The most popular vocal synths on Youtube (2021 stats)

[lIlI]

I've summarised this great article, that collected stats for vocal synth Youtube uploads this year:

A little over 41,000 songs were posted.

There were 11,000 producer channels posting music this year.

The most popular vocal synths of 2021:

Miku remained the most popular voice by far.

Kafu was the fastest growing newcomer, she is now second most popular to Miku.

The faster growing new producers this year were Azari and Fujiwo.

Some months have inflated numbers due to festivals and events.

4 songs reached 10 million views in 2021.

Number of posts by day:

Weekends and the end of the month were the most popular upload times.

Visualising the average number of views per song:

The vast majority of vocal synth songs sit at around 100 views, those who reach 100k are few.

A video showing how the ranking of most popular songs shifted throughout the year:



This is the first time I've seen reliable stats for Youtube, and a few years since we've had a proper popularity roundup! Did any of the results surprise you?

 

[Blue Of Mind]

I'm surprised Kafu gained so much popularity really quickly, despite the PR issues surrounding her. I guess Japanese producers really vibed with her regardless of what happened. Saying that, all of those promo demos by big producers probably helped a lot.

 

[lIlI]

Assuming the controversy occurred amongst Japanese fans (I can't remember how much of the backlash was just our pocket of the fandom); I think it could have helped her. 'There's no such thing as bad publicity' is applicable when there's enough annoyance to create a conversation, but the situation isn't dire enough to inspire a widespread boycott. In this case potential buyers are more likely to see people talking about Kafu's voice, and give her a listen. If she appeals to a group of people, any type of discussion would have a positive impact on sales and recognition.

I also think the uniqueness of a voice plays a big role. Kafu may not be for everyone, but there's no voice quite like hers, which means she doesn't have any direct competition. A more widely appealing voice might have several other widely appealing voices they're competing with, which will cannibalise sales.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

I kind of wonder if Kafu will drop off once she's not being super heavily promoted (like say Mayu did); staying ahead of loids like Luka, Una, and Yukari has historically not been easy.
like how Sachiko launched into the top 20 her first month then immediately fell off but like. less dramatic.

I'm actually really surprised VY1still gets enough songs to warrant her own bar. (And I see Meiko and Gackpo have finally been relegated to "Other" in one of these; that's not too surprising.).

 

[lIlI]

I was surprised by VY1 too! I think the market for avatar-less voicebanks might be underestimated within the fandom.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

I was surprised by VY1 too! I think the market for avatar-less voicebanks might be underestimated within the fandom.

VY1 is a high quality, versatile bank that Yamaha continues to support, so that's probably why producers still use her regularly. I'm not entirely sure if the wider fandom really does vibe with avatar-less VBs considering how some Saki videos give her an avatar anyway.

 

[blackout]

Very glad to see Kafu up there. I noticed she's been getting a great amount of uploads since release but it's impressive to see her all the way up to 2nd most used just before Miku. I think this is the first time a non-Vocaloid commercial bank got this amount of use & popularity (which is about time!)

Don't think there was any controversy with her outside of this particular bubble of the fandom, and even then I think things were a bit overblown and exaggerated over here... but that's in the past anyways. Kamitsubaki knows their shit when it comes to the current Vocaloid scene (with most of their members being involved in it as producers and such) and that showed on how superbly picked their selection of producers for demo songs was. Kaf herself is also popular with the crowd that consumes the current mainstream Vocaloid music, not to mention she has a really unique voice that shone thru Kafu on Cevio AI. I think that's why she's popped off the way she did compared to most other recently released synths. Personally I'm really excited to see how they'll handle SEKAI and any other future Kamitsubaki artist based synths that they might come up with.