Peter Ruppert's Blog

The music we love is not something new we find everyday. Many of our favourite songs we’ve been loving for years. From the time we first hear music we love, it can then take a long time if ever to truly connect with the artist. An emotional connection between consumer and artist based largely upon the music is unlikely to endure. The industry is littered with here today / gone tomorrow artists whose star declined when the music faded.

In this month’s PopScores we want to investigate how many artists the average person actually “loves” and to find out if there’s a difference between the genders and the different age groups.

PopScores has the answers. The average number of artists that a person considers a favourite is four. Considering the volume of new releases each week, all competing for this “love” that’s a pretty low number.

Across the ten demographic groups that we cover, those with the least amount of “loved” artists are 13-19 year old males and 50-59 year old males. The top 20 most loved artists for male teenagers are without exception rock bands. The Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Killers, Muse etc all earn plenty of respect from teen males.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the most loved artists for 50+ males are immortal artists such as the Beatles, Dylan, Santana, REM and Annie Lennox. However, what PopScores reveals is that there isn’t much room for love in their hearts given the average of just 3 loved artists

Those who fall in love most easily are 13-19 and 20-29 year old females. These segments love 6 artists on average, double the rate for teen and older males.

Teenage girls also appear to spread their love a little wider. Rock bands dominate the most loved list, but there is also room for female artist such as Kelly Clarkson and Pink.

So does any of this matter? We would argue vehemently that it does. We know from earlier PopScores analysis that there’s a direct and strong correlation between Love and purchase that simply doesn’t exist with Liking for an artist. On average 70% of consumers who love an artist state they will definitely buy new music by that artist.

Despite (or because of?) the volume of information available in the media about artists and a myriad number of ways of consuming their music, monitoring their lives, accessing their thoughts and engaging with their product, the number of artists that each consumer loves is so limited that it must directly impact recorded music sales.