Flume dominates Mid Year charts

Future Classic signing Flume has beat out big-name international acts to take #1 most popular single for the first half of 2016.

According to TMN’s inaugural Singles & Market Share Mid Year Report, released today, Flume’s single Never Be Like You ft. Kai took the top spot on TMN’s Airplay Hot 100, is the #1 single on the ARIA Streaming chart and took #2 on ARIA’s Mid Year Singles chart.

Ed Sholl, Label Manager at Future Classic, said that when Never Be Like You received its official release on January 31, its momentum was almost instantaneous.

“On SoundCloud the moment you upload you get an instant feed with comments and play counts. In this campaign, the feedback was fairly even on Spotify, YouTube, iTunes, Apple Music and Apple Connect. We saw all of those things begin to spike at once.”

Sholl told TMN the single sold 245,000 units in Australia as of late June, but even more in the US, where it had moved about 250,000 units by late June.

ARIA’s official Mid Year Top 10, published exclusively in TMN’s report, shows the top singles from the past six months based on downloads, sales and streaming. ARIA CEO Dan Rosen said the update to the ARIA Singles chart last November to include audio streams is beginning to have an impact.

“[The rise of streaming] means that tracks hang out a bit longer than potentially under a download model, as people continue to listen,” he said. “That’s impacting the chart. But I think we’ll see over the next few years, as streaming continues to grow, a bit more of a trend.”

The Singles & Market Share Mid Year Report shows multiple wins for Australian artists with Sia’s ARIA #1 single Cheap Thrills taking #2 on the TMN Airplay Hot 100, #8 on the ARIA Singles, and in the Top 5 on four of the six State charts for radio airplay. Meanwhile Mushroom-signed band The Rubens take #3 on the AIR (100% independent) chart with Hoops, the title track from their ARIA #2 LP.

Liberation Music MD Warren Costello told TMN Mushroom was surprised by the success of Hoops.

“It was one where we scratched our heads a bit to be honest after Hallelujah, which was the first single of the record; that probably didn’t stick as much as we thought it would,” he said. “We were probably coming off the back foot a bit with Hoops, but for whatever reason it just connected with people at every level, whether that was at gigs or on radio, it was just one of those cracking songs that people just liked from the minute they heard it.”

TMN’s report also offers a detailed insight into label market share for the first half of 2015. Universal Music Australia was the market share leader on the Airplay Top 40 with its stable of global chart-toppers. However, the Top 5 spots across radio and digital services saw the dominance of Warner Music Australia and two local independents, Future Classic and Inertia.

The Singles & Market Share Mid Year Report tracks 20+ music charts from January to June 2016, across different genres, states and music services. It is the only report to provide consolidated half yearly data on all the major music charts, including ARIA, AIR, Airplay Hot 100, Spotify, iTunes and Shazam.

A free version of the report, with charts, analysis, interviews and market shares can be downloaded here.