Artist Collaborations
Have you noticed fewer "Featuring" credits on songs?
A Short One This Week
The decline in the use of the crediting format “Song Title (Feat. Guest Artist) by Main Artist” or similar variations, has already been well documented. These days you’re far more likely to see “Song Title by Artist A & Artist B”.
This has happened for a few reasons but largely out of a desire to maximize exposure for all artists involved in a song; making the most of the algorithms and search engines. But I was curious to see if my custom ChatGPT could find any relevant nuances in the unique data I gather in this area. If you’re new, you can find details about me and this data project here.
Based on the charts above, there a few noteworthy headlines:
As of 2024 Pop is now the least collaborative of the major genres1 regardless of how it’s credited.
The biggest drop in the use of the “featuring” credit is found in songs under the Urban umbrella and Pop, to a lesser extent. Its use actually increased in Country and Latin. Maybe they’re a bit late to the change in trend?
Across both crediting formats, Country and Latin became highly collaborative in 2024 compared to 2023.
I’ll go a bit deeper on this subject of collaborations next week. There are some interesting things going on under the surface of the headline insights.
G enre lines can be blurry and depend on how one decides to draw them. In this case I’m drawing them using an assessment my custom Chat GPT makes based on the vocal accents of the artists involved and the history of those artists
It's amazing how easily you're able to extract these powerful insights with the AI analysis. The data collection foundation you've laid is paying dividends.