Intro: Dump-uary

In 1992, The Silence of the Lambs swept the Academy Awards’ most prestigious categories, winning Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Actress. Somehow, a movie about a well-educated cannibal who speaks in riddles became a commercial smash and a critical darling. The Silence of the Lambs is one of just three films to have acheived the “Big Four” Oscar sweep. It’s also the only Best Picture winner in the past seven decades to have been released in January.

If that last sentence reads like a typo, I promise it isn’t. In 100 years of this glorified popularity contest, January—a month with a perfectly normal number of days—has been bizarrely underrepresented.

In fact, anyone who follows the movie release calendar knows that January has its own nickname within the film industry: Dump-uary. Traditionally, movies perceived as having lesser theatrical appeal are unceremoniously “dumped” into the first few weeks of the year, a convenient way for studios to unload low-confidence bets from their balance sheets.

Movie releases have always been governed by intense seasonality. From Dump-uary to summer blockbusters to prestige Oscar fare, conventional wisdom holds that different parts of the calendar are best suited to different kinds of films.

Hearing my favorite movie podcasters (once again) complain about this year’s Dump-uary slate got me thinking about two completely unrelated questions. First: Is this phenomenon quantifiable? And second: Does the same logic apply to the music industry? Are pop stars constrained by seasonal demand in the same way—or can musicians release albums whenever they want because nobody cares about the Grammys?

So today, we’ll explore the best months to release new movies and music, the strange seasonal rhythms of how music is consumed throughout the year, and how streaming has reshaped music’s role in our daily lives.

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by The Stat Significant Dataset Hub

Access 190+ Curated Datasets to Elevate Your Analysis

Want the data behind the deep dives? The Stat Significant Data Hub gives you access to 190+ curated datasets spanning movies, music, TV, economics, sports, and more.

New datasets are added weekly, with full archive access for Stat Significant paid subscribers. Since last week’s post, we added 11 new datasets—covering everything from global aviation accidents to Amazon product records to historical baseball statistics.

When Are Movies and Music Typically Released?

Releases tend to be weighted toward the back half of