Our first foray into key signatures found G and C major to be the most popular musical keys on Spotify, probably because the former is easiest to play on a guitar, the latter on piano. Now, let’s look at how key signatures vary between genre. Detecting key signature through audio analysis Trained musicians practice the […]
How Reggaeton Became a Global Phenomenon on Spotify
Latin music, in particular the reggaeton genre, with its addictive, start-stop beat (sample below), has expanded far beyond its places of origin to become a global genre that regularly tops the charts. Throughout the summer Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito – Remix,” featuring none other than Justin Bieber singing in Spanish, followed by J […]
Data Viz: ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ Follows the Eclipse
During the recent eclipse, listening to Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” exploded 3,521 percent on Spotify in the United States (1,017 percent globally) as the moon’s shadow began to cross the country. The song also spiked 75 percent on March 10, 2016, the day after another total eclipse. This time, we saw a […]
How Students Listen 2017
College is about learning, learning how to learn, and expanding horizons before they narrow into careers and other trappings of post-student life. Universities are also places where people form musical identities, due not only to the relatively inadvanced age of the student listener (music taste solidifies with age). It’s also because they’re living with each other, all the time, for years, in […]
An Adventure Through Chrome’s Wildly-Varying Emoji Support 🤷🏻
…and how I came to appreciate the challenges of working with emoji Back on March 9, while skimming Hacker News during my inter–job vacation, I read the piece “💩”.length === 2, and thought, huh, that is so interesting. Emoji are way more complicated than I thought. It seems challenging to work with them, but also, not […]
Iconic Playlists: What Emoji Say About Music
Did you know Spotify users have made over 35 million playlists with emoji in their titles? Which artists get the most emoji? Which ones do they get? And what could the dog emoji have to do with reggaeton? Emoji, those cute, simple images that convey thoughts on chats and social media, arguably represent the most […]
NCAA March Madness: The Musical Version
Tonight, the sixteen college basketball teams who’ve made it into the Sweet Sixteen round of the 2017 NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Championship will face off to see who makes it into the next round, with a chance to win the whole thing. What if, instead of games of basketball, the “March Madness” tournament were decided by which schools […]
Animated Heat Map: Prince Listening Around the World
In celebration of Prince’s return to streaming, here is a map of Prince listening over time. Which city listened to the most Prince? That would be his hometown of Minneapolis; see the top 20 Prince-listening cities by share of listening below the map. These cities had the highest share of Prince listening: Minneapolis, Minnesota, […]
Spotify, Accuweather Reveal How Weather Affects Music Listening
When it rains, we put on a raincoat or get under an umbrella, because we can’t control the weather. We can, however, control what we hear while it’s raining, especially with services that let you play whatever you want. We wondered: Do people make different music-listening decisions based on weather? This simple question led to […]
National Geographic’s Best Winter Trips of 2017
Looking for some winter travel options? National Geographic recently launched its Best Winter Trips 2017, with a range of options around the world, listed below. To help prospective travelers get a feel for the places on the list, Spotify curated a playlist for each destination, and then we put them on a map, so you can […]
Musical Map of the World 2.0
Music is a universal language — and maybe one with more variants than any other. To understand these nuances, let’s step back and see and hear how people around the world (cities and countries) listen to music differently, what they share the most, and more. Click a country or city to hear its music (instructions […]
The ‘Monster Mash’ Is The Most Seasonal Song on Spotify
Spotify contains no fewer than 326 recordings of “The Monster Mash,” by everyone from The Beach Boys to the London Theatre Orchestra & Cast. But the undisputed master of ‘The Mash’ is of course Bobby “Boris” Pickett, pictured to the right, who unleashed this ghoulish delight on the world in August of 1962. People snapped […]
10 Data Art Projects by Spotify Analysts & Designers
We at Spotify love music. We love data, too. Because our data is about music and how over 100 million real people listen to it, it’s actually quite human. As our own Matt Ogle said of the popular Discover Weekly feature, “Man vs. machine is no longer a useful distinction in terms of how we […]
Spotify Reveals How Listening Habits Change with the Seasons
Today is the first day of fall, when we might notice the slightest chill to the air, leading eventually perhaps to autumn foliage, cozy clothes, and spiced everything. It also marks the changing musical tastes of Spotify listeners. To find out how music listening changes by season, Spotify analyzed the stream counts and genres of […]
The Tragically Hip Listening Surges Following Epic Farewell Show
Fans of Canadian legends The Tragically Hip gave their the band an epic send-off in the form of a massively-attended farewell concert — the second-most-watched video event of any kind in Canadian history. One in three Canadians saw it, and possibly many more, as fans gathered around single screens for viewing parties. This legendary (and […]
