Spotify new music trends

Big launches and hot genres

Project: Analysing Spotify music streaming data

Project Design: Colourtext

Every week Radiomonitor publishes data on the Top 200 songs requested by Spotify users in the UK. Back in July 2020 we ran a study of this data to see if lockdown measures were changing music listening habits, which was published as an interactive dashboard.

This proved popular and people have asked for an update, so here it is. The latest study includes a new segmentation of Spotify listening by music genre, which contains a few surprises.

You can explore the dashboard for yourself immediately below. It's pretty simple and has just three pages or 'tabs' that are accessed by toggling between the arrows at the bottom of the dashboard pane.

Colourtext's analysis of the Top 200 songs requested by Spotify users in the U.K. takes a look at the biggest new music launches of the previous 6 months. The cumulative weekly plays of new songs are overlaid on each other to reveals how quickly listening volumes have grown at comparable points in time following initial launch.

If you'd like to chat about accessing to a more complete and in-depth analysis of Spotify listening trends please drop us an email and we'll get right back to you.

It’s fair to say that 2020 has been an unusual year on pretty much every level. The latest data reveals that listening patterns for the Top 200 songs on Spotify in the U.K. diverged significantly between the 2nd week of March and the last week of July, coinciding with the main periods of U.K. lockdown.

Streaming volumes in 2020 for the Top 200 songs on Spotify briefly drew level with 2019 volumes at the end of July. They have since stabilised but at a level approximately 6% below last year's pattern.

Our new music genre segmentation reveals that Pop has seen its share of listening in the Spotify Top 200 songs fall from 28% in 2019 to 23% in 2020. The biggest pop acts in 2019 were Billie Eilish (252m streams) & Ariana Grande (241m) but their Top 200 plays are down this year by around 50-80%.

Lewis Capaldi (329m) and Ed Sheeran (235m) were the huge Singer/Songwriter genre acts of 2019. Lewis Capaldi has been the most-streamed artist on Spotify for the second year running, but in 2020 his Top 200 streams are 48% down on last year.

The big story in our Spotify music genre segmentation is that Hip Hop & Rap has seen its share of streaming for the Top 200 songs jump from 10% last year to 21% in 2020. In 2019 the biggest acts in this genre were Lil Has X, Aitch, D-Block Europe and Travis Scott but none of them broke through 100m streams.

However, following the tragic death of Pop Smoke in 2020 his Spotify streams have reached 156m to date. Other acts like Roddy Rich, Saint Jhn, KSI, 24Kgoldn and S1mba also saw their streams grow sharply during 2020.

Mark Uttley

Group Strategy Director, AKQA, San Francisco, US

"Colourtext always take a fresh approach to discovering hidden patterns in data. Whether you want to conduct segmentation or mine your CRM for deep insights, they will help you see your customers , and what they are seeing , in new ways."

Joaquim Bretcha

International Director of Netquest and President of ESOMAR, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

"Colourtext and Netquest have partnered on different occasions to showcase the power of the digital behavioural data extracted from Netquest’s consumer panel. Colourtext has not only the expertise of dealing with big datasets but also has brilliant creativity to make the most sense out of them. Working with Colourtext is a rich, agreeable and easy going experience"

Mark Barber MBE

Planning Director, RadioCentre, London, UK

"More than a decade of success for Radiog auge across the world is a testament to Colourtext’s experience and perseverance. There are many obstacles to creating a global currency for measuring radio advertising effectiveness - Colourtext has managed to tackle all of them."

"It’s rare to find research companies that really understand the unique radio / listener relationship and what makes radio advertising work. With experience of researching the medium on both sides of the fence, Colourtext is one of those rare companies."

Simone Lawrence

Director of Insights, Canadian Broadcast Sales, Toronto, Canada

Colourtext has an agile approach to research that ensures a successful outcome to every challenge CBS gives them. The depth of experience and understanding the Colourtext team brings to each study demonstrates their value in the audio space. We have a very positive nine year working relationship behind us that has created significant value for CBS and our clients. We remain committed to working with Colourtext in the coming years.

Jon Puleston

Vice President of Innovation, Kantar Profiles, London, UK

It's rare to find a partner with the mix of analytical, technological and creative skills offered by Colourtext. Jason and his team seem to roam around freely in data, find the stories that matter and bring a distinctive aesthetic vision to the presentation of information.