New Electronic Act Meduza Has Great Grammy Chances

Meduza, the Fastest Growing New Electronic Act, Has Great Grammy Chances

The 62nd Grammy noms for Best Dance Recording gave a nod to industry juggernauts such as Skrillex and The Chemical Brothers, who also lead the Electronic field in the number of nominations and are rumored to be snatching Best Electronic Album. But it’s Meduza’s smash hit “Piece of Your Heart” that brought its makers the most impressive growth in recent months.

New Electronic Act Meduza Has Great Grammy Chances

Sara Mekinc

Jan 22, 2020

Just before the big Grammy night, our editorial project, jokingly dubbed “The Instagrammys”, dived into selected artists’ online popularity stats. While looking at online popularity in the past six months (July to December 2019), we discovered that Meduza is the fastest rising new Electronic act. When we compared the stats with those of other Dance Recording nominees, Meduza’s growth was consistently the biggest throughout the major streaming and social media channels.

Check it out. Not only did Meduza outperform everyone in terms of follower growth (granted, they're the newest act out there, so the “interest snowball” was bound to roll the fastest), the total number of track plays is absolutely amazing. On Spotify alone, “Piece of Your Heart” has been played over 400M times. That’s about 30 times more than Skrillex’s “Midnight Hour”!

In case you were wondering which track was the club hit of 2019, look no further than Meduza.

Quick facts:

> Despite earning a cult following and winning Album of the Year at the Electronic Music Awards in 2018, Bonobo has never topped any mainstream music charts.

> The Chemical Brothers' first Grammy win was in 1997, for Best Rock Instrumental Performance (“Block Rockin’ Beats”).

> Meduza’s “Piece of Your Heart” climbed to #1 on Billboard's Dance Club Songs chart, and following its popularity on Ibiza, became the 5th most globally Shazamed song in 2019.

> At the very first Electronic Music Awards in 2017, Rüfüs du Sol received the most awards by taking "Live Act of the Year" and "Record of the Year".

> Out of Skrillex’s 8 total Grammy wins so far, 3 of them were for Best Dance Recording ("Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" (2011), "Bangarang" (2012), "Where Are Ü Now" (2015)).

The Italian House trio might seem like a surprise entry, but the numbers speaks otherwise. Thanks to its big break on Ibiza, “Piece of Your Heart” landed on multiple year-end charts globally (including the Top 5 most Shazamed songs of 2019), was certified Platinum in five EU countries and Australia, and was streamed in the tens of millions.

From this perspective, the track can be viewed as this year’s “mainstream contender”, opposite the critically-acclaimed Bonobo and Rüfüs du Sol especially as globally well-known and commercially successful Electronic powerhouses such as Marshmello or The Chainsmokers have been completely overlooked by the Academy. The final verdict remains to be seen, but one thing is sure – over the years, the Electronic genre has so decidedly seeped through to the mainstream, it's hardly considered fringe anymore. It's therefore about time we see the categories enter the main, broadcasted award ceremony.