p2pnet.net Feature:- We’ve just posted our first Movies File Share Top Ten, and at the bottom, here’s the re-vamped Music File share Top Ten including, for the first time, download numbers.

Starting Tuesday next week, we’ll also have a brand new Music File Share Top Ten featuring charts for rock, country, urban, mainstream, rhythmic and adult contemporary (AC) ——- instead of just Rap, which dominates, as well as dl stats.

One of the questions we’re frequently asked is: How come there’s only rap in the p2pnet File Share Top Ten?

The answer is simple. Rap / hip-hop transcends all genre boundaries in all countries. Rap is where it’s At, whether parents and purists like it or not.

There’s Spanish rap. Arabic rap. UK rap. US rap. French rap. You name it. It’s the top selling genre in the US by a wide margin, and it rules the airwaves (radio and MTV) in every major market. And that’s cool because when you get right down to it, Rap is The Blues, which have inspired so many other forms of modern-day music, transformed.

And it’s here to stay ‘cause rap the Word and it ain’t goin’ away.

Eric Garland (top right) is the ceo of Big Champagne, the p2p research company which develops the statistics used in p2pnet’s Music and Movie top ten charts.

“The dominant venue for promoting popular music is still commercial (terrestrial) radio,” he told p2pnet. “The dominant radio ‘format’ is rhythmic hit radio. Every major market and most all secondary markets have at least one powerful and popular station that plays music in this format. In LA, that station is Power106 (KPWR.”

P2p swapping is an expression of the same consumer interest and awareness that drives traditional CD sales, generally speaking, says Garland, “So it’s hardly surprising that when an act called Mario is the most-played artist, he’s also concurrently at the top of the p2p heap.

“You may have great taste in music. You may download 10,000 mp3s with not a Mario or Ludacris among them. You may rant and rave about the poor state of popular music. You may have a hundred friends who feel the same way. But you’re nonetheless the exception because for every one of you, there’s a thousand, maybe ten thousand, MTV and pop radio dittoheads.

“Hip-hop, rap, rhythmic – call it what you will – is the most popular genre of popular music in terms of audience size. Even mainstream hit, or pop, radio today plays very rhythmic-leaning artists and songs.”

Heh. OK.

p2pnet: What about the other forms of popular music. Do they show up on p2p?

Garland: All the current formats (“genres”) of commercial radio, such as alternative rock, country and adult contemporary, also lend many thousands of radio spin impressions to popular artists and songs. The popular or hit songs and artists in each of these formats are also very heavily downloaded.

By addressable radio listener audience – as measured by Arbitron – though, country, alternative and adult contemporary are less popular than rhythmic hit. So it stands to reason that there are fewer online hits in these categories overall.

That said, some alternative and country artists cross over into mainstream appeal and show very large p2p numbers. An example is Kenny Chesney.

The singular variety of interests, and available music, on p2p also produces what’s often called a long tail, meaning all types of artists, whether mainstream or niche, can be found on p2p.

Virtually every artist and/or song imaginable is there. But because the vast majority of spins, TV and other marketing impressions, are concentrated among the most popular formats, relatively few current hit songs – only a few hundred – tend to dominate.

Of course, even the Kingston Trio has a loyal download audience. But because it resides out of the mainstream, there are many fewer downloads than, say, Nelly.

p2pnet: Why isn’t this reflected on the Big Champagne top ten?

Garland: The Big Champage top ten is composed of the most popular artists, which stem from the most popular methods of impression: commercial radio and MTV.

p2pnet: But Big Champagne charts do, nonetheless, show the variety of musical tastes on the internet?

Garland. They do. Big Champagne collects information about all titles on p2p, and every imaginable subculture, whether death metal or polka. But these artists are unlikely to pop up in the hot 100. Not today, and not ever.

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5 Responses to “New p2pnet Top Ten downloads”

1. Reader's Write Says:
   January 22nd, 2005 at 5:54 am

   It says that Nelly was downloaded 5,954,537 times. That’s a very precise figure. It was not rounded to 5.9 or 6 million. What P2P networks did this include anyway? How is it possible to get such a precise figure from such a nebulous, randomized network such as Fasttrack – a network which does not even connect each user to every other peer?

   Since downloads on a P2P network take place between multitudes of anonymous peers, how can any system determine the number of downloads taking place without undertaking the impossible task of monitoring every single one of the millions of peers?

   Does BigChampagne set up a few supernodes and monitor them for file requests, then extrapolate the results to estimate the total network requests? Is this assuming that the number of requests equals the number of completed downloads? (That would be a rather speculative assumption.) As any P2P user knows, the larger the file, the greater the probability of the transfer getting cancelled, and having to be re-requested afterward to complete it. So this method would tend to give 6 minute songs a higher rating than 3 minute songs due to the increased cancellations.

   If using statistical analysis, the methodology could be considered a success if it would get an accuracy of plus or minus 5% or 10% of real-world numbers on a given, open network. But the posted figures suggest an incredible .00001% accuracy.

   Although I think that the relative popularity of the members of the ‘top ten’ list is probably precise enough to create a ranking order, I also think that there is really no accurate way to determine the actual number of downloads on any given P2P network.

   Also, the file transfer methods in which downloads are more difficult to monitor – such as IRC, Newsgroups, email, Instant messages, and private servers – these generate a substantial number of shared files. So the actual numbers are anyone’s guess.

2. Reader's Write Says:
   January 24th, 2005 at 9:33 am

   I would not buy or download any of these titles.

3. Reader's Write Says:
   January 24th, 2005 at 9:35 am

   Hate to say it, but the last post was right on the money.
   Ain’t nobody knowing what I’m downloading….end of story.
   Maybe the yo-yo’s that download rap crap are proud of it, and want the world to know.
   But it’s not a true idea of what is really being downloaded.

4. Reader's Write Says:
   January 24th, 2005 at 2:39 pm

   Yuk, wouldn’t want to waste my hard drive space.

5. Reader's Write Says:
   January 25th, 2005 at 9:44 am

   obvious that the ‘people’ that download this crap don’t have a clue what they are doing. Much like the Nielson ratings, they are being tracked and swallowed.
   Best the record companies go after their sorry asses… The dimwits that think they are sitting pretty….dimwits that think they are breaking all of societies rules…dimwits that pull their pants down and show their underwear!
   Call me old fashioned, but rap is absolute crapola that will not live through this decade.
   It’s a stage that kids will go through, be them white, black, or purple.
   When I was young, punk was in. I dyed my hair and wore a trenchcoat.
   Mum didn’t like it….but I was creating an identity. I wasn’t trying to tick off my parents.
   Rap is the next generation of rebellion. Unfortunately those that listen to that crap have no idea what the are rebbelling against!
   A bunch of stupid, naive whiteguys that think it’s ultracool to be black.
   Give us all a break!

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