While homegrown talent like Tate McRae, Drake, The Weeknd and Justin Bieber are reaching worldwide success, U.S. artists still dominate streaming and touring market, the report by public policy think tank The Australia Institute finds.
That's according to a new Australian music report that says Canadian artists are having a hard time penetrating the streaming algorithm for music discovery.
The study, written for public policy think tank The Australia Institute by music economist Will Page and Australia Institute Research Director Morgan Harrington, flags that the issue is an algorithmic one.
While the report focuses on Australia’s music industry, the researchers use Canada as a key comparison point and claim that artists from other English-speaking countries — aside from the United States — are facing a lack of algorithmic promotion on streaming platforms.
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On streaming services, the recommendation algorithms are a main reason why artists from down under are experiencing a revenue decline, despite Australian musicians spending more on music. Often, the platforms overwhelmingly promote music from the U.S., which is considered the largest source of English-language recorded music.
For European countries, Page and Harrington found that local artists were topping the charts and on streaming services. They point to “glocalization” in relation to music streaming, describing how domestic artists top their national charts. But in Canada, very few homegrown artists have recently topped the streaming charts.
“Canadians are encroached upon by the dominance of its southerly neighbour, with a steady decline of domestic presence compounded by a ‘talent drain’ where many of their own major breakthrough artists are signed and managed out of the United States,” the report says.
This year alone, only five Canadian artists have hit No.1 on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart, including two albums from The Weeknd, PARTYNEXTDOOR & Drake’s collaborative $ome $exy $ongs 4 U and Tate McRae’s So Close to What, marking the pop singer’s first No. 1 on the chart. The most recent was Justin Bieber’s Swag, which sat at No. 1 for one week.
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Currently charting at No. 1 on the Canadian Hot 100 is Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia,” on Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl, which sits at No. 1 on Canadian Albums for a seventh week.
Over on the Billboard Canada Airplay charts, where Canadian Content requirements for radio stations play a major role, McRae and Bieber have each had their own respective chart-topping tracks on CHR/Top 40, while Three Days Grace scored the top spot twice throughout the year on Mainstream Rock. JJ Wilde, The Beaches and Fionn have shaken up Modern Rock’s No. 1 slot.
Today, the only Canadian notching a No. 1 on the Airplay charts is Bieber’s “Daisies,” which has maintained the top spot for two weeks on AC, after being dethroned by Swift on CHR/Top 40.
But comparing the top 100 artists in the Australian and Canadian markets, the former has six artists, whereas the latter has eight, with two in the top ten — Drake at No. 2 and The Weeknd at No. 6. Canada outperforms Australia in terms of prominence, with two global artists and a host of others, including Bieber, McRae and Shawn Mendes.
Sourcing Canadian artists on streaming services is an essential element of discoverability, which has become a hot topic across the music industry. The discussion follows the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's (CRTC) implementation of the Online Streaming Act. The once-in-a-generation update to CanCon regulations elicited various music orgs to voice their opinions on the changes, one of which is the importance of artist discoverability for Canadian artists.
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With the intention of increasing artist discoverability, an important part of the hearings was last year's CRTC decision to require major foreign-owned streaming services with Canadian revenues over $25 million to pay a now-paused 5% of revenues into independent Canadian content funds.
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Over five days of hearings in September, music industry groups took the stand to detail how artists can be discovered on streaming services. B.C. indie label Nettwerk Music Group suggested making “investments in hiring and supporting Canadian streaming platform staff who work within the Canadian music business to promote and support Canadian artists,” across the country and globally. CBC/Radio Canada noted that there should be a "flexible regulatory approach" that is tailored to individual streaming services.
Where the Canadian music industry overwhelmingly shines, the report finds, is through touring globally.
“This could be because the Canadian government does more to support [their] artists, which gives them a greater chance of success in the broader English-speaking world,” they say, citing subsidies from music initiatives and organizations like the Canadian Starmaker Fund and FACTOR.
