The Metrics of Musical Success in the Age of Instagram Reels and Streaming

This is the first in The Hollywood Reporter India’s ‘Take Note’ series, which analyses what’s keeping the Indian music industry on its toes.

For better or worse, we’re no longer in the age of monoculture. A superstar, for one, could be a virtual unknown to another. Since listening to music, like watching TV shows, has become a hyper-individualised activity with algorithms designed to tailor playlists to your specific tastes, the days of a tune being known by everyone you know have more or less disappeared. 

So, how do you measure success in these times? Until a few years ago, if you — like the majority of the country — listened to music on YouTube, then the thumbnail showing the millions of views a video had received would be an indicator that it was a smash. This, however, was more a marketing tool than an authoritative stamp of success, because the play count shown below a clip includes paid and promoted views. For more authentic figures, you’d need to see YouTube’s charts, which few, besides those working in the Indian music industry, check.

Moreover, as consumers are increasingly discovering music through short-format video platforms, such as Instagram’s Reels, fewer songs are reaching the 1 billion views mark — or the YouTube equivalent of crossing ₹500 crore at the box office — than they did in the past. It’s been almost two years since the last time such a juggernaut — ‘Jhoome Jo Pathaan’ from Pathaan — was released back in December 2022.

With listenership fragmented across platforms, another way to know how well a track is doing is by looking at lists of the most-played songs on audio-streaming services, like Spotify or Apple Music, where a single by an Indian pop or rap star such as Anuv Jain or King is as likely to reach the number one spot as a tune from a recent Bollywood or Kollywood release is. However, certain regional languages such as Bhojpuri or Haryanvi, which are a regular source of chart-toppers on YouTube, are under-represented on the likes of Spotify.

Oxymoronic as it may seem, these days, it’s entirely possible to have a “hit” without ever reaching the charts. Just ask composer Yashraj Mukhate, whose musical memes have made him a favourite of both social media users and brands. Then, there are artistes with a niche, distinct sound that is rarely streamed in the numbers required for a spot on the national top-ten surveys, but draws enough of a loyal following to enable them to stage national and international tours. Like the alternative rock band Peter Cat Recording Co., which is currently on a 77-date worldwide trek through North America and Europe that will culminate in India.

There’s also a category of acts that boast neither the streams nor the ticket sales in vast quantities, but have both the stage presence and the personableness to land a range of endorsements and engagements, such as singer-songwriter and actor Lisa Mishra, whose under-performing album hasn’t prevented her from scoring a couple of prestigious festival slots this season. 

Of course, sometimes, a song or artiste is so ubiquitous that their success is undeniable. Your parents may not have heard even one Taylor Swift song, but they’re likely to have heard of Taylor Swift. And though Vicky Kaushal’s loose-limbed dance moves might have taken some of the attention away from Karan Aujla, the vocalist and composer behind ‘Tauba Tauba’ from Bad Newz, it’s one of the rare smashes to be everywhere — on Reels, YouTube and Spotify. In fact, on Spotify, which publishes both countrywide and city charts, it reached the number one spot not only in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Patna and Pune, but also featured in the top ten in Guwahati, Hyderabad, Imphal, and in the top 50 in Kochi. But, then again, it never quite took off in Chennai.