New Argentine albums 2024: the music few people listen to

Argentina generates new music at an overwhelming pace. For years now, more than 300 albums and EPs have been released per season. And in 2024 that figure was far surpassed, with months like August leaving at least 50, or October, when more than 60 came out. That's 2,500, 3,000 brand-new songs per year, maybe more. Only counting albums, not singles, remixes, soundtracks, and so on.

It's an unmanageable flood of tracks. This text doesn't seek to organize that chaos or deliver a method for exploring it, but rather to offer a valuable working premise: your next favorite new band currently has fewer than 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

The first version of this text documented what happened between January and August 2024. In the first days of January, we're uploading an update to include the final data for the entire past year. I also added many more albums that had been released in the first months but that I hadn't heard about yet. Thus, the total number of albums analyzed went from 145 to 276.

Escape velocity in Argentine indie

The 100,000 monthly listeners isn't an arbitrary number: it's a milestone from which projects can reach escape velocity. Good bands -- and/or those making viral-friendly music -- that manage to hit six figures start amassing enough attention (playlists, press, shows) to grow exponentially and simply double or triple. Or even, within a couple of months, stretch to a million.

If there's a really good or striking band or solo artist in the style of music you like with more than 100,000 monthly listeners, you've probably already heard of them through some feature, because they opened for a bigger band, because someone in your circle mentioned them, because they ring a bell from some playlist or article or video recommendation. At that level of visibility, the algorithm cruises at full speed, especially if you actively listen to new music.

Just as a reference: Bestia Bebé has 50k, Blair 54k, BB Asul 36k, Dum Chica 24k, Un Verano 26k, Barco 22k, Winona Riders 47k, Marki 76k. All of them play festivals and get plenty of press, and they're still far from 100k. And the cases that just crossed that threshold are also plentiful: Six Sex and Mhtresuno went from 100 to almost 200 thousand in a couple of months, Broke Carrey, Feli Colina, and Soui Uno are also starting to break away.

The 276 albums you don't have to listen to

For the launch of 421 I set out to see which musicians with albums and EPs released between January 1st and August 31st 2024 were still below 100k monthly listeners. I found more than 180 releases at that level, but I added two more restrictions to get results with more controlled dispersion: I left out any artist who has been releasing music for more than 10 years, and I removed all EPs with only three or four tracks. That left a sample of 145 Argentine albums with five or more tracks, by artists with less than a decade of activity who hadn't surpassed 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

In the first days of January 2025, I added another 131 albums, released mainly in the last four months. This is the definitive list with all those albums and the data I cross-referenced for the rest of this text. Nothing you can't find out on Spotify itself.

Half an hour because nobody has all day

The albums in this census accumulate 138 hours, 39 minutes, and 29 seconds. The average Argentine album of 2024 lasts almost half an hour: 30 minutes and 9 seconds, though the median sits slightly below that, at 28 minutes and 32 seconds.

These are similar durations to those that already existed at the origin of Argentine pop and rock in some of the first vinyl records by Los Gatos, Moris (30 minutos de vida, hey), Pescado Rabioso, or Manal. In the '80s and '90s the standard doubled to around one hour: much of Soda Stereo, Sumo, Los Redondos, Virus, Charly, Spinetta, Fito, Andrés, sonic pop, rock chabón, and Argentine metal. Until about 20 years ago, at the dawn of post-Cromañón indie, releases under 20 minutes became the norm.

Short albums are still being made today: of the 276, there are 155 under half an hour, only 26 over 45 minutes, and just 3 that exceed one hour.

The five longest are by Winona Riders (No hagas que me arrepienta, 1:09:00, 12 tracks), Cia Rebeck (Everyone has a Backstory, 1:06:00, 12 tracks), Ale Cares y los Magos Farciar (Pescado 3, 1:01:00, 18 tracks), Sirio (Cadillac One, 57:51, 17 tracks), and Rey Bichito (La casa, 56:40, 14 tracks).

The five shortest were released by Buey Solo (Despega, 6:58, 5 tracks), Distante (Nada se puede comparar, 9:54, 5 tracks), Yeyo (Enemigo del fin vol. 2, 12:03, 5 tracks), Joyze (Chacotizado, 13:10, 5 tracks), and Neokira (Sacrificar lo individual, 13:31, 5 tracks).

Tracking the track

Related -- only loosely -- to duration is the question of how many tracks Argentine new releases have:

• 5 tracks / 31 albums
• 6 tracks / 19 albums
• 7 tracks / 34 albums
• 8 tracks / 47 albums
• 9 tracks / 36 albums
• 10 tracks / 49 albums
• 11 tracks / 16 albums
• 12 tracks / 22 albums
• 13 tracks / 4 albums
• 14 tracks / 7 albums
• 15 tracks / 6 albums
• 17 tracks / 3 albums
• 18 tracks / 1 album
• 20 tracks / 1 album

Between 7 and 10 tracks seems to be the standard. In fact, the average is 8.96 tracks per album (2,474 across 276), the median sits at 9, and the most frequent values are 8 and 10. Pretty straightforward.

The album with the most tracks in this sample is by Enrique Cenzano, El último malevo, with 20. Next, with 18, is the one by Ale Cares y los Magos Farciar (Pescado 3). And with 17, those by Sirio (Cadillac One), Guli (Creo que necesito ir a dar una vuelta), and Recreo Uruguayo (Luchemos por la vida).

An album's duration isn't defined solely by the number of tracks but also by their individual lengths, obviously. And the average here is 3:22, around 200 seconds, a threshold that is also a standard respected by the vast majority of songs of all time.

For greater precision, the releases with the shortest tracks are by Buey Solo (Despega), Sonzai (El caos es la escalera), El Fin del Cuento (Interferencias), Recreo Uruguayo (Luchemos por la vida), and Distante (Nada se puede comparar), all averaging under 2 minutes.

While the longest-running ones all average over 5 minutes and are by Marcia Deviaje (Imitación de una flor, 8:42), Winona Riders (No hagas que me arrepienta, 5:45), Cia Rebeck (Everyone has a Backstory, 5:30), Juan Depresión (Psoriasis, 5:29), and Palusunsystem (2123, 5:23).

Where what we listen to comes from

It was obvious beforehand that Buenos Aires would end up with the largest share of releases, either because that's genuinely the case or because it was easier for me to find out about them (at this point I should clarify that part of the work I've been doing for many years involves receiving information about music releases).

According to the survey, 77% of the works cataloged (214 out of 276) came from the city or province of Buenos Aires: 3 out of 4. The dominance is absolute, to the point that it leads the second-place province, Santa Fe (18), by two hundred releases; and the third, Córdoba (13).

Mendoza also has a significant contribution, with 10; and below that comes Neuquén, with 5. Remaining with marginal representation are Chubut (3), Chaco, Entre Ríos, Río Negro, and Tucumán (2), Corrientes, Misiones, Salta, San Juan, and Tierra del Fuego (1).

Is this all the music that was released? Not even close, and surely in all those provinces there are many more cases. The other provinces not represented in this census have no doubt also produced more than one album this year. If you know of more examples, contact me here.

Features as a commercial and political device

To take a break from all the data-throwing, let's now look at a section with only two options: features (with or without), one of the hot topics in the industry for at least a decade.

Of these 276 albums, 121 have at least one feature. That's an almost absurd 44% indicating how normalized it has become for a band to invite someone else to sing or play on their albums, whether out of taste, mandate, or speculation.

And on that point, of the 30 albums by artists with the most monthly listeners on Spotify -- from this survey, of course -- only 7 don't have features. And it's the opposite for the 30 least listened to: only 4 managed to land a feature. Could it be that collaborations drive numbers up? Or that those doing well in listeners only collaborate with those in their league? Which came first?

You never forget your first

The list of names hints at a deep post-pandemic era. And the data confirms it: 175 artists, 63.4% of the sample, began releasing their music in 2020 or later. If we add the previous year, the figure rises to 215 and reaches 78%.

• 2015 / 11 artists
• 2016 / 19 artists
• 2017 / 12 artists
• 2018 / 19 artists
• 2019 / 40 artists
• 2020 / 46 artists
• 2021 / 36 artists
• 2022 / 31 artists
• 2023 / 28 artists
• 2024 / 34 artists

I'm fascinated by listening to debut albums, and this year there are a ton. Out of every three new releases, at least one was that artist's first album or EP: 94 out of 276, or 34%.

What's more, among those there are 34 absolute debutants (12%), who until 2024 began had not a single song published. A warm welcome to Afuera Corren, Amor Indio, Billy Lummys, Blujäus, Bob Crous, Botta, Burzacodelica, Clamor, Cynthia Lozada, Enrique Cenzano, Estrella, Fede López, Felipe Flossdorf, Fenu, Figura Imposible, Gin-Ets, Hijos de la María, Lemu, Lenin Tiene Hambre, Maia Kalwill, Marchitorial, Max Artale, Maxi Ledesma, Muy Anti, Pira Bastourre, Proyecto Fantasma, Ren Casini, Roberto Aleandri, Ronin Zombie, Sangre de Barro, Sasha Eter, Simón!, Sunlid, and Tokyo Soundsystem.

What does this mean? That the sub-100k world is a zone of extremely high effervescence, where names are constantly being renewed and projects enter the trenches to fight with just one (94 out of 276, 34%) or two albums (80 out of 276, 29%).

From there, the ratio drops and drops. To the point that there are almost no cases of bands or solo artists with more than 6 albums or EPs. Hopefully this means that consistency leads to comfortably surpassing 100,000 monthly listeners after that threshold. Most likely, such cases are scarce because bands that fail to grow their audience end up breaking up or taking longer and longer between albums.

Listen to me through the noise of clicks

• Up to 100 monthly listeners / 75 artists / 27.17%
• 101 to 1,000 / 92 artists / 33.33%
• 1,001 to 10,000 / 64 artists / 23.19%
• 10,001 to 100,000 / 45 artists / 16.30%

I'm saving my favorite count for last, and what I love most is how any band of any size releases albums and EPs. You're not more obligated for being an unknown band. You're not in better shape for having more listeners. If you make music, you have to put music out. Period.

In total, 231 of the 276 albums, almost 84%, were made by musicians with fewer than 10,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. The vast majority of songs that get released are listened to by very, very few people. In fact, adding up all the listeners of all the artists in this census, they didn't even reach two million plays by Tuesday, January 7th: it was just under 1.8 million. And among the 18 most-listened-to artists, they accounted for almost a million.

Zenón Pereyra (94k), Mery Granados (93k), Nación Ekeko (75k), Los Peñaloza (74k), and Plastilina (71k) seem close to leaving the five-digit zone and reaching escape velocity. Behind them, Tiger Mood (58k), Juan López (55k), Vale Acevedo (54k), Marttein (54k), and Paz Carrara (53k) complete a Top 10.