2019 on cXc Music, The Global Map of Music

Still better than Youtube rewind.

cXc Music
6 min readDec 31, 2019

Let’s look back on all the music that found its way on the map.

Screenshot music.cxc.world in late December 2019

In our first year, we saw the map fill up with musical creations of all kinds, and music pop up in unexpected (but accurate) places.

We are continually stoked by the excitement that this tool can create, and the joy it can share. We look forward to so much music to share and enjoy in 2020!!

2019 in Numbers

600 musical creations found their way onto the map, of those, 440 included a Soundcloud link, 238 Youtube, and 179 Spotify.

Pro Tip: You can click any of the links to go to the same display on cXc Music

Genres

🎤 The Reign of Hip-Hop Begins

In 2019, Hip-Hop / Rap / R&B was the by far the most populous genre.

The margin was so huge, hip hop could easily fit twice every other genre.

Here’s what that looks like 👀

️And here is all of the Hip-Hop from 2019 on the map 🔍 🗺, 421 songs.

We can see that Europe and the US posted the most Hip-Hop in 2019

Followed by Electronic / EDM, with 42, barely 10% of Hip-Hop tracks

Europe seems to have more EDM per capita than the US

And then Rock with 25 🎸

South America turned out to be a larger contributor in this genre

Moods 😝😲😎🙂🤬🥰😭

The moods were much more evenly distributed, with Chill, Heavy / Hard, and Energizing holding the most song entrants.

Moods by number of posts

Chill songs were the most-added, with 177 in 2019

All of the music labeled “chill” in 2019

Hard / Heavy had 93 songs added

All the Heavy / Hard music (What does that even mean?)

and Uplifting / Energizing had 91 songs

..aand Energizing music, YES!

Format

Song / Single was the (expected) most chosen format with 349 / 600. We had a surprising number of instrumentals, 177, but the other categories were not used much.

Top Tracks on cXc Music

#1 With or Without by Dice Martin

With or Without

Listen on cXc Music

#2 D!aspora feat. Glastpype — Chaos im Kopf

Listen on cXc Music

#3 GROCERIES (Prod. Madlib) by Abhi The Nomad

Listen on cXc Music

To see the rest of the top tracks, go to music.cxc.world, and click the chart icon in the top-right corner

Our 2019 Review

It’s time we talk about ourselves so we can understand the past year and use these lessons in the new year, and new release of cXc Music Beta.

What we did well

cXc Music Beta Development — We implemented a new database system, and incorporated a geographic system, and an in-house chronographic system called Time Units, to TUs.

Social Media — We set up and have been ever-more active on social media, including Instagram, Twitter, Steemit, and Facebook

Dev Updates — By posting periodic updates on our Steemit, we hope to keep users in-the-loop of upcoming features.

What will be improved

Steemit Actions — Overall, few people shared their posts (or other’s posts) on Steemit. We see the Steemit integration as adding huge value to the app, so we would like to see more people using it. We plan to improve this through better user education and encouraging engagement, perhaps through gamification.

Education — We have a growing need for educating users on the features of the app. We will test several options and implement. The new site will probably include some sort fo walkthrough

UPs — This core feature did not catch on as we thought, though it wasn’t operating as per intention. With Beta, we plan to demonstrate the value of UPing to the user, and show the user that with 288 UPs at their disposal cada diem, they have the opportunity to influence the charts in real ways.

Development Speed — Although we are getting close to the release of Beta, it was a learning experience that took longer than expected. I am now writing code for set hours every weekday, not including any other cXc tasks, and will continue this until Beta is released.

Communicating Vision — We wrote the Purple Paper to communicate the vision behind Current X Change. Unfortunately, the 80+ pages has proven hard to digest, so we plan to communicate our vision in bigger, yet smaller, ways.

Suggestions Received

Here’s a parable retelling of some of the feedback we received and what we are doing about it.

List of GenresWorking on it (@ us with suggestions)

Contrast of some colorsUpdated in Beta, and on Alpha also

Buttons too close or unreadable in Menu — Larger in Beta (See image below)

The WIP search menu coming to Beta

Alpha vs Beta: The future of cXc Music

We wrote another post about the Beta release of cXc Music. You are welcome to check it out here:

https://medium.com/@music.cxc.world/moving-from-alpha-to-beta-the-future-of-cxc-music-7c42dbfb46ec

An Exhilarating Start

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this fascinating map of music that manifested over the course of 2019. You give us the drive to continue developing and spreading the word about cXc Music. We are stoked to deliver Beta in the coming year, and can’t wait to hear the music you and your friends make.

We are coming together as a planet of creators, and we look forward to all the friendships, music, and shared vibrations that arrive in all planes.

All the Love,
Douglas James Butner
Creator of cXc Music

P.S. Special thanks to Stamen Designs (they made the map style), Leaflet (they made the map), and all who worked on the technologies making cXc Music possible.

P. P. S. We welcome any music you have created, or local music you would like to promote on our map. Simply go to music.cxc.world, double click the area you want to post, and paste your URLs.

The links to all things cXc Music.

The app is here: cXc Music (Alpha)

Our founding charter is here: The Purple Paper

Join us on Social Media for More Cowbell

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube | Discord

--

--

cXc Music

🔗 linktr.ee/cxc.world 🔗 Music NFT 🗺️ on WAX where Ups 🔺 make music grow 🌱🌳 Up music you love with a click 👇🔺 = 💜 Add your jams at cXc.world by 👇👇+🎵