songs were on the inaugural BILLIONS CLUB playlist in 2021 and each of those tracks was from a different album/project.   Since then Mars has continued to place new tracks in the BILLIONS CLUB, most recently in January of 2023 when the lead single from his Silk Sonic project crossed the threshold.  Mars also has one track from Doo Wops & Hooligans (I can barely type that title out without cringing!) at 966 million, making it a likely ninth BILLIONS CLUB track for him.

   I guess, I could pick apart the production on the different songs and albums but all you really need to know is that every single one of his hits was a combination of talent, production and marketing in which Mars himself played a crucial but not necessarily unreplaceable part.  I sense that Mars, like Bieber, simply occupies a place in the music industry eco-system in a way like more individual distinctive BILLIONS CLUBS members, say, The Weeknd or even Ariana Grande, do not.   What I mean is that you wouldn't ever call Bruno Mars a protean talent, he's more of a savvy operator.  His artistic identity is extremely popular but you would be hard pressed to find a single person who would talk to you about the art of Bruno Mars- I'm just talking about in comparison to other members of the BILLIONS CLUB, not some romantic conception of the artist.