^ Hehe, I've always wanted a pretty banner...
So I'm fairly bored, and was wondering which female artists had the most plays. I already knew that Britney Spears had the highest play count, but just thought it may be interesting to see the rest. I'm updating figures where possible, the top twenty are checked fairly often as they're most likely to change, but I try to check the rest too.
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Please contact here if
* I haven't included an artist with >1m plays (many are missing)
* You notice incorrect figures/have updated figures
* An artist's name is mispelt
* I've added a band or male artist accidently
* You know of anything else that is relevant
* A common mispelling exists of an artist's name (IE, Beyonce / Beyoncé)
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This is my third and last installment of the "Rock Star" blog, dealing with the state of the music industry today.
Social Networking (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, etc.) has generally been hailed as the new way to promote music, especially for indie musicians so I decided to put this to the test. What can MySpace really do for you?
The first thing you see on all of these sites are those annoying posts "Check out my Music". Very often, they are coupled with giant size poster graphics and many artists feel that they just need to rack up 100,000 friends as quickly as possible and then fire up these "Check me Out" messages.
In my opinion, that's the wrong way to use social networking. I followed a few smaller artists on last.fm that posted that kind of "Check me out..." messages and from their stats I could quickly gather that hardly anybody "checked them out". Their listener numbers really didn't increase at all, even after posting messages all over the place.
To me, MySpace and similar sites are for real networking, building one on one relationships with managers, DJs, other musicians that you may end up touring with together or collaborating on a song with. That does work.
Here is a prime example of such a successful hook up on My Space. A rapper from the UK, Phonetix and his produceer, Hitz connected via MySpace with a Rock Band from Canada, Glam Daddy. They exchanged audio and video recordings and created a "long distance" music video that has been extremely well received on YouTube, MySpace and many other places. You can see the result of that collaboration for yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJGMtzCj3F8
This video is a prime example on how to use Social Networking the right way. So, everybody, stop the annoying check me out messages, pasting entire YouTube clips into somebody's comment box and whatever else you can do to annoy people. On the other hand, do use the net to inform people that are already your fans or friends, they actually want to hear from you.
While on the subject of MySpace, another thing that musician's don't seem to realize is the fact that if you put half a dozen YouTube videos and some MP3s into your MySpace jukebox, they all will want to auto start and play at the same time. What a mess that makes and I've seen this over and over on MySpace pages. Put up one video and if you have many, put up links and a thumbnail to the other videos so visitors to your page don't get bombarded with videos that you can't easily stop. And of course there are some of us who don't have very fast internet connection and then, a busy MySpace page becomes totally unmanageble.
So, yes, Social Networking is a good thing, it has created some unique opportunities for artists but we have to realize its limits and use it right. Put your music up, let people hear and see what you are all about but don't overload people with information, bite size bits are best. That's why Twitter seems to work well for people with their 140 character limit and no music, no videos, no pictures.
In closing, one thing we have to talk about is the 'take over' of the social networking sites by the major labels. A few months back, I got a MySpace friend invitation from, I think it was Ashanti. I said, "cool, Ashanti wants to be my friend". When I clicked through the link, there was nothing there about her being my friend, I just become her friend. A major label ploy to gather 10,000 users to send Spam to. Sort of like George Carlin's definition of "68": It's like 69 but you do me and I owe you. Needless to say, I didn't let Ashanti (or was it Universal?) "do me". So, we have to deal with the fact that the majors have a firm foothold on MySpace and everywhere else because (if they don't own the site already) they can bribe a site with "exclusive video" and other goodies to get top billing. When it the last time you saw the video of a indie artist on the MySpace front page?
So, as I suggested before, Indies have to band together and become a "major label" themselves and start negotiating deals for "exclusive videos" on the networking sites. Unfortunately, as soon as an indie artist racks up some major sales, the labels will sign him within the week and he is no longer an "indie force" to be reckoned with. Two examples of that are Drake and Never Shout Never. Both artists racked up major sales on iTunes and both were signed within one week.
Yes, everybody is just waiting to be signed. But whether they actually end up with lots of money in the pocket after the major label expenses are paid back, that's a whole different story. (you didn't know? you pay for everything, all the bling bling, promos, expensive parties... etc.) I guess that's a topic for Rockstar Part 4.
Alan Steward
Producer, Recording Artist, King of Chill
This Las Vegas based, nineteen-year-old Pop/R&B artist has taken on countless challenges in her young life and career, and has successfully met every single one. Her hot new songs herald the arrival of this very special young artist. Her music will move your body and put a smile on your face.
Born in Gabon, West Africa, Christelle grew up listening to French, African and American music, but the music that struck a chord in her was the American R&B and Hip-Hop of artists like Beyonce, Ashanti, Brandy, Jay-Z, 50 Cent and Mariah Carey. As Christelle recalls, even though I could not understand the lyrics back then, no other music made me feel as good.
Arriving in Las Vegas in 2006, she immediately faced an enormous challenge, the language barrier. She explains, "It was a very difficult transition. It was horrible to not be able to communicate with people. I gained a tremendous amount of respect for the millions of immigrants that make up so much of America".
Determined to learn English as soon as possible, Christelle enrolled in an intensive English school, graduating in December of 2007, qualifying her for the university system. Finding herself even more inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit of some of her favorite R&B and Rap stars, she enrolled into fashion design school, looking to create her own clothing line, in conjunction with her music.
Christelle is adding a more urban, pop and R&B flavor to her music, as she plans for her breakout year of 2009. I loved recording the songs I did this year and seeing them grow, she says with a smile. I know I have come a long way, but I am going to go much further this year. She is excited to hear her music on the radio and is looking forward to touring, and as she says, "I just hope to give back the good feelings I felt when I was in Africa, listening to American music".