The music industry will gather Sunday for the 61st Annual Grammy Awards to honor some of the best in the business.
Instead of waiting for the Recording Academy’s group of industry insiders to crown its favorite crooners, a Morning Consult/The Hollywood Reporter survey asked consumers who they think should win some of the most popular categories, including Best New Artist and Best Rap Song. Respondents could play each nominated song, or each nominated album or artist’s most popular song, before voting in the poll.
In the analysis below, we also compared the general public’s vote with that of younger (ages 18-29) listeners, along with other data-driven insights on how the music industry is changing.
Forty-three percent of adults offered no opinion or said they didn’t know. More information and methodology here.
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Black Panther: The Album | 14% |
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Scorpion | 10% | |
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Invasion of Privacy | 9% | |
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Beerbongs & Bentleys | 7% | |
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Golden Hour | 7% | |
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By the Way, I Forgive You | 5% | |
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H.E.R. | 3% | |
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Dirty Computer | 2% |
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Invasion of Privacy | 20% |
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Black Panther: The Album | 18% | |
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Beerbongs & Bentleys | 17% | |
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Scorpion | 14% | |
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H.E.R. | 5% | |
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Golden Hour | 3% | |
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By the Way, I Forgive You | 2% | |
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Dirty Computer | 2% |
Film soundtracks resonated well with audiences this past year. Five songs from the soundtrack to “A Star Is Born” made it to the Billboard 100, and the album has spent 16 weeks on the Billboard 200 as of Feb. 4. Soundtracks for “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” also did well with consumers in 2018 — and are continuing to do well into 2019.
The public chose the soundtrack to Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther” as this year’s winner for Album of the Year, featuring music from artists such as Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd. The soundtrack broke a record for first-week, on-demand streams for any soundtrack, per Nielsen Holdings PLC data, with 138.9 million on-demand audio streams for its songs during the week ending Feb. 15, 2018.
The way people are listening to music is changing: In October 2017, Billboard announced a shift in how it would tabulate its charts beginning in 2018 to greater emphasize streaming.
And music sales are swinging up, thanks to streaming services.
Source: Morning Consult analysis of The Recording Industry Association of America data
Recorded music revenues hit $8.7 billion in 2017, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, up from $7.5 billion in 2016. (Full-year figures for 2018 are not yet available, although RIAA’s mid-year report indicates streaming’s continued success.)
Streaming now makes up a majority of music revenue in the country, replacing physical forms such as CDs and vinyls.
Consumer impatience plays a big role in streaming’s success, said Mark Kelley, an executive director and analyst covering media and tech for the financial holding company Nomura Holdings Inc.
While instant play is something both digital downloads and streaming offer, the former has ticked down in revenues as the latter has blown up. Consumers’ increasing comfort with the idea of “renting music” vis-à-vis streaming, Kelley said, is why the format has really taken off.
Streaming brought in $270 million in U.S. revenue in 2007, per RIAA data, or about 2.5 percent of revenue overall. Streaming brought $5.7 billion in revenue in 2017, making up 65 percent of all industry revenues. Worldwide, streaming was the biggest revenue generator, bringing in 38 percent of all revenue, a higher share than physical sales (30 percent), per the nonprofit International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
Fifty-one percent of adults offered no opinion or said they didn’t know. More information and methodology here.
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Luke Combs | 13% |
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Bebe Rexha | 8% | |
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Dua Lipa | 7% | |
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H.E.R. | 7% | |
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Greta Van Fleet | 6% | |
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Chloe X Halle | 3% | |
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Jorja Smith | 3% | |
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Margo Price | 2% |
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Dua Lipa | 16% |
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Luke Combs | 16% |
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Bebe Rexha | 15% | |
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H.E.R. | 11% | |
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Chloe X Halle | 5% | |
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Greta Van Fleet | 4% | |
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Jorja Smith | 3% | |
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Margo Price | 1% |
Source: University of Southern California “Inclusion in the Recording Studio?” Jan. 2018 report
The Recording Academy faced criticism last year for its dearth of female nominees, and just one woman, Alessia Cara, won a major solo award. Activists brought the fight to social media with the hashtag #GrammysSoMale.
By comparison, of the 1,239 artists who were attached to 600 songs appearing on the Billboard Hot 100 charts from 2012-2017, roughly 17 percent were women, according to a January 2018 report from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. The Grammys have long been male-dominated, with women making up less than 10 percent of all nominations from 2013-2018, the report said.
The Recording Academy did not respond to a request for comment.
Thirty-eight percent of adults offered no opinion or said they didn’t know. More information and methodology here.
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Shallow | 17% |
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God's Plan | 10% | |
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I Like It | 9% | |
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Rockstar | 7% | |
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The Middle | 6% | |
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This is America | 6% | |
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All The Stars | 4% | |
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The Joke | 4% |
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I Like It | 19% |
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This is America | 17% | |
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Rockstar | 14% | |
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God's Plan | 12% | |
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All The Stars | 7% | |
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Shallow | 6% | |
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The Middle | 6% | |
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The Joke | 2% |
Thirty-eight percent of adults offered no opinion or said they didn’t know. More information and methodology here.
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Shallow | 19% |
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God's Plan | 10% | |
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This is America | 9% | |
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Boo'd Up | 7% | |
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In My Blood | 5% | |
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The Middle | 5% | |
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All The Stars | 4% | |
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The Joke | 3% |
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This is America | 19% |
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Boo'd Up | 16% | |
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God's Plan | 12% | |
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In My Blood | 9% | |
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Shallow | 9% | |
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All The Stars | 8% | |
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The Middle | 6% | |
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The Joke | 1% |
Fifty-eight percent of adults offered no opinion or said they didn’t know. More information and methodology here.
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God's Plan | 23% |
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King's Dead | 5% | |
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Lucky You | 5% | |
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Sicko Mode | 5% | |
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Win | 3% |
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God's Plan | 32% |
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Sicko Mode | 17% | |
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King's Dead | 8% | |
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Lucky You | 7% | |
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Win | 4% |
Drake has sold more digital singles than any other artist in history with 142 million units, per RIAA tabulations, beating out Rihanna (125 million units), Taylor Swift (120 million units) and Eminem (107.5 million units). Nielsen Music even dubbed 2018 “The Year of Drake” in its year-end report.
Drake was also Spotify Technology SA’s most-streamed artist on the platform in 2018, with 8.2 billion streams. The Canadian artist and producer’s song “God’s Plan,” which was nominated for both Record and Song of the Year and Best Rap Song, was the most streamed song, and his 2018 album “Scorpion” was the most streamed album.
Source: The Recording Industry Association of America
Fifty-three percent of adults offered no opinion or said they didn’t know. More information and methodology here.
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Long As I Live | 14% |
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Boo'd Up | 13% | |
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Feels Like Summer | 10% | |
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Come Through and Chill | 6% | |
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Focus | 5% |
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Boo'd Up | 29% |
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Come Through and Chill | 12% | |
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Feels Like Summer | 12% | |
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Focus | 5% | |
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Long As I Live | 5% |
Fifty-eight percent of adults offered no opinion or said they didn’t know. More information and methodology here.
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Black Smoke Rising | 12% |
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Jumpsuit | 10% | |
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Rats | 7% | |
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Mantra | 5% | |
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Masseduction | 3% |
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Jumpsuit | 20% |
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Black Smoke Rising | 8% | |
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Mantra | 8% | |
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Rats | 7% | |
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Masseduction | 3% |
Forty-seven percent of adults offered no opinion or said they didn’t know. More information and methodology here.
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When Someone Stops Loving You | 13% |
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I Lived It | 12% | |
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Tequila | 11% | |
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Space Cowboy | 7% | |
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Break Up In The End | 6% | |
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Dear Hate | 4% |
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Tequila | 17% |
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Break Up In The End | 10% | |
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I Lived It | 8% | |
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When Someone Stops Loving You | 8% | |
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Space Cowboy | 7% | |
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Dear Hate | 5% |
Despite its name, popular music is not the most loved genre — that prize goes to country music, per a January 2018 CBS News poll of 1,009 adults nationwide. The largest share (21 percent) of adults said country was their favorite type of music, followed by rock (18 percent) and popular music (14 percent).
And country appears to have better staying power among consumers: Dan + Shay’s “Tequila,” voted Best Country Song among young adults in the Morning Consult/The Hollywood Reporter survey, lasted longer on the Billboard Hot 100 than young adults’ choice for Song of the Year, Childish Gambino’s “This is America,” although it never rose to the coveted No. 1 spot like Donald Glover’s hit song did.
“Tequila” spent 38 weeks on the chart, compared to 17 weeks for “This is America.”