2020 AM Country Rankings

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Holden
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2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by Holden »

Last year I went through the AM site and found the ranking of the countries using the formula for the Artists list.

Here are the 2020 rankings, with the 2018 rankings nearby. A note, Turkey is the only country to fall out of the rankings altogether, having been at 58 last update.
01 | 01 | USA
02 | 02 | UK
03 | 03 | Canada
04 | 04 | France
05 | 05 | Australia
06 | 06 | Germany
07 | 07 | Jamaica
08 | 08 | Ireland
09 | 09 | Sweden
10 | 10 | Iceland
11 | 11 | Brazil
12 | 13 | Spain
13 | 12 | New Zealand
14 | 14 | Norway
15 | 16 | Italy
16 | 18 | Barbados
17 | 15 | Argentina
18 | 21 | Japan
19 | 17 | Belgium
20 | 19 | Mali
21 | 20 | Nigeria
22 | 23 | Mexico
23 | 22 | Cuba
24 | 26 | Austria
25 | 24 | Senegal
26 | 25 | The Netherlands
27 | 38 | Colombia
28 | 29 | Denmark
29 | 28 | Haiti
30 | 30 | Algeria
31 | 27 | Venezuela
32 | 31 | Panama
33 | 39 | Chile
34 | 33 | South Africa
35 | 32 | Pakistan
36 | 36 | Bulgaria
37 | 35 | Cape Verde
38 | 34 | Finland
39 | 57 | South Korea
40 | 40 | Monaco
41 | 43 | Russia
42 | 37 | Congo
43 | 41 | Cameroon
44 | 42 | St. Kitts
45 | 44 | India
46 | 46 | Egypt
47 | 49 | Guinea
48 | 45 | Switzerland
49 | 50 | Estonia
50 | 48 | Morocco
51 | 47 | Guyana
52 | 52 | Trinidad and Tobago
53 | 51 | Ethiopia
54 | 00 | Poland
55 | 00 | Botswana
56 | 54 | Israel
57 | 53 | Greece
58 | 55 | Bahamas
59 | 56 | Romania
60 | 00 | Ukraine
61 | 60 | Peru
62 | 59 | Dominican Republic
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Jackson
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by Jackson »

Brazil seems low relative to how much great music that country has produced. Pretty crazy that Clube da Esquina, every Jorge Ben album, every Chico Buaraque album, etc. are all outside of the top 1,000.
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Holden
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by Holden »

One thing I thought was interesting was that New Zealand lost a place, even though its main contributor gained a lot ground in both albums and songs.
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Madzong
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by Madzong »

Holden wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 1:18 am One thing I thought was interesting was that New Zealand lost a place, even though its main contributor gained a lot ground in both albums and songs.
What the heck?!

Maybe this will be righted when she releases her delayed new album (hopefully this year!)
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Holden
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by Holden »

Madzong wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 1:21 am
Holden wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 1:18 am One thing I thought was interesting was that New Zealand lost a place, even though its main contributor gained a lot ground in both albums and songs.
What the heck?!

Maybe this will be righted when she releases her delayed new album (hopefully this year!)
A large part of this has to be Rosalia, who added a couple songs and albums this last update.
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by Nick »

Pretty nuts that China, which has 20% of the world population, has zero presence on this list. As a matter of fact, there is only one Chinese album on this website (it's bubbling under), and ZERO Chinese songs.

Any takers as to why this is? The Anglophonic nature of music criticism? The fact that most music critics come from the Western world? China's rather strict freedom of speech laws thus curtailing artistic freedom? All three? Something else?
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Rob
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by Rob »

Nick wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 2:30 am Pretty nuts that China, which has 20% of the world population, has zero presence on this list. As a matter of fact, there is only one Chinese album on this website (it's bubbling under), and ZERO Chinese songs.

Any takers as to why this is? The Anglophonic nature of music criticism? The fact that most music critics come from the Western world? China's rather strict freedom of speech laws thus curtailing artistic freedom? All three? Something else?
There is more to this. One is that Chinese music travels very badly outside of it's main country. Compare this to Japan and South-Korea who have managed to get a scene in the West. China on the other hand is less open with sharing and it's scene interacts very little with abroad artists and audiences. A big problem too is the restrictions they have on the internet, with most social media and Google being banned and Spotify not being available there. This has all restricted the knowledge and availability of Chinese music. Add to that the difficulty of finding lists using the Western alphabet and it becomes much harder to find the lists (this problem als restricts other countries and I think it explains the relatively low ranking of Eastern-European countries for example). Discovering Chinese music in the West takes a far more active approach than is usual, with many obstacles.

In the meantime, Iceland, which has roughly 100 citizens, is number 10 on Holden's list.
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by panam »

Jackson wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 12:53 am Brazil seems low relative to how much great music that country has produced. Pretty crazy that Clube da Esquina, every Jorge Ben album, every Chico Buaraque album, etc. are all outside of the top 1,000.
I think AM have a very decent coverage of brazilian albums but not so much in singles (I think we need to explore in more local lists, and some are eligible to be added in the future).
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by panam »

Nick wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 2:30 am Pretty nuts that China, which has 20% of the world population, has zero presence on this list. As a matter of fact, there is only one Chinese album on this website (it's bubbling under), and ZERO Chinese songs.

Any takers as to why this is? The Anglophonic nature of music criticism? The fact that most music critics come from the Western world? China's rather strict freedom of speech laws thus curtailing artistic freedom? All three? Something else?
As a South American I'm still waiting for a unique list of the best music from North America, South America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe at the same proportion but I think it won't be too easy.
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by panam »

Rob wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:52 am
Nick wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 2:30 am Pretty nuts that China, which has 20% of the world population, has zero presence on this list. As a matter of fact, there is only one Chinese album on this website (it's bubbling under), and ZERO Chinese songs.

Any takers as to why this is? The Anglophonic nature of music criticism? The fact that most music critics come from the Western world? China's rather strict freedom of speech laws thus curtailing artistic freedom? All three? Something else?
There is more to this. One is that Chinese music travels very badly outside of it's main country. Compare this to Japan and South-Korea who have managed to get a scene in the West. China on the other hand is less open with sharing and it's scene interacts very little with abroad artists and audiences. A big problem too is the restrictions they have on the internet, with most social media and Google being banned and Spotify not being available there. This has all restricted the knowledge and availability of Chinese music. Add to that the difficulty of finding lists using the Western alphabet and it becomes much harder to find the lists (this problem als restricts other countries and I think it explains the relatively low ranking of Eastern-European countries for example). Discovering Chinese music in the West takes a far more active approach than is usual, with many obstacles.

In the meantime, Iceland, which has roughly 100 citizens, is number 10 on Holden's list.
For introducing, the best 50 Chinese artists of alltime (you can translate it)

https://card.weibo.com/article/m/show/i ... 6586231561
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by panam »

Another thing to be considered is that many of these countries have a very good spectrum of folkloric/traditional music but they failed in more pop rock music where many of these lists are oriented because making list of the best is more common for pop music critics than traditional.
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Schüttelbirne
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by Schüttelbirne »

Here's a list of countries not represented on AM at all. These lists are always controversial, of course, because technically Taiwan (as an example) is not recognized as a sovereign state by the UN.

A few reasons for why these countries are not represented:
1. Political: The entire non-Western world is completely underrepresented, because the Iron Curtain apparently also existed in the world of music. And in a way it still does: Just look at the special case of Germany. As far as I can tell, all of the German artists listed on AM are not from the GDR. I feel like music from (former) communist countries isn't often recognized.

2. Size: Small countries like Andorra, San Marino or Monaco do not have a huge population, which explains their absence. Vatican City and North Korea are special cases.

3. Different alphabets: Especially in Asia there's a lot of countries that use different alphabets which makes it hard for a Western list to even recognise lists from these areas. Examples are China, Afghanistan, Iraq, but also Russia.

4. The global South is often underrepresented in anything and their cultures are often intermingled. It's an accepted fact that Europe has a variety of different cultures and musical styles, and yet the far larger continet of Africa is often seen as homogenous and all the individual countries blend into one.

5. Many artists are not distributed internationally and thus make no impact outside of their country.

6. As panam said, "Best-of" lists most often concern popular stuff. Best-of lists of classical works, of traditional music or of performance art are far rarer.

7. Maybe the "Best-of-list" thing is a very Western thing? I definitely do believe its emergence has something to do with a certain capitalist sentiment: "I hardly have time because I have to work, but I still want to consume art. But of course I only want to consume the best of art there is, because I want to spend my limited temporary resources only on the best things available."
It's not like it's exceptionally hard to find information on Iranian Hip Hop or Jazz from Lesotho. (It's far harder to actually find the music itself, though)

Maybe I'll go through this list and look if there are any lists with music from these countries, because there really are some surprises in here.

Afghanistan
Albania
Andorra
Angola
Antigua and Barbuda
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belarus
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brunei
Burundi
Cambodia
Central African Republic
Chad
Comoros
Republic of the Congo
Costa Rica
Cyprus
Djibouti
Dominica
East Timor
Ecuador
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Eswatini
Fiji
Gabon
The Gambia
Georgia
Ghana
Grenada
Guatemala
Guinea-Bissau
Haiti
Honduras
Hungary
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiribati
North Korea
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Malta
Marshall Islands
Mauritius
Micronesia
Moldova
Mongolia
Montenegro
Mozambique
Myanmar
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Nicaragua
North Macedonia
Oman
Palau
Palestine
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Philippines
Qatar
Rwanda
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
Sao Tomé and Príncipe
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovakia
Solomon Islands
Somalia
South Sudan
Sri Lanka
Suriname
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Thailand
Togo
Tonga
Turkmenistan
Tuvalu
United Arab Emirates
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Vatican City
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Nick
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by Nick »

With a grand total of 1 song in the AM top 10,000, Nickelback officially has a larger presence on this site than the entire country of Indonesia (population 270 million people).
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by Nick »

Who would win? A country rich in history and culture and with a population approaching 300 million people?

Or four scruffy looking dudebros from Canada?
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by poorpete »

Like this list and discussion.

Obv the list will be western and especially english language-centric, it's understandable. I wish, like how other countries teach their kids to be multilingual and their music is too, that my country was like that to. It's getting there but it'll be slow.

Would love to get recommendations from other countries. When I worked at a college radio station we'd get Putumayo CDs and I'd devour them. Remember the Iranian one was really really good, and helped demystify the country. Maybe I'll find a track and share it...
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by Edre Depeche Head »

Gotta also realize that places like China, NK, many deep within Africa, many in the Middle East, etc have very strict rules on the type of music being made. In many of these areas no western styled music is allowed and many genres are straight up banned.
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Re: 2020 AM Country Rankings

Post by Jirin »

The Anglophone bias is clear, the critics are predominantly people who need to be much more impressed to push a non English song on their English speaking audience.

There’s also clear genre preference toward pop and pop-adjacent. A list that included scholars of classical music would be biased much more toward Europe. Traditional genres are also hardly considered. And obviously, it needs distribution in the US and UK.

This list is all about music that is popular, music that influenced music that is popular, and unpopular music influenced by music that is popular.
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