Mapping career arcs with
touring history in British
indie and alternative music
Explore the touring history career arcs of over 120 British indie and alternative musicians who released their debut album in the post-streaming era (after 2006 and the launch of Spotify) in the sorted sections below.
Steady risers
The 1975—arguably one of, if not the, the biggest band in the UK right now—are an interesting case for many reasons and require an entire deep-dive of their own. For purposes of this discussion, their career arc shows steady and consistent growth into larger venues with a little bit of an explosion with their debut album in 2013, not unlike Catfish and Blossoms.
The 1975—arguably one of, if not the, the biggest band in the UK right now—are an interesting case for many reasons and require an entire deep-dive of their own. For purposes of this discussion, their career arc shows steady and consistent growth into larger venues with a little bit of an explosion with their debut album in 2013, not unlike Catfish and Blossoms.
Big players
The Kooks and The Wombats both emerged with huge indie debut records about a decade ago and have continued to hold a spot on festival lineups and large venues long into their career.
The Kooks and The Wombats both emerged with huge indie debut records about a decade ago and have continued to hold a spot on festival lineups and large venues long into their career.
Consistent
These artists are classified as consistent because they've steadily played medium-sized venues throughout their healthy career, such as Deaf Havana, Circa Waves, and Twin Atlantic.
These artists are classified as consistent because they've steadily played medium-sized venues throughout their healthy career, such as Deaf Havana, Circa Waves, and Twin Atlantic.
Getting there
Genre-bending alternative / emo hip-hop artist YungBlud has emerged as one of the most-talked about new artists of 2020, and his successful venue size increase in a relatively short period of time is indicative of the sentiment.
Genre-bending alternative / emo hip-hop artist YungBlud has emerged as one of the most-talked about new artists of 2020, and his successful venue size increase in a relatively short period of time is indicative of the sentiment.
Overnight successes
The 1975 run an independent record label called Dirty Hit and often take their labelmates out on their big tours—so much so, that three of the four overnight successes listed below (No Rome, beabadoobee, and the Japanese House) are examples of it.
The 1975 run an independent record label called Dirty Hit and often take their labelmates out on their big tours—so much so, that three of the four overnight successes listed below (No Rome, beabadoobee, and the Japanese House) are examples of it.
New to the scene
Lauran Hibberd has been touring in small venues for a while, but the exposure coupled with her increased BBC Radio 1 play and subsequent hype, may push her into getting there territory soon.
Lauran Hibberd has been touring in small venues for a while, but the exposure coupled with her increased BBC Radio 1 play and subsequent hype, may push her into getting there territory soon.
By 2023, the live music industry was set to reach $25 billion, cementing the sector as an increasingly crucial cornerstone of artists’ careers as streaming makes record revenues more difficult to get. A concert allows support to materialize itself in the physical rather than online world, through devoted fandoms, ticket sales, and merch sales. However, as artists are finding instant fame on platforms such as TikTok, traditional means of up-and-comers honing skills in the live arena—what Saunders emphasized as a crucial aspect of Catfish and the Bottlemen’s reliable success across the board—are being replaced with billions of streams.
In an essay titled How booking agents use (and don't use) data, music and technology expert Cherie Hu (aka Water & Music) argued you cannot perfectly mirror viral success with live music success—in fact, she said it was risky. Record company executives often underplay these Lil Nas X-type overnight wunderkinds—who are quickly famous but have no live experience under-their-belt—early in their touring schedule, ensuring they can draw any type of physical (and not online) audience in the first place, they can build hype by selling out small spaces (fear-of-missing-out effect), and they can maintain interest and don’t dissipate from public consciousness after throwing funds at a massive arena tour six months down-the-line. Quoting a business intelligence analyst at Paradigm Talent Agency, Hu summarized the presence of data in the live sector:
“I think data in the music industry needs a bit of a rebrand. A lot of agents don’t like it when you just say ‘let’s look at the data’—but then when you start talking about things like ‘charts’ or ‘touring history,’ they become a lot more keen on listening and taking part in the discussion. And for everyone who says, ‘Screw the data, I just want to listen to my gut’—I think that’s amazing and they should keep doing that, because their gut is a combination of hundreds of internalized pieces of data built up over years of experience that allowed them to hone their expertise. Their gut is their experience talking.”
Methodology: To create a database of British indie and alternative artists, the Spotify, last.fm, and Songkick APIs were used in succession. Artists tagged with “indie” and “alternative” genres were derived from Spotify, their bios for indicators of location were derived from last.fm, and their tour dates and associated venue sizes were derived from Songkick. This was combined with manual curation throughout the process. The resulting list of artists released their debut album after 2006, are from or are based in the United Kingdom (or, in some cases, Ireland), had more than 30 recorded tour dates from Songkick, and had more than 50% recorded venue sizes for those tour dates from Songkick.
