TMN Data Dive: An Unearthed success story
In this month’s TMN Data Dive, we take a look at the key points of Australian singer-songwriter Amy Shark’s ascent to commercial breakthrough with her now undeniable hit Adore. We’ll go through Adore’s lifespan from release to commercial breakthrough, referencing data across all platforms and using spikes in Shazams to help roadmap her journey.
Released independently mid 2016 and uploaded to triple j unearthed, Adore was quick to garner the attention of the youth network, getting added to the triple j days rotation and then scoring the unearthed feature artist for a week. This triggered the first series of Shazam spikes. From then on the Shazam rate steadied, remaining the same through the release of the music video. At that point it was already considered an alternative breakthrough hit, but things started to ramp up on the 28th of October: the date of her triple j like a version performance, which helped usher her on to over one million Spotify plays by mid November.
Mid November is also when Adore had its first official service to commercial radio. The track failed to make much of an impact, though it did see some love, most notably from Ash London and the Hit Regional Network. But by that point Amy had independently earned over a hundred spins on triple j, scored 137,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, become the 4th most Shazamed song in Australia for a week, and started earning various chart peaks across ARIA, iTunes and the TMN Hot 100.
Now we hit 2017 and triple j’s Hottest 100 comes into play. Flume’s Never Be Like You was always pegged to be the winner but Amy Shark was expected to give some healthy competition. After coming out at #2, anyone in the alternative sphere of music who didn’t know her soon did, as the below Shazam chart will testify. The largest spike in her career thus far, it earned over 15,000 Shazams in aday.
The impact of the win was seen across all of commercial radio the following week – almost every station that hadn’t already added it doing so, and those that already did moved it up to their across the board rotation.
So where does that leave us now? Well, as of writing, Adore is now north of 12 million Spotify streams, 2x Platinum on the ARIA Singles chart with a peak of #3, and had peaked at #13 on the Hot 100. On top of all this,she’s now signed to Wonderlick Recording Company in partnership with Sony Music Entertianment Australia.
She’s also released new single Weekends recently and it’s become evident that it’s benefited greatly from all the legwork done by Adore. Upon release triple j immediately got behind the track; this week it sits at #2 on their Spins Chart and #3 on their Hit List. It’s also currently at #1 on the TMN Alternative chart and #32 on the TMN Hot 100, cementing it as an official crossover hit.
With this much support behind her, and with debut EP Night Thinker out today, things are only looking up for the low-key Gold Coast singer.