Label Data Analysis: Top Dawg Ent

In this series, I will be posting a series of graphs highlighting the top groups in modern day hip hop, starting with TDE, or Top Dawg Entertainment. TDE has been at the top of the rap game for a while now, with Kendrick Lamar leading the charge. As you will see with most of the graphs, the front man of the group sells significantly more than the rest of the members. Lamar hit a peak with his last album, DAMN. which had a more commercial sound and focus. Schoolboy Q was the second most popular in the group, and still is, but has not progressed his sales numbers since his 2014 album, Oxymoron. SZA is TDE’s rising star, after her debut album, CTRL put her on the map. Jay Rock is a stalwart of TDE, the group’s first member, and reached his own peak with 2018’s Redemption.

Label Data Analysis: Odd Future

Odd Future is a group that I always compare to TDE in terms of acclaim, but I’m cheating a bit in doing so. The group broke up years ago. However, former members continue to sustain success even after the group’s end, and the Odd Future collective left a huge mark on hip hop. Tyler, the Creator, the group’s founding member, is the most consistent of the top artists. Putting out an album every two years, his success dipped a bit with 2016’s Cherry Bomb, but rebounded and surpassed previous highs with 2018’s Flower Boy. Tyler is due to drop a new album on May 17th, and after the sustained success of Flower Boy, one can only think that sales will continue to rise. Frank Ocean has massive success, when he releases. Blonde and Channel Orange sold well, but fans have had to wait years between projects, creating a unique blend of loyalty and frustration from his fans. Lastly is Earl Sweatshirt. He releases in cycles almost as slow as Ocean but doesn’t have the same success as other OF members. Due to use genre-pushing music and honest lyrics, his fan base is as loyal as any.

Label Data Analysis: Dreamville

Lastly, I have Dreamville. The label, founded by J. Cole, is gaining fame in rap circles, but still does not have the popularity of some of the other labels I’ve included. Cole rivals Lamar’s success in his own album sales, and has sustained it while releasing consistently since 2011. As for the other members, the numbers are not there to compete with TDE or Odd Future yet, Dreamville has time on their side. J.I.D’s DiCaprio 2 helped build a solid fan base (it was his first release with proper promotion), and poised him for success in years to come. Bas has been Cole’s number two for years now and has seen his numbers steadily rise with each release.

One of the big shifts in the music industry in the past few years has been hip hop’s emergence as the most popular genre. 2017 data showed this fact for the first time, and the genre’s dominance continued in 2018. These pieces of data are pulled from all album consumption, not just streaming. The streaming numbers are even more hip hop heavy.

The albums listed on the bottom are almost all hip hop. Streaming seems to have taken over as well as the main source of people’s listening. That idea is harder to determine as its near impossible to average how many times people listen to an album or a song download once they own it. Billboard is having a hard time with this in tallying weekly album and song sales by deciding how much one stream counts for.

A few other details from Buzz Angle’s yearly report were that most forms of individual song and album sales are dropping in favor of streaming, except for vinyl. I’ll get into that in another graphic. Also, the genre listed as EDM seems to encompass all of electronic music, not just the sub genre of EDM.

As I said in the above post, vinyl sales are up the past few years, growing by 12 percent in 2018. Each physical sale is worth significantly more than a stream, so these numbers are what help keep genres like rock and pop so much closer to hip hop in the total album consumption charts.

Even though both charts focus on albums, the vinyl sales give a better representation of people buying the album for the full track list instead of just one song. When streamed, the repeated listening of one song can add up to a full album sale. In metrics like this, the consumer must purchase the full album first. With vinyl specifically, it’s a real pain to try to listen to just one song.

When looking at the individual albums, one will notice that many of the albums are much older than those we normally see topping any kind of album charts. This could be based on a couple of factors. One, the consumer base could be noticeably older than those influencing the total sales charts. Two, there’s more of a commitment to buying a record than there is to stream an album. This could lead to a longer vetting process by the purchaser and make them less likely to buy a new release, and instead push them toward a record that they have known they like for years.

Concert Photo Series: Seattle/LA Venues

Many concert tours and festivals happen during the summer, when I’m not in Oregon to see them. This has led me to get my fix by seeing shows by artists and in venues that are completely new to me. Sometimes, these include festivals, Camp Flog Gnaw is pictured above, a yearly festival in L.A. hosted by Tyler, the Creator. Traveling for concerts is a fun reason to go explore somewhere new. I went to Pemberton, Canada for a music festival in 2016, and went on a road trip down to Los Angeles from Seattle this past summer to see Father John Misty at the Hollywood Bowl.

Seattle, like Portland, is full of small concert venues. Pictured above is the Neptune theater, a smaller theater in an old building full of history. Neumos (also pictured) is one of the smaller venues in Seattle and is located in the capitol hill neighborhood, attracting a young, diverse audience. When I saw Chief Keef, the crowd was almost perfectly even between UW frat boys and those from the rougher edges of the Seattle area.

Concert Photo Series: Portland Venues

As I’ve gone through my college career, I’ve learned about so many different venues in Portland. Each of them is unique and has its own distinct flavor (and smell). These photos are mostly from the Crystal Ballroom and Hawthorne Theater.

The Crystal Ballroom is probably my favorite venue in Portland. A beautiful room with a dangerously large chandelier hanging over the crowd, the ballroom has combines gorgeousness with an innate fear for your safety. The venue is on the third floor and has a “bouncy” floor. Multiple shows have been cancelled due to the floor giving a bit more than audiences expected. It also has hosted some of my favorite ever performances, Anderson Paak’s Malibu Tour stop, Brockhampton’s Love Your Parents stop, and an unreasonably intimate Tyler, the Creator performance.

Hawthorne Theater has slowly creeped up in my concert hall rankings, mostly for its small crowd size. While Roseland and the ballroom can hold up to 1500 people, Hawthorne thirds that with only about 500 spots. Denzel Curry, Isaiah Rashad, and Jay Rock were some of the artists I’ve seen in this venue.

Not pictured here are bigger venues, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Veterans Memorial Coliseum, and Theater of the Clouds at Moda Center. While less intimate, these venues all have their own unique feels, Arlene Schnitzer being my personal favorite of the three.

Concert Photo Series: Roseland Theater

Roseland Theater is a very special place to me. It’s probably where I’ve seen the most shows in Portland, and most importantly, it’s where I saw my first. My freshman year of college, I dreamed of going to all the shows that came through the Oregon area. That dream didn’t come true until the second semester during the Soul’d Out Music Festival.

That first show had three main performers; Dave B, BJ the Chicago Kid and Anderson Paak. I had been to a few shows before this, when I was in high school, but most of them were sets in much larger festivals, but I had only seen a lot of rappers performing with DJs, this was something else entirely.

This show was probably the most religious experience I had ever had up to that moment (and I’ve been to church at least twice). Paak was a strongly recommended artist, but not one I had truly connected with yet. Seeing him perform with a full band was so important to me that I went to two more shows of his in the next six months.

This led to many more Roseland runs, including shows by the Flatbush Zombies (a near-death experience) and Vince Staples.