I often talk about artists who have grown quickly, in a short period of time, with a number of releases. Floodlights are a bit different though – this band have grown significantly but over the long-term, and with only one release (just last week!) in over a year.
# releases: 1 – This is why I’m interested in Floodlights this week. With the previous release being way back in April of 2023, their latest track ‘Can You Feel It‘ rocketed back to the top of my Most Playlisted list last week. That long gap doesn’t usually result in an artist jumping back to the top of the list unless they’re already an established name. That makes them interesting.
Playlists appeared on*: 14 – To look at Floodlights’ growth, you have to go back two years, to see the previous release cycle. Looking at that, you can clearly see the growing support with each track leading up to (and then after) the album’s release in Apr of 2023. The number of playlists adding their tracks built steadily, a signal of solidifying support. By the time they returned last week, that support had barely degraded at all – New Music Friday AU & NZ, Local Noise, Happy Mag, and Amnplify all jumped right back on board, remarkable in such a fickle industry.
Spotify followers**: While the release schedule went quiet, Floodlights weren’t standing still – a long domestic and international touring schedule extended the life of the release and exposed them to new audiences, to the tune of over doubling their audience in two years, but also increasing their Spotify followers by over 50% during that fallow release period. Floodlights went into their last release cycle with 5k followers – this time, they start with nearly 12k. This expanded audience, along with playlist support that doesn’t look like it’s eroded with time, suggests that Floodlights are in a strong position to repeat the trick once again, and grow further over the coming months.
Listen to them on Spotify, or follow them on Instagram
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* I don’t track every single playlist in the whole world because that would be bonkers. The 40 or so that I do track are specifically chosen because they focus on new music by Australian artists – this narrows down the set to a manageable size, showing who’s supporting an artist before any given track has already blown up. Basically, I think it’s a solid dataset to show which artists are getting critic support.
** I tend to use Spotify Followers as the key metric to watch, instead of Monthly Listeners or Popularity. Monthlies are great, but they can be messed up by an artist being a contributor or songwriter on another artist’s track, and (along with Popularity) can fluctuate pretty wildly. Followers implies a conscious choice of preference from a user, so for me is the strongest and steadiest signal of solid, ongoing audience support.
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