YouTube launched its new charts earlier this month, and their publication is giving us some new data on how artists from markets like Latin America and India are performing against the big stars of the US and Europe.
Music Ally has analysed the top 50 entries in YouTube’s global ‘top artists’ chart for the week of 4-11 May to understand some of the dynamics.
It’s no surprise that the US, the world’s largest recorded-music market, is the top country represented in the top 50, with 15 of the artists hailing from the States. However, seven are from India, six from Puerto Rico and five from Colombia.
When you tot up the numbers by continent, the 18 artists from North America (Canada and Barbados included) are only narrowly ahead of the 17 from Latin America – and this is counting US-born Latin artists like Nicky Jam and Romeo Santos in the US total.
There’s more to this story too. If you just focus on the top 20 artists on YouTube from the week covered by our analysis, nine of them – 45% – hail from Latin America, with six from North America, three from India and two from the UK. Take just the top 10, and six of those artists are from Latin America, two from India and one apiece from North America (which is Nicky Jam) and the UK. As an illustration of the music demographics at play on YouTube – at least at the top end of its catalogue – it’s pretty interesting.
We’re in a world where a global western star like Ed Sheeran is doing pretty well on YouTube, with 143m weekly views, but also where his total pales in comparison to top-ranked star Ozuna, from Puerto Rico, with his 261m weekly views.
In fact, Puerto Rican artists currently hog five of the top 10 spots on the chart, with Ozuna joined by Bad Bunny, Darell, Daddy Yankee and Nio Garcia in the upper reaches of YouTube’s rankings – the music of these five artists alone generated 751m views on YouTube last week.
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