When The Hits Aren't The Hits Everywhere
Written Jul. 27, 2010 by Sean Ross in Research with 0 Comments
We recently got the Edison Research music test for a client in a distant part of the world back. And one of the always interesting aspects of seeing music research from around the world is how universal some hits are - and aren't, in some cases. It's always fascinating to find the place on the map where "Mony Mony," "Maybe I'm Amazed," and "December 1963 (Oh What A Night)" barely register with listeners.
So I took a look at the top 100 for this particular station and divided it into three tiers, with an eye toward seeing just how worldwide the worldwide hits were:
Songs That Usually Would Be Big American Testers: There was 38% overlap. These are the "Every Breath You Take" and "Stand By Me"-type mainstays that are as unavoidable in this territory as they are anywhere else.
Songs That Were Hits Here, But Are Not Reliable American Testers: Almost as big a piece, 34% of the top 100 were songs that would generally be recognized, but not preferred by a similar American audience. But there are places in the world where people don't know they're not supposed to like "Mandy" by Barry Manilow.
Songs That Don't Exist To Americans: Not necessarily local content or songs that didn't come out here. Many of these are, in fact, American songs--just not songs that were ever really hits here. They wouldn't test here and most PDs wouldn't have any reason to test them. They account for the remaining 28% of the top 100.
This, of course, is the reason that music testing is valuable. There's an equal amount of one time hits in this territory that are completely lost to time. In the U.S., time and population shifts have wiped out a lot of local hits. But anything that's not "Every Breath You Take" can still shift, and often does, every few months depending on how you play it. And there's always the moment in its lifespan where a once-reliable top-of-the-pager finally starts its journey away from all-ages ubiquity--something we'll live to see happen even for "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Every Breath You Take," if not tomorrow.
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