A couple of weeks after Spotify Wrapped comes a much more comprehensive survey of New Zealand’s listening. Duncan Greive casts an eye over the official 2024 end of year music charts.
Streaming has changed music listening, and what we know about it, forever. Where once our charts were sales driven, and thus strongly oriented to what was most popular in the present from a purchasing perspective, now they’re listening driven. And because the vast bulk of listening happens on a small handful of digital platforms, we have a pretty good idea of what people are listening to, versus the total unknown that was the physical media era.
That’s not without it byproducts and complications – algorithms decide which songs are surfaced, and certain playlists can make or break a song, artist compensation remains really tough – but it’s undeniable that we know more about what’s happening with music listenership than ever before.
While Spotify’s Wrapped has become an annual sensation, it’s also the opaque product of a single company, reflecting the skews of its listeners. That’s why the Official Aotearoa Music Charts, compiled by Recorded Music New Zealand, are a much more comprehensive survey of what we’re all listening to. They require a complex formula of different weightings for sales and streaming – the full rules and criteria runs to 16 densely typed pages. They’re always tweaking eligibility too, and there was a mini-storm last year when new rules excluded catalogue music, which hurt perennial charters like Six60 and L.A.B. (the below charts suggest they’re doing fine).
With that out of the way – let’s dig into the year-ending charts, on their beautiful new site, put together by our neighbours (and builders of The Spinoff’s site and apps) at Daylight.
To understand how Spotify and its algorithms work, here’s an interview with its former ‘data alchemist’ on The Fold:
End of Year Top 50 Singles
What leaps out? For all that it felt like what my colleague Lyric describes as the “holy trinity of pop girlies” (Sabrina, Chappell and Charli) dominated the year and the discourse, three of our top four was soulful dudes trying to get something off their chest. It’s not until ‘Espresso’ at five that a pop girlie shows up, while there’s only one other woman in the top 10 in Billie Eilish. You also see how singles slow burn in the chart – Taylor Swift’s ‘Cruel Summer’ (16) is one of a large number of TikTok-driven resurfaces – released in 2019, but only made a single in 2023 and still ubiquitous now.
It’s obvious how country (and country-tinged folk) has leapt into the consciousness, and caused a number of older songs to have long tails. Noah Kahan’s ‘Stick Season’ (8) came out in July of 2022, a few months after Zach Bryan’s ‘Something in the Orange’ (17), while Luke Combs’ Tracy Chapman cover ‘Fast Car’ (44) came out in April 2023. The biggest country hit of the year was Shaboozey’s megahit ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ at 6.
Arguably the biggest chart achievement of the year sits at 9. Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ only came out mid-year, is sonically against the grain of most of the rest of the charts, and the lyrics are eye-wateringly NSFW in their ritual disembowelling of Drake.
One slightly worrying thing to note: the only NZ single in the top 50 came out in 2023, and shows up down at 28. The globalised era for music creates great opportunity for New Zealand artists, but it does seem to be crowding them out on their own shores too.
Check out the full top 50 singles chart here
End of year Top 50 albums
So this is where the pop girls are hiding. Their domination of the top end of the albums chart is pleasingly contra the general theory of music that bouncing synths and big hooks with women singing is a singles phenomenon that can’t be sustained over album length. This chart blows that idea out of the water. The whole top five albums would fit an expansive definition of pop, all by women solo artists.
Taylor’s #1 feels wrong on the merits of what was the most listless and bloated album of her career, but given the number of different vinyl variations she released, that’s as much a victory for financial optimisation as a verdict on the object itself. 1989 remaining in the top 10 for a second straight year is arguably more impressive – testament to a great record powered by the staggering scale of the Eras Tour.
Chappell Roan’s Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess placing in the top five is remarkable, given that she started the year in something close to obscurity, and has come close to deliberately tearing down her career at various times. Sometimes an album is so powerful that it just will not be denied.
L.A.B.’s Introducing UK/EU sampler is slightly mysterious – it doesn’t show up as a release on Spotify NZ, and it might be that it’s a quirk of the enduring popularity of the songs on it, along with the catalogue rule cutting them from the singles charts. Basically, L.A.B. are just massively popular here, and even when you re-write the chart rules to make them less dominant they’ll find a way in. Their album VI is also an impressive 26 – but shaded by the top 20 effort of Hawaiian artist Maoli, showing up in our top 20 despite less than 1m global listeners. Regional hits still live!
The enduring popularity of monoculture-era hip hop artists shines through too. Drake, Future, Nicki Minaj, Ye and Tyler the Creator all chart, while Eminem comes in twice, fully 20 years after his creative peak. There are a decent number of next generation artists too, in Brent Faiyaz, 21 Savage, Metro Boomin and Travis Scott.
Way down at 47? Pink Floyd’s deathless Dark Side of The Moon, released more than 50 years ago, returning to the charts after a little rest.
Check out the full top 50 albums here
End of Year Top 20 Aotearoa Singles
Corrella’s ‘Blue Eyed Māori’ is a true streaming-era phenomenon. The single from a band made up of members of the Royal New Zealand Navy was released in July of last year, and is the only local single which cracked overall the top 50 (I would guess that L.A.B.’s ‘In the Air’ might have, had the new rules not made it ineligible). Even now, 18 months after its release, ‘Blue Eyed Māori’ is still sitting at #2, just endlessly playing out and suffocating all the music Corrella has released since.
The artist with the most top 10 hits is Hori Shaw, who might have an even more hearty backstory than Corrella. He started releasing music only after being almost paralysed after falling off his horse in a hunting accident. You can make an argument that reggae is for New Zealand what country is for the US – a link underlined by his dubbed out version of John Denver’s ‘Country Roads’ at eight. That reggae-ish style dominates the rest of the chart, with artists like House of Shem, Sons of Zion, Coterie and (of course) Six60. It proves you can change the rules, but you can’t change the musical foundation of these charts.
End of Year Top 20 Aotearoa Albums
That strain of laidback New Zealand music also owns the top of the Aotearoa album charts. The whole top five fits into that definition. Without having the granular data this is an unprovable statement, but it would not shock me if the top five represented as much total listening as the rest of the chart combined. We just really, really like that sound – even if it doesn’t yet export as well as we’d hope. The next five are a far more sonically diverse group. Home Brew’s surprise late 2023 Run it Back sits alongside country singer Kaylee Bell’s breakthrough Nights Like This, before Stan Walker’s sweeping All In.
The following two albums are awesomely weird, and show the power of physical media, and of touring to propel it. Thunderingly melodic punks Dartz’ Dangerous Day To Be a Cold One comes in at 10, despite having a little more than 6,000 current monthly listeners on Spotify. It’s an excellent album, with artwork from singer Daniel Vernon, otherwise known as Yeehawtheboys. Dartz have nothing on the NZ Highwaymen for physical media skew though – they crack the top 10 with a live CD of sentimental crooning, despite having less than 200 monthly listeners on Spotify. Wild.