Damn! Kendrick Lamar’s success seems unbeatable! Just as in April, the artist’s latest album “Damn” once again landed him the top spot of the monthly chart. But Kendrick Lamar wasn’t the only music artist who managed to stay among the top 10 this month – there were many more!
May saw a fair share of new albums, such as Linkin Park’s “One More Light” or other new releases from SCH and Damso. That said, there weren’t many new faces among the top 10 most popular music artists. Major Lazer, Drake, Ed Sheeran and Metallica, for example, seemed unwilling to give up their spots on the top 10 rankings. Meanwhile, the battle between Drake and Ed Sheeran is still in full swing, the latter having managed to gain one rank on Drake, an improvement for him since April. But going down the ranks of the top 50 music artists, we saw some new faces that show popularity potential among worldwide fan bases.
And of course not to forget to mention Luis Fonsi! As stated in our last post, the Latin popstar is constantly climbing up the top 50 music artist chart, with this month's spot 14, getting ready to knock on the door to get into the top 10 of the most popular music artists - maybe next month?
NEW IN THIS MONTH’S TOP 50: FRENCH MUSIC ARTISTS LAND SPOTS IN TOP 50 CHARTS
SCH - 'DEO FAVENTE'
The French rapper SCH appeared on the charts after dropping his album “Deo Favente” on May 5, 2017. Through his release, SCH landed spot 26 among the most popular music artists worldwide in May and drew attention from 25,600 file sharers – just one day after his album’s release. As we reported in last month’s top list, French rapper Lacrim’s fan base was most active in his home of France and in other French-speaking countries. SCH has a similar distribution of fans, with a large core base in France, followed by Algeria, Morocco, Belgium and the Ivory Coast.
DAMSO - 'IPSÉITÉ'
Through his album release of “Ipséité” on April 28, 2017, Belgian rapper Damso inserted himself into the elite group of this month’s top music artist chart. Similar to fellow rapper SCH, he boasts fans primarily in the same French-speaking countries. Although the level of file sharing activity didn’t get near music artists Ed Sheeran or Drake, Damso attracted 271,259 file sharers in May, allowing him to slide seamlessly to spot 30.
ERUPTION - 'CLOAKS OF OBLIVION'
Another new face in May was the modern thrash metal band “Eruption” from Slovenia, releasing their latest album “Cloaks of Oblivion” on May 2, 2017. The album’s file sharing activity “erupted” with a magnitude of 79,100 file sharers on the day of its release! Although “Eruption” went off with a bang, file sharing activity dropped rapidly after just two days (this ain’t no Eyjafjallajökull) and has been declining ever since. Two weeks after the release, for example, file sharing activity was limited to almost 3,500 P2P users a day. Nevertheless, the album fought successfully for the 28 spot among the top music artists in May!
ROCK BAND LINKIN PARK RECAPTURING THEIR FORMER GLOW WITH “ONE MORE LIGHT”
The American rock band Linkin Park has showed steady growth since 2016, but really took off again with the official release of their latest album “One More Light” on May 19, 2017. Several promotional songs were released this year, such as “Battle Symphony” on March 16 and “Good Goodbye” on April 13. Although file sharer activity only briefly heated up in the wake of these releases, activity, on average, remained quite steady. However, due to a leak of their album two days ahead of schedule, the number of fans sharing Linkin Park’s music spiked and doubled on both May 17 and 18. The official release day witnessed a peak of 50,132 daily P2P users. Overall, the rock pop band’s music was shared by 478,033 P2P users in May. The most active fan base was located in Russia, followed by China and the United States, Linkin Park’s home country. Accordingly, most of the fans in Moscow are eagerly awaiting Linkin Park’s newest releases, whereas the United States didn’t contribute any names to the top 20 cities list.
Source: TECXIPIO
Definition: The rankings are based on the number of unique file sharers: How many peers shared at least one file of the respective music artist in May 2017?