Durban - Good news for local musicians is that South Africa came in at number 12 on the Global Influential Music Index released this week.
The index, which combines data on digital streaming, artist recognition, musical infrastructure and more, revealed the 30 most musically influential countries in the world.
South Africa, the only African country to make the list, also has the second highest percentage of the population working in the arts and entertainment industries at 2.9%, behind Latvia at 3% and ahead of the UK at 2.7%
In the overall rankings, the top country was the US, followed by the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Japan, Italy, Sweden, Australia and Ireland. Spain was number 11.
The country whose artists are most streamed around the world was the US, followed by the UK, Canada, South Korea, France, Germany, Puerto Rico, Australia, Spain and Sweden, while Ed Sheeran is the most played music act on streaming services globally, followed by Billie Eilish and Post Malone.
Russia produces the most classical music, while the US produces the most rock, pop and electronic music. However Brazil has the highest World Music uniqueness score, followed by Colombia and Ireland. South Africa ranked seventh on the World Music uniqueness table.
The study was launched by medimops, Europe’s largest online marketplace for second-hand CDs and records, to answer the age-old question as to which countries exert the most musical influence worldwide.
The company looked to modern music streaming services to determine the extent of each country’s musical output and reach, combining “play” and “view” data with other measures of artist recognition and support systems. The resulting index offers the most comprehensive data set about musical influence.
The study analysed music streaming data across multiple platforms – Spotify, YouTube and iTunes/Apple Music – to identify the most popular artists around the world and where they were born. This was then narrowed down to the top 30 countries worldwide.
Each artist’s global influence was determined through a scoring system that measured their popularity outside their country, language, and cultural group of origin. The number of international artists that were born in each country was also found, reaching all the way from classical musicians like Bach, to modern-day artists like Beyoncé.
To add context, medimops consulted an ethno-musicological study on the uniqueness of local sounds, identifying how distinct each country’s traditional and folk music styles were.
The Independent on Saturday