How Bieber Fever changed music in 2010

2010 will be remembered as the year Bieber Fever took hold across the world. It will also be notable for a generational shift in our listening tastes and in how we access music.

The teenage heartthrob Justin Bieber has emerged the most-streamed artist of the year, with his videos being watched a staggering 1.07 billion times on the internet, according to video analytics company TubeMogul.

The firm, which tracks streams across a variety of sites, including YouTube and MySpace for the five biggest publishers of music video content (EMI, Hollywood Records, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group), said that translates to 6.9 per cent of the 14.8 billion videos streamed by the top five publishers this year.

Or, put another way, that means one of every 14 streams for the top five publishers was a Bieber video. And 405 million of those was “Baby”, Biber’s breakout hit, which features the rapper Ludacris.

The Canadian youngster, 16, was well ahead of the second person on the list, 24-year-old Lady Gaga, who only managed 879 million streams.

Three acts on the list were aged 21 or under, the others being Taylor Swift, 21 (at No8 with 241.8 million views) and Miley Cyrus, 18 (at No7 with her videos being watched 323.1 million times). Rihanna, who is 22, made fourth place with just over 500 million views.

But as age gives way to beauty and the Millennials tune in to people their own age, they’re also accessing their music in different ways – this is also the year that Sony announced it would cease production of the Walkman, a once-necessary part of the teenager’s life.

And YouTube, after all, forced MTV to reinvent itself as the home of the reality show and put music videos on the back burner.

Thankfully, though, we shouldn’t be writing off 30-somethings just yet. Acts that can be considered to be in their prime clung fiercely to the spots in between, with 38-year-old Eminem at No3 (709.7 million views), followed by Shakira at No5 (404 million), the Black Eyed Peas at No6, and alternative act Linkin Park at No9.

DJ David Guetta was the oldest person on the list. The 43-year-old DJ brought a dance flavour to the list, scraping in at No10 with 178.7 million views.

But former icons such as Madonna, who admittedly did not have any new material out this year, or Michael Jackson, whose estate is releasing a posthumous album this month, have been unable to make the list – and these are the acts that have been able to retain some sort of hold on their audiences despite their advanced years (or death, in Jackson’s case).

We’ve always known that music is a young man’s game, but we now have the metrics to prove it.

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