Best of the ’80s (in music) again
This one is a follow-up from my previous card, here.
To recap on the data, I had used the Spotify API to gather the best tracks (based on popularity, a measure of listens) released in the ‘80s - “best” as judged from today’s data. For each year I had downloaded the top 1000 tracks, which means it’s not all the existing ones but a sizeable sample.
This time, and using the same data, I’ve ranked artists/bands for their average popularity (the average of the popularity score of their tracks). Note that an artist’s popularity will be based on the sample of their tracks that made the cut as per the above - there is a chance that some of their lower-rated tracks were left out. I selected the best 20 artists and for their career length, I’ve used Wikipedia to gather their “active years” (this was done manually).
Simply the Best is Tina Turner, at the top of the lot with an average popularity around 66; The Smiths fare at the bottom with circa 54 (still fairly good). The card only shows (in dots) the tracks released in the ‘80s, so it does not necessarily measure how prolific an artist/band was overall. Also, note that the timeline appears as “expanded” in the ‘80s decade for graphical reasons.
The Smiths had a short career (1982-1987) but very rich, look at how many tracks they made! On the opposite, folks like Simply Red or Kim Wilde had fairly long careers (they appear as still active) and a small production. Artists who are still active are identified with three dots at the end of their timeline (on the right).
I think a lot of these people are “technically still active” in the sense that they still tour and possibly produce albums, but mostly living off of past glory, not releasing anything actually new. The best example is ABBA, whose golden period was the short and mighty decade 1972-1982 but that recently came back together for a new tour as holograms of themselves.
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