Music Industry Intelligence Tool Chartmetric Launches Data-Driven Equity Initiative “Make Music Equal”

Inaugural “Make Music Equal” dataset features self-defined pronoun and gender metadata for 490K+ artists worldwide, free for commercial & academic use

Chartmetric partners with The Gender Identification Project, a coalition of 10 organizations representing 50K female creators, on efforts to close the gender gap

 

August 26, 2021—Chartmetric, the leading market analytics and business intelligence service for the music industry, announces the launch of the “Make Music Equal” initiative (makemusicequal.chartmetric.com) today on Women’s Equality Day. This data-driven project creates transparency around structural inequities and unseen imbalances across all music business sectors and social media platforms. Its goal is to reveal the need for equal voices and broad representation and to help foster efforts to create a level playing field. Through data collection, Chartmetric hopes to gauge the severity of the problem and to determine where energy and resources must be focused.

Chartmetric’s Business Intelligence Analyst Michelle Yuen said, “The purpose of this data-driven equity initiative is to create a collaborative hub for measuring and improving on structural inequities in today’s music industry. Many different non-profits and organizations have already been working tirelessly to amplify and uplift the many underserved voices in the industry; we aim to further underscore and contribute to their efforts in making music an equal platform for all."

The inaugural iteration of the “Make Music Equal” initiative unveils a dataset for 490,000+ artists worldwide, including self-defining pronouns (as listed in artist bios), genre of work, and country. The database examines the distribution of pronouns overall, as well as distribution by music genre, streaming playlists, and charts. Provided under a Creative Commons license, the data is available for all uses, including commercial, and will be refreshed over time. Chartmetric’s vision for this database is to create a platform for gender equality where record labels, publishers, brands, booking agencies, sync teams, and others can balance their rosters, shows, and other content to uplift voices less often heard.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE “MAKE MUSIC EQUAL” INITIATIVE INCLUDE:

• 4x more he/him artists than she/her artists; 4x more male artists than female artists; Almost 5x more all he/him bands than all she/her bands; 5x more all male bands than all female bands
• 1 percent they/them solo artists
• Almost 6 percent non-binary artists
• Top streamed tracks on Spotify: 4x more he/him solo artists and than she/her solo artists. Top streamed tracks on Pandora: 4.8x more he/him solo artists than she/her solo artists; Top streamed tracks on YouTube: 2.3x more he/him solo artists than she/her solo artists; Spotify Top 200 chart: 2.7x more he/him artists than she/her artists; Apple Music Global Top 200 chart: 3.8x more he/him artists than she/her artists; YouTube Artists Global Top 100: 2x more he/him artists than she/her artists 
• Hip-Hop: 6x more he/him solo artists than she/her solo artists; Country: 2.5x more he/him solo artists than she/her solo artists; Pop: 1.7x more he/him solo artists than she/her solo artists; Dance & Electronic: 5.6x more he/him solo artists than she/her solo artists; Latin & Caribbean: 3.7x more he/him solo artists than she/her solo artists Indie: 1.7x more he/him solo artists than she/her solo artists; Rock, Punk & Metal: 3.8x more he/him solo artists than she/her solo artists

Chartmetric has also partnered with Monica Corton (CEO and Founder, Go To Eleven Entertainment) and the Gender Identification Initiative—a coalition of 10 organizations serving women and other under-represented creators—in an effort to increase the accurate data that is collected and analyzed on gender with regard to song and master creation by making gender identification a mandatory field for song registration at TheMLC.com and via label data in the PIE and MEAD DDEX standards that is mandatory at the master registration level.

As the Chartmetric solution will scale gender-relevant data in the interim, the Gender Identification Initiative will ensure an enduring level of insight that is future-proof.

Future iterations of the “Make Music Equal” project may address other forms of identity (including age, ability, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, or religion) as well as other segments of the music industry.

Visit: Makemusicequal.chartmetric.com; #makemusicequal

ABOUT CHARTMETRIC & “MAKE MUSIC EQUAL”

Founded by digital developer Sung Cho with the goal of helping advance music with the power of data, Chartmetric is a leading business intelligence tool created for the entertainment industry. Using state-of-the-art data collection, data cleaning and data visualization practices, Chartmetric tracks 5M+ artists from around the world on over 30 streaming and social platforms. Its insights provide the platform’s subscribers (including music labels, artists & management, digital distributors, branding & creative agencies, live sector executives and more) the best digital vantage point to make efficient, creative decisions. Chartmetric’s mission is to help entertainment professionals make smarter and faster music business decisions by providing reliable data, striking visuals, fast and in-depth insights, innovative features and rockstar customer support. With the vision of ushering creatives into the Information Age, Chartmetric has been covered by the likes of Complex, Forbes, Rolling Stone and Music Business Worldwide. Learn more at chartmetric.com.

ABOUT THE GENDER IDENTIFICATION PROJECT 

The Gender Identification Initiative is a coalition of ten organizations serving women and other under-represented creators that are working to obtain accurate data on gender for creators of songs and masters. They are led by Monica Corton, CEO & Founder of Go to Eleven Entertainment. The organizations, who represent 50,000+ creators, include the Asian American Collective, Change the Conversation, Diversify the Stage, Gender Amplified, Inc., Maestra Music, She is the Music, Shesaid.so, We Are Moving the Needle, Women in CTRL and Women in Music. They are working with The MLC to ask that the gender question be a mandatory field that songwriters (or their publishers) complete at the registration entry point for song data. In addition, they are working with A2IM, MERLIN and the major labels for adoption and usage of the PIE and MEAD DDEX standards for masters so that gender identification may be seen at all levels of the recording process (artists, producers, engineers, etc.). The goal is that wide adoption at the entry point where data is provided for creators to get paid will finally give the industry accurate data to be able to successfully analyze when women and other under-served communities are involved in the creation of music. This data can then be used to track chart positions, awards, traction in different licensing arenas (film/television/video games/advertising/digital platforms), and many other insights.