BILLIONS CLUB: Post Malone (10/391)

BILLIONS CLUB

Post Malone (10/391)

149/391 = 38%

  Post Malone is back, and into double digits with White Iverson, which was added to the Billions Club playlist earlier this week.  Like the Imagine Dragons tune I just wrote about, White Iverson is the third song from his 2016 album, Stoney to make it into the Billions Club, and also like that last Imagine Dragons song, there doesn't appear to be a fourth song ready to make the list.  One song has 450 million streams, a few have 300-350 million and the rest are at 200/100 million, meaning this is the last Post Malone tune from this record that will be added to the Billions Club for a minute.

 

Posted 3/5/23

BILLIONS CLUB

Post Malone (9/372)

Total: 20/372- 5%

   So here's a lesson- the top two artists comprise, between them, five percent of the 372 songs that have reached one billion streams on Spotify.   Whereas Ed Sheeran is the top representative of artists whose fans don't listen to many other artists, I think Post Malone's success with billion stream songs represents the fact that he put out the biggest record of the year inside the Spotify era- eight of his nine BILLIONS CLUB tracks were on the original list on July 21st, 2021.  Since that time he's only added one more track,  Goodbyes, with Young Thug, from his 2019 record.  That last track was added to the playlist in July 2022.

   None of the songs on his June 3rd, 2022 record, Twelve Carat Toothache, are even close.  His two top songs from that record BOTH have 473,000,000 plays- which is almost uncanny- that they would BOTH have 473,000,000 plays at the exact same time.  Those numbers suggest that he won't add another song to the BILLIONS CLUB for at least a year and a half if not two years. 

  One principle of the BILLIONS CLUB that seems apparent in the first two artists is that even at the highest level there is a big difference between the stream totals of the hits vs. the album cuts.   It's not like EVERY Ed Sheeran and Post Malone song is over or close to one billion streams- far from it.

   I don't have any personal experience listening to Ed Sheeran beyond what I over here in public spaces where there is piped in music and even then I wouldn't be able to identify a specific song by him if I heard one- only that it "sounds like Ed Sheeran."  With Post Malone, on the other hand, I actually listen to two of these nine songs.  Those are Circles and Sunflower.  Sunflower is his top song with 2.5 billion streams and Circles is close to crossing the two billion play threshold.   Those two songs are undeniable hits and frankly, they might as well be by Ed Sheeran or even Frank Sinatra for that matter in terms of the simple song structure and sentimental lyrics.  Nothing edgy or groundbreaking to see here.

   Post Malone obviously has legions of dedicated fans who have probably listened to his songs thousands of times.  His fans are young, who are the biggest co-hort of Spotify listeners.  And, most importantly, he has emerged DURING the streaming era, whereas Ed Sheeran straddled the streaming era- emerging in 2011 before Spotify really established itself, but quickly coming to dominate the new platform.

    There is a follow up post about whether the songs from his new record make it to a billion.