Collaborations Make A Big Difference On Spotify
Collaborations between artists have always brought about an interesting meld between two styles and even genres. Going back t the 1980s pairing of Run DMC with Aerosmith for their genre-breaking version of “Walk This Way,” collaborations tend to propel a hit to ever greater heights, or even revive it when it seems dead. Spotify recently looked into the process and found the success rate was much greater than thought.
They Work Big Time
Spotify looked at more than 40 of the biggest crossover collaborations over the last 12 years to see if they could measure the growth after 6 months. What they found was that “75% of artists involved saw an increase of at least 10% in overall Spotify streams across their catalogs compared to the six months prior. More than 50% of those same artists saw their stream numbers grow by at least 50% in that same time period, while 30% saw their number of streams rise by at least 100%.”
Take Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus‘ version of “Old Town Road” for instance. It was a modest hit for Lil Nas X, but pairing with Cyrus shot the streams for the remixed verision up by an incredible 390,000% in just 6 months.
In 2017 Luis Fonzi teamed with reggaeton godfather Daddy Yankee on “Despacito” and the streams rose up 2,600%. As soon as Justin Bieber joined the song, it spiked another 4,300% over the next 6 months, going on to become one of the most streamed and viewed songs ever made.
It Can Work For Indies Too
If you’re an indie artist, you’re probably thinking, “These are all superstars signed to major labels. What does that have to do with me?”
Collaborations bring an interesting new approach to your music. The more far out it seems, the better it might work. Instead of your music falling between the cracks because it sounds too similar to other artists, suddenly it can have a fresh new feel to it. Not only that, the extra exposure can mean a much wider audience that goes beyond your expected demographic.
That’s not to say you should do a collab just for the sake of it. It has to be fun for both parties and interesting too. It’s a risk for sure, but the possible rewards are well worth the time.
