Independent music intelligence
Everyone argues about the music business. We measure it.
Overtone publishes first-party research on how music actually works: what a stream pays, who owns the masters, what a deal really takes, and which records the numbers support. Every dataset is open. Every method is published. No access to protect, so no punches pulled.
Flagship study
The most lexically complex rappers, measured
Token-level and rhyme-density analysis across the studio catalogues of the most-streamed rappers of the decade, built on MusicBrainz metadata. Lyrics are computed on and never republished, so only derived metrics ship. The full dataset publishes with the study.
Why this exists
The people who cover this industry depend on it for access.
That is not a conspiracy, it is a business model. An outlet that needs the interview cannot publish the number that embarrasses the label, and after enough years of that the coverage quietly stops containing arithmetic at all.
We have no access to protect and nothing to lose by counting. So we count: payouts per stream by platform, ownership chains, deal structures as they are actually written, tour economics from the opener's side. Then we publish the spreadsheet.
What we will not do
- Sell a position in a ranking, at any price
- Publish a figure we cannot source or reproduce
- Run a number without its sample size and its limits
- Quietly change a published claim without dating the correction
What we cover
Six beats, one method
Each beat is a standing research line with its own dataset, not a topic tag. Every plate is drawn from the shape of that line's own data.
The numbers, kept current
Standing reference tables, updated on a published cadence rather than written once and abandoned. Each row links to its source and carries the date it was last checked.
| Reference table | Covers | Rows | Cadence | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per-stream payout index | Streaming platforms | — | Quarterly | Scoped |
| Masters ownership chains | Catalogue sales | — | On event | Scoped |
| Deal-term decoder | Recording contracts | — | Annual | Scoped |
| Rap lexical density index | Hip-hop catalogues | 120 | Quarterly | Corpus running |
Rows marked with a dash have no published figure yet. We would rather show the gap than fill it with an estimate.
Dispatch
Reading a distribution statement without the marketing on top
What each line on a payout statement actually represents, and which ones quietly move money.
Independent, semi-independent, and the ones just labelled that way
Ownership is checkable. We check it, and we show the chain.
Open by default
Take the data. That is the point.
Every dataset publishes under CC-BY 4.0 with its method attached. Use it in your own work, your own story, your own argument. Attribution and a link back is the whole price.