Ranking Countries - Has This Been Done?

[Safetycat]

One thing I've wondered for a while, given the existing tab for Countries on the main site: Has anyone run the numbers to rank the musical output of each country? I imagine it could be done in much the same way as the artist rankings have been.

It would be a sensitive topic of discussion most likely, to directly compare countries, and the dominance of the USA and UK would be very expected. However, I think the data would be interesting lower down, and it might reveal some countries whose musical output has been more ignored by critics than others.

If this sounds like a sales pitch, it's because I do not know how to do such a thing, and hope to perk the interest of someone who does with the idea. If it has been done, please link it! Trying to find it with the search term "country" is a difficult task...

[acroamor]

Would also be very fun to see the state-by-state breakdown of the US. I'm sure New York and California would be the top two, but it'd be fun to see what else would place. Georgia? Washington? New Jersey?

[Holden]

I can do this! It’ll probably be able to be done by tomorrow?

[panam]

1. USA
2. Brazil
3. UK
4. Colombia
5. Germany
6. Japan
7. Cuba
8. Spain
9. France
10. Argentina

11. Nigeria
12. India
13. Italy
14. Sweden
15. Mexico
16. Ethiopia
17. Australia
18. Portugal
19. South Africa
20. Jamaica

21. Egypt
22. Russia
23. Turkey
24. Ireland
25. Puerto Rico
26. Lebanon
27. Peru
28. Netherlands
29. Canada
30. Greece

31. Dominican Republic
32. Israel
33. China
34. Indonesia
35. Panama
36. Norway
37. South Korea
38. Chile
39. Denmark
40. Guinea

[Holden]

...

[acroamor]

^I think that's his personal ranking.

[Holden]

^I think that's his personal ranking.

Oh darn that makes sense, sorry panam!

[Holden]

Alright, here's the ranking!

1 | USA | 1524.66
2 | UK | 811.27
3 | Canada | 94.07
4 | France | 44.04
5 | Australia | 43.84
6 | Germany | 32.18
7 | Jamaica | 29.14
8 | Ireland | 27.82
9 | Sweden | 17.53
10 | Iceland | 12.82
11 | Brazil | 9.48
12 | New Zealand | 5.40
13 | Spain | 4.91
14 | Norway | 4.73
15 | Argentina | 4.01
16 | Italy | 3.51
17 | Belgium | 3.43
18 | Barbados | 3.39
19 | Mali | 2.40
20 | Nigeria | 2.17
21 | Japan | 1.93
22 | Cuba | 1.74
23 | Mexico | 1.71
24 | Senegal | 1.58
25 | The Netherlands | 1.53
26 | Austria | 1.39
27 | Venezuela | 0.92
28 | Haiti | 0.80
29 | Denmark | 0.79
30 | Algeria | 0.76
31 | Panama | 0.74
32 | Pakistan | 0.66
33 | South Africa | 0.66
34 | Finland | 0.46
35 | Cape Verde | 0.44
36 | Bulgaria | 0.42
37 | Congo | 0.39
38 | Colombia | 0.38
39 | Chile | 0.35
40 | Monaco | 0.32
41 | Cameroon | 0.30
42 | St. Kitts | 0.29
43 | Russia | 0.25
44 | India | 0.19
45 | Switzerland | 0.19
46 | Egypt | 0.18
47 | Guyana | 0.13
48 | Morocco | 0.12
49 | Guinea | 0.12
50 | Estonia | 0.12
51 | Ethiopia | 0.10
52 | Trinidad and Tobago | 0.09
53 | Greece | 0.07
54 | Israel | 0.07
55 | Bahamas | 0.06
56 | Romania | 0.05
57 | South Korea | 0.02
58 | Turkey | 0.02
59 | Dominican Republic | 0.02
60 | Peru | 0.02

[Madzong]

Wow! Didn't expect New Zealand to place so highly! That's great news!

[Safetycat]

Holden you are a legend, thanks a bunch! My most interesting stat here is the placement of South Korea - somehow so low despite a huge and popular music scene.

[Holden]

Wow! Didn't expect New Zealand to place so highly! That's great news!

It’s mainly Lorde lol

[Nick]

Alright, here's the ranking!

1 | USA | 1524.66
2 | UK | 811.27

I obviously knew that the USA and the UK would be absurdly dominant, but I didn't realize just how dominant they'd be. Combined they must account for over 90% of the acclaim on this site.

Also pretty interesting that despite having a population of well of 1 billion, China is nowhere to be found in the top 60 countries.

[Madzong]

Wow! Didn't expect New Zealand to place so highly! That's great news!

It’s mainly Lorde lol

Don't know - looks like it's pretty much equally Crowded House with a bit of Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Aldous Harding to me

[panam]

^I think that's his personal ranking.

I thought it was for making our personal lists. Sorry.

[Safetycat]

Thoughts about the data:
- 9/20 of the top countries are in the Anglosphere - 8 of the rest are in Europe. Many possible intersectional reasons for this - the focus on english-speaking acts in the mainstream list-making music journalism, the ability of this website to translate foreign lists (mostly european or anglosphere forum-goers from what I can tell), how different lists are stacked in importance, and whether countries make valid lists much at all (e.g. i have looked to contribute before and found very little in the way of NZ lists that would be valid. We love our radio polls)

- NZ is also very precarious - as madzong states, we have about half Crowdies and half Lorde. If we counted Crowded House as Australia, our rating would plummet. Other countries are similar - Rihanna is Barbadian but USA based, are the Bee Gees really Australian-based, etc. However, it seems weird and potentially-racist to judge that sort of thing - would it make sense to put artists in two countries in some cases?

- More than half of the world's countries are not represented

- Does a competition like Eurovision contribute to the large number of European countries represented?

- US State representation would be interesting - I imagine, much like the world's economies, that some like California would be higher than most other countries.

- Really low representation of Asia in general. Japan, SK and India at the very least have huge, I would say influential, music scenes, yet this has not translated to much critical success.

Just some thoughts! As I suspected, fascinating data. Thanks again Holden.

[Holden]

Here the countries are divided up by albums and songs (Note: The scores don't add up to the total because in order to make their weight equal, the albums score is multiplied by around 2.8 (equal to the total of every song score divided by the total of every album score)

Albums
1 | USA | 305.91
2 | UK | 163.67
3 | Canada | 20.65
4 | Australia | 8.72
5 | Germany | 8.58
6 | France | 6.40
7 | Ireland | 6.11
8 | Jamaica | 5.45
9 | Iceland | 3.36
10 | Sweden | 2.71
11 | Brazil | 2.65
12 | Spain | 0.95
13 | Mali | 0.84
14 | New Zealand | 0.83
15 | Norway | 0.77
16 | Nigeria | 0.58
17 | Senegal | 0.46
18 | Belgium | 0.45
19 | Japan | 0.41
20 | Italy | 0.37
21 | Austria | 0.32
22 | Cuba | 0.31
23 | Venezuela | 0.29
24 | Panama | 0.25
25 | Pakistan | 0.20
26 | Haiti | 0.17
27 | Congo | 0.16
28 | Bulgaria | 0.16
29 | Algeria | 0.15
30 | Cape Verde | 0.14
31 | Finland | 0.13
32 | Argentina | 0.11
33 | The Netherlands | 0.10
34 | Barbados | 0.09
35 | India | 0.08
36 | St. Kitts | 0.07
37 | Morocco | 0.05
38 | Estonia | 0.05
39 | South Africa | 0.04
40 | Ethiopia | 0.04

Songs
1 | USA | 764.13
2 | UK | 404.36
3 | Canada | 42.73
4 | France | 28.14
5 | Australia | 22.15
6 | Jamaica | 15.60
7 | Ireland | 12.64
8 | Germany | 10.85
9 | Sweden | 10.79
10 | Iceland | 4.46
11 | Argentina | 3.72
12 | New Zealand | 3.35
13 | Barbados | 3.16
14 | Brazil | 2.89
15 | Norway | 2.80
16 | Italy | 2.58
17 | Spain | 2.56
18 | Belgium | 2.32
19 | Mexico | 1.71
20 | The Netherlands | 1.29
21 | Cuba | 0.96
22 | Japan | 0.92
23 | Denmark | 0.79
24 | Nigeria | 0.73
25 | Austria | 0.61
26 | South Africa | 0.56
27 | Senegal | 0.44
28 | Algeria | 0.39
29 | Haiti | 0.38
30 | Colombia | 0.38
31 | Chile | 0.35
32 | Monaco | 0.32
33 | Mali | 0.30
34 | Cameroon | 0.30
35 | Russia | 0.25
36 | Venezuela | 0.19
37 | Switzerland | 0.19
38 | Egypt | 0.18
39 | Pakistan | 0.17
40 | Finland | 0.14
41 | Panama | 0.13
42 | Guyana | 0.13
43 | Guinea | 0.12
44 | St. Kitts | 0.11
45 | Cape Verde | 0.10
46 | Trinidad and Tobago | 0.09
47 | Greece | 0.07
48 | Israel | 0.07
49 | Bahamas | 0.06
50 | Romania | 0.05
51 | Bulgaria | 0.03
52 | South Korea | 0.02
53 | Turkey | 0.02
54 | Dominican Republic | 0.02
55 | Peru | 0.02

[Brad]

Wow! Didn't expect New Zealand to place so highly! That's great news!

It’s mainly Lorde lol

Don't know - looks like it's pretty much equally Crowded House with a bit of Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Aldous Harding to me

Fying Nun Records anyone?

[Madzong]

It’s mainly Lorde lol

Don't know - looks like it's pretty much equally Crowded House with a bit of Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Aldous Harding to me

Fying Nun Records anyone?

You're right - Those songs by The Chills and Chris Knox helped too. Love Flying Nun but like Safetycat stated it's hard to find critics' lists in NZ - would be awesome to have more representation of the Dunedin Sound on AM. Oh well

[Safetycat]

I don't know why I did this (I'm procrastinating work is why), but here's a quick analysis of the countries and their top artists/albums/songs. Note we actually have 79 countries represented, 19 are just for albums and songs that are bubbling under.

Ranking | Country | Top Artist (Rank) | Top Album (Rank) | Top Song (Rank)
1 | USA | Bob Dylan (2) | Pet Sounds (1) | Like a Rolling Stone (1)
2 | UK | The Beatles (1) | Revolver (2) | A Day in the Life (3)
3 | Canada | Neil Young (8) | Funeral (27) | The Weight (89)
4 | France | Daft Punk (68) | Moon Safari (130) | Get Lucky (106)
5 | Australia | Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (28) | Back In Black (110) | Stayin' Alive (135)
6 | Germany | Kraftwerk (53) | The Velvet Underground & Nico (4) | Autobahn (190)
7 | Jamaica | Bob Marley & The Wailers (25) | Catch a Fire (149) | No Woman No Cry (132)
8 | Ireland | U2 (13) | The Joshua Tree (40) | One (94)
9 | Sweden | ABBA (201) | Silent Shout (292) | Dancing Queen (103)
10 | Iceland | Björk (34) | Debut (135) | Birthday (652)
11 | Brazil | João Gilberto (385) | Getz/Gilberto (389) | The Girl from Ipanema (385)
12 | New Zealand | Lorde (268) | Melodrama (419) | Royals (266)
13 | Spain | El Guincho (1232) | Mediterráneo (1874) | Black Is Black (2224)
14 | Norway | Todd Terje (547) | Melody A.M. (1125) | Take On Me (562)
15 | Argentina | Soda Stereo (1045) | Tango: Zero Hour/Nuevo Tango: Hora Zero (1643) | Matador (1702)
16 | Italy | Ennio Morricone (841) | C'era una volta il West / Once Upon a Time in the West (1603) | Nel blu, dipinto di blu ("Volare") (1807)
17 | Belgium | Jacques Brel (461) | The Ideal Crash (1301) | Ne me quitte pas (623)
18 | Barbados | Rihanna (226) | Anti (1932) | Umbrella (170)
19 | Mali | Salif Keita (828) | Soro (1004) | Sabali (1394)
20 | Nigeria | Fela Kuti (544) | Juju Music (650) | Zombie (539)
21 | Japan | Mitski (826) | Double Fantasy (1271) | Your Best American Girl (657)
22 | Cuba | Buena Vista Social Club (663) | Buena Vista Social Club (422) | El Manisero (The Peanut Vendor) (2433)
23 | Mexico | Café Tacvba (1418) | Exploring New Sounds in Hi-Fi/Exploring New Sounds in Stereo (BU) | Mr. P Mosh (3384)
24 | Senegal | Youssou N'Dour (638) | Immigres / Bitim Rew (1029) | 7 Seconds (1994)
25 | The Netherlands | Golden Earring (1493) | Mental Floss For The Globe (2671) | Radar Love (1367)
26 | Austria | Fennesz (971) | Endless Summer (761) | Spiracle (4487)
27 | Venezuela | Arca (657) | Arca (1000) | Desafío (2746)
28 | Haiti | Kaytranada (1214) | 99.9% (1798) | Hips Don't Lie (3892)
29 | Denmark | Junior Senior (1781) | The Last Resort (BU) | Move Your Feet (1766)
30 | Algeria | Khaled (1009) | Khaled (1696) | Didi (3480)
31 | Panama | Rubén Blades (885) | Buscando América (1417) | Desapariciones (5933)
32 | Pakistan | Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (853) | Mustt Mustt (1427) | Mustt Mustt (Lost in His Work) (2618)
33 | South Africa | DJ Mujava (1855) | Shaka Zulu (2832) | Township Funk (2023)
34 | Finland | Luomo (1097) | Vocalcity (1471) | Tessio (3359)
35 | Cape Verde | Cesária Évora (1096) | Miss Perfumado (1357) | Sodade (5546)
36 | Bulgaria | Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares (1153) | Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares (1195) | Kalimankou denkou (8066)
37 | Congo | Konono No. 1 (1823) | Congotronics (2094) | Eswi yo wapi (BU)
38 | Colombia | Shakira (1774) | - | Bolero falaz (3712)
39 | Chile | Los Prisioneros (2508) | - | El duelo (4459)
40 | Monaco | Léo Ferré (1319) | - | Avec le temps (2164)
41 | Cameroon | Manu Dibango (1486) | - | Soul Makossa (998)
42 | St. Kitts | Joan Armatrading (1436) | Joan Armatrading (2275) | Drop the Pilot (6539)
43 | Russia | t.A.T.u. (2059) | Begin to Hope (BU) | All the Things She Said (2002)
44 | India | Shivkumar Sharma, Brijbushan Kabra & Hariprasad Chaurasia (1878) | Call of the Valley (2168) | -
45 | Switzerland | Golden Boy (2611) | L'eau Rouge (BU) | Rippin Kittin (4683)
46 | Egypt | Claude François (2379) | - | Comme d'habitude (3806)
47 | Guyana | Eddy Grant (2301) | - | Electric Avenue (3486)
48 | Morocco | Master Musicians of Jajouka (2375) | Brian Jones Presents The Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (2693) | Mahmouna (BU)
49 | Guinea | Mory Kanté (2430) | - | Yé Ké Yé Ké (3974)
50 | Estonia | Arvo Pärt (2436) | Tabula Rasa (2742) | -
51 | Ethiopia | Mahmoud Ahmed (2564) | Eré Méla Méla/Ethiopiques 7 (2864) | Mela Mela/Eré Méla Méla (BU)
52 | Trinidad and Tobago | Lord Kitchener (2639) | - | London is the Place for Me (5135)
53 | Greece | Aphrodite's Child (3160) | 666 (BU) | Rain and Tears (6762)
54 | Israel | Ofra Haza (2968) | Im nin'alu (6080)
55 | Bahamas | T-Connection (3395) | - | Do What You Wanna Do (7713)
56 | Romania | Taraf de Haidouks (3662) | Band of Gypsies (BU) | Balada conducatorolui (8760)
57 | South Korea | Psy (3743) | - | Gangnam Style (9046)
58 | Turkey | Tarkan (3813) | - | Simarik (9336)
59 | Dominican Republic | Juan Luis Guerra y 4.40 (3853) | Burbujas de amor (9477)
60 | Peru | Los Saicos (3870) | Susana Baca (BU) | Demolición (9539)

Countries Bubbling Under:
Belize | Andy Palacio | Wátina | -
Benin | Angelique Kidjo | Logozo | -
Burkina Faso | Cheikh Lo | Ne La Thiass | -
Côte d'Ivoire | Alpha Blondy | - | Brigadier Sabari (Opération Coup de Poing)
Croatia | Sergio Endrigo | - | Io che amo solo te
Czech Republic | Jan Hammer | - | Crockett's Theme
Lithuania | Ten Walls | - | Gotham
Mauritania | Noura Mint Seymali | Arbina | -
Niger | Bombino | Nomad | -
Poland | Behemoth | The Satanist | -
Portugal | Buraka Som Sistema | - | Sound of Kuduro
Slovenia | Laibach | Opus Dei | -
Sudan | Abdel Aziz el Mubarak | Abdel Aziz el Mubarak | -
Syria | Bedouine/Omar Souleyman* | Bedouine | Warni Warni
Tunisia | Jacqueline Taïeb | - | 7 heures du matin
Uganda | Geoffrey Oryema/Orchestra Makassy** | Exile | Mambo Bado
Ukraine | Pawlo Humeniuk | - | Tanec Pid Werbamy/Dance Under the Willows
Uruguay | Jorge Drexler | - | Al otro lado del Río
Zimbabwe | Bhundu Boys | - | Hatisitose

**Bedouine has one album bubbling, Omar has two songs.
*** Geoffrey has one album, Orchestra Makassy has one song (both bubbling under)

Hoping to see at least one new country in the next update - Mongolia (if the Hu do well enough).

[Safetycat]

Featuring artists made for a couple of weird detals - Germany's biggest album is apprently The Velvet Underground & Nico, and Haiti's biggest song is Hips Don't Lie.

[Madzong]

Thoughts about the data:
- 9/20 of the top countries are in the Anglosphere - 8 of the rest are in Europe. Many possible intersectional reasons for this - the focus on english-speaking acts in the mainstream list-making music journalism, the ability of this website to translate foreign lists (mostly european or anglosphere forum-goers from what I can tell), how different lists are stacked in importance, and whether countries make valid lists much at all (e.g. i have looked to contribute before and found very little in the way of NZ lists that would be valid. We love our radio polls)

- NZ is also very precarious - as madzong states, we have about half Crowdies and half Lorde. If we counted Crowded House as Australia, our rating would plummet. Other countries are similar - Rihanna is Barbadian but USA based, are the Bee Gees really Australian-based, etc. However, it seems weird and potentially-racist to judge that sort of thing - would it make sense to put artists in two countries in some cases?

- More than half of the world's countries are not represented

- Does a competition like Eurovision contribute to the large number of European countries represented?

- US State representation would be interesting - I imagine, much like the world's economies, that some like California would be higher than most other countries.

- Really low representation of Asia in general. Japan, SK and India at the very least have huge, I would say influential, music scenes, yet this has not translated to much critical success.

Just some thoughts! As I suspected, fascinating data. Thanks again Holden.

This has been interesting.

I also would like to know the data for each US state too - it would be interesting to see the influence of states outside of California/ New York.

It would be also be cool to breakdown the UK into England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

[Wisnu Tirta Aji]

Hoping to see at least one new country... Mongolia (if the Hu do well enough).

Indonesia too. Artists like Endah N Rhesa, Iqbaal Ramadhan, Marion Jola, Mocca, Stephanie Poetri, and Ten 2 Five, also performing very well even sitting on Top 500 Radio Hits of All Time, here's the link. Unfortunately, this project is incomplete and supposedly moved into the new link, inspired by the link of Top 2000 from the Dutch radio station, NPO Radio 2. Beside these artists, other artists like Ahmad Abdul, AKA, Ardhito Pramono, Claudia Emmanuela Santoso, Isyana Sarasvati, Koes Plus, Lala Karmela, Nidji, Pamungkas, Prilly Latuconsina, Rizky Febian, Rossa, Sheryl Sheinafia, Sore, and Teddy Adhitya, also rising up with their own songs. One of the most recent song in the music of Indonesia is Prilly's collaboration with Selva on their song titled "Shooting Stars".

Spotify playlist for Indonesian artists who did not featured on Top 500 Radio Hits of All Time (including me with my own song, "Alone"):


Spotify playlist for Indonesian artists who sitting on Top 500 Radio Hits of All Time:


Edit: To promote Indonesian artists into all the listeners around the world, I'm using Spotify.

[luvulongTIM]

[quote=madzong post_id=120459
It would be also be cool to breakdown the UK into England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
[/quote]

England would dominate although Scotland’s my personal fave.
Wow Italy did well. Out of all the big European cities I don’t even think I could name so much as a one hit wonder song to come out of Italy. Always wondered why they never made as much as a dent at least here in the States when all the other major places in Europe have. Well at least not recently or in my lifetime. It was always tongue and cheek at most with people who had roots in Italy like Dean Martin.

[Safetycat]

England would dominate although Scotland’s my personal fave.
Wow Italy did well. Out of all the big European cities I don’t even think I could name so much as a one hit wonder song to come out of Italy. Always wondered why they never made as much as a dent at least here in the States when all the other major places in Europe have. Well at least not recently or in my lifetime. It was always tongue and cheek at most with people who had roots in Italy like Dean Martin.

I'd say Italy made more of a dent in the States than you think - after all, two of the most accomplised film musicians, Morricone and Moroder, are Italian. It'd be interesting to see how many big artists from the early 1900's were also of Italian origin besides Dean Martin.

Most of their one hit wonders from 90s onward were the sort of Eurodance that I enjoy but know is terrible - Tarzan Boy (13 on Billboard, would you believe) and the meme song Running in the 90s, for example.

[Safetycat]

Fying Nun Records anyone?

You're right - Those songs by The Chills and Chris Knox helped too. Love Flying Nun but like Safetycat stated it's hard to find critics' lists in NZ - would be awesome to have more representation of the Dunedin Sound on AM. Oh well

An even bigger shame is how our most prominent list - the ARPA 100 Song list, which spawned the Natures Best albums - had so little representation of the Dunedin Sound, despite it seemingly being our biggest musical export in terms of influence. No the Clean, the Bats, the Dead C or the Verlaines...