CSPC: Macklemore (& Ryan Lewis) Popularity Analysis

Streaming Sales

Streaming is made up of two families – audio and video. Our CSPC methodology now includes both to better reflect the real popularity of each track. The main source of data for each avenue is respectively Spotify and YouTube. As detailed in the Fixing Log article, Spotify represents 132 million of the 212 million users of streaming platforms, while YouTube is pretty much the only video platform generating some revenue for the industry. Below is the equivalence set on the aforementioned article:

Audio Stream – 1500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream – 11,750 views equal 1 album unit

Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = 212/132 * Spotify streams / 1500 + YouTube views / 11750

Streaming Part 1

Both Thrift Shop and Can’t Hold Us confirm their status as gigantic smashes with more than 1,2 million equivalent album sales from their streams combined. It is interesting to see that while Thrift Shop was at first bigger, as seen in its download sales and its YouTube views, but Can’t Hold Us is now maintaining a higher pace of streams as seen in its Spotify tally.

Same Love and White Walls are both over 100 million on Spotify while the full original track list tops 10 million. Overall, The Heist has 1,86 million EAS from streams. This is truly massive for an album issued in 2012. As a comparison point, Rihanna‘s Unapologetic, released at the same time and owner of Diamonds and Stay, is on 1,44 million so far.

Streams of This Unruly Mess I’ve Made and Gemini are very interesting. While both bombed hard in terms of pure album sales, their streams are far from being that bad. Downtown and Glorious are both over 200 million on Spotify and both albums have additional songs in the 10-50 million range. They are over 400,000 EAS each with Gemini still very early on its promotion and going strong so far.