Collaborations: A Key to Musical Success

Wednesday - January 24 2024, 21:56 UTC - 10 months ago

Collaborations in the music industry can have a significant impact on artists' careers, leading to an average increase of 4.6% in plays. Collaborating can help artists gain social, cultural, and economic capital. An AI model can assist artists in finding successful collaborations by looking beyond fame and considering complementary skills.

A well planned, successful collaboration can transform a musician's career overnight. Just ask Shakira: though already firmly established as a solo artist, her 2006 hit Hips Don't Lie—featuring Fugees rapper Wyclef Jean—catapulted her to global stardom. Her continued knack for finding smart joint releases has since made her an enduring, unstoppable pop music powerhouse.

Our study has looked at the data behind musical collaborations. It sets out to answer the question of how they impact artists' careers, as well as how to select successful ones in the future.

This research may have wider applications: the factors that elevate the profile of a musical artist can also be applied to collaborations in cinema, sports, and even politics.

Hits don't lie .

We began by analyzing the weekly plays of a number of songs on radio stations in 25 European countries from 2011 to 2018. We compared similar artists who had released both a collaborative and solo track in the same week.

Our main finding was that collaborative efforts caused an artist's subsequent releases to receive 4.6% more plays on average.

Shakira's aforementioned career has been a prime example of this. Until 2006 the Colombian artist almost exclusively worked alone, but Hips Don't Lie multiplied her fame by an order of magnitude.

Since then, her collaborations have raised her to dizzying heights of pop stardom, complete with an online revival thanks to her 2023 track addressing her break-up with footballer Gerard Piqué, produced by Argentine hit maker Bizarrap.

Social capital transfers .

Collaborating is a tried and tested way for artists to increase their capital.

In its broadest sense, the word "capital" refers to any asset that can be used to make money. There is not only economic capital (money or property), but also social capital (personal connections) and cultural capital (knowledge, skills, values, tastes). These factors are what combine to give a person power and status.

All artists accumulate economic, social and cultural capital, which they then put to use by collaborating with other artists.

We can think again about Shakira, and her work with Rihanna. Though their joining forces undoubtedly made money, the majority of the capital generated by the two megastars' 2014 collaboration was not economic or social, but cultural: Shakira's Latin pop credentials have since helped Rihanna to gain a foothold in that market, and Rihanna's credentials have likewise helped Shakira to strengthen her standing in the English speaking pop market.

Interestingly, these benefits are also felt by third party collaborators such as producers, and even by record labels. While it may be obvious that an artist who is less famous than Shakira can gain financial capital by collaborating directly with her, our study suggests that they may also get more plays thanks to an indirect connection to Rihanna.

Creativity and artificial intelligence .

In our study, we developed an AI model that may be of use to artists in search of their next collaboration.

We used this model to compare what Shakira's career would look like if she released only solo tracks, or if she recorded with other artists who already had very famous solo careers on their own.

The model shows that collaborating with artists who already have twice the plays that Shakira has isn't as good for her career as she might think. If she collaborated with someone who already gets more than twice as much plays as she does, she would only get on average 22% more plays than if she collaborated with someone on her level.

This suggests that successful collaborations are not just about getting the biggest and most famous name in the industry. Instead, a smart collaboration should focus on finding someone whose skills complement and enhance those of the artist, rather than simply piggybacking off their fame.