Do Local Artists Attract Maltese Listeners As Much As Foreign Ones? Spotify Data Doesn’t Suggest So
Listening to music via streaming platforms has become a comfortable and easy habit for us Maltese.
However, the latest data emerging from Spotify’s charts indicates that Maltese listeners prefer to stream music released by foreign artists over local artists. This can be seen in big numbers.
The most recent information on data website kworb.net, which enlists music-related statistics, reveals that in Malta’s Spotify charts local artists are almost completely absent.
Despite the fact that for unknown reasons the Maltese charts have not been updated since 2020, the available information gives enough evidence that locally-produced music is barely streamed.
First of all, why Spotify?
Spotify is the leading music streaming platform across the globe. Figures published after the first quarter of 2022 show that the platform boasts 422 million users, followed by Apple Music with 88 million users. According to the latest figures published in August 2022 by start.io, the platform is used by just under 30,000 people in Malta.
The latest Spotify Weekly chart released on 2nd July 2020, enlists Malta’s Top 200 songs according to the total times a song was streamed during the end of the given week.
In this list, none of the entries were released by local artists.
The top 29 songs of Maltese listeners on the latest Spotify Weekly chart released on 2nd July, 2020
The situation is identical even on the latest Spotify Daily chart released on the 25th of December 2019 which also contains no local artists.
In order to spot some local artists, one has to look at the Spotify Weekly chart totals which gather data from all the weeks between 2014 and 2020. This chart includes any song that entered the Top 200 of Malta’s Spotify streams, at any given week between the given time frame.
This tally includes 3,732 songs out of which a mere 24 were released by local artists. Out of these 24 songs, sixteen of which were released by one band (The Travellers), while the remaining eight were released by five different artists.
Additionally, the data shows that one song peaked in the Top 10 of the weekly chart, two peaked in the Top 50 and three in the Top 100. All the other songs by local artists peaked somewhere between places 100 and 200 in the chart. On the Spotify Weekly chart total, the highest-ranking song released by a Maltese artist can be found at number 626.
Ranked 626th, Michela's Chameleon is the most popular local song of all time among Maltese Spotify listeners
What could be the reasons contributing to this?
1. It is very difficult to make a career out of music in Malta
It is no secret that Maltese recording artists have scarce opportunities to make a living solely out of music. The absence of record labels that invest in their artists and in the industry is just one reason why local singers are reluctant to put resources into their musical career, as it is often a very steep and lonely hill to climb with very few success stories to
draw motivation from.
2. Local artists are not promoted enough
Poor promotion does not only come as a direct consequence of the lack of record labels.
Local artists do not have enough support from radio stations, televised programmes and local events that could promote their material.
How many times do we hear a locally produced song on the radio, or as the jingle of a TV show, or in a nightclub? Whatever the answer is, it is probably not enough.
3. A lack of resources means a lack of quality and appetite
If local artists do not have as many resources as foreign artists, there is no way they can compete with international heavyweights, even on home soil. Minimal resources and funding that are often left for the artist to find, means that the quality of the released content will be hard to match an international standard.
Therefore, little appetite is left for locally produced music when foreign artists have all the means to reach out to all corners of the world.
4. Music of a local flavour seems to be unpopular
This is a subjective claim, but attitudes coming both from artists and their audiences seem to support this assumption. If we had to ask what makes local music particularly Maltese, one could argue that very few artists sing in the Maltese language or try to incorporate Maltese musical sounds in their contemporary tracks.
The few that do so are left out in the dark when it comes to commercial success. Therefore, support for local flavour seems to be unendorsed by the public which seems to be more interested in foreign sounds.
5. Few Maltese artists release music that is not meant for local competitions
If one looks at the majority of the active Maltese singers, the excuse of releasing music comes with participation in the Malta Eurovision Song Contest, or more recently, Mużika Mużika.
Additionally, such singers would have initially found fame either through these local festivals, or through televised talent shows such as X Factor or Malta’s Got Talent.
While this is by no means something negative, it gives the impression that if efforts do not lead to a prize, many artists have little interest in investing their talent and passion in commercial releases which are there for no competitive intentions.
6. What about songwriters and producers?
We often seem to forget that most of the time, it is not just the artist behind a commercial hit, but a team of songwriters who dedicate a lot into perfecting material which is then matched with the artist.
Opportunities for local songwriters seem to be so rare that they cannot focus on their craft on a full-time basis.
Very often, songwriters and producers are the greatest resource but get the smallest amount of credit. Paired with the initial argument that artists have limited resources, the lack of incentive given to songwriters is perhaps one of the most worrying limitations on the local artist.
Given all these underlying issues where Malta’s musical scene seems to make it tougher for the likes of a homegrown artist, it comes as no surprise that the Maltese public does not interact with local artists as much as other nationalities do with their local talents.
Cover photos: Left: The Travellers, Centre: Ira Losco, Right: Kurt Calleja (Photos: Facebook)
What do you make of this?