again, ubiquitous syncs
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 9 January 2018 19:37 (six years ago) link
more ubiquitous than lust for life, though?
― porg and bess (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 9 January 2018 19:40 (six years ago) link
i guess the numbers don't lie
very close second
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 9 January 2018 19:41 (six years ago) link
i think more people take the lust for life drumbeat for syncs and that maybe splits the numbers
a weird streaming age story: so i was listening to some Eno earlier today and I was astonished at the ridiculously high play totals for some of his tracks...not his 70s solo tracks, not his collaborations with David Byrne, but his ambient stuff. "An Ending (Ascent)" has over 57 million streams! Why? A few of his ambient tracks made their way onto Spotify's "Sleep" playlist, which has well over 2 million subscribers.
― MooVaughn.org (voodoo chili), Monday, 26 March 2018 02:15 (six years ago) link
people just listen to that playlist on repeat for hours every night! it's probably earning some experimental composers some decent money.
Ha, that's great.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Monday, 26 March 2018 02:55 (six years ago) link
2 million users falling asleep to it is an uncapped bandwidth provider’s nightmare.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Monday, 26 March 2018 03:51 (six years ago) link
I'm not sure how these Spotify rankings work exactly, but I see that Johnny's Cash's version of "Hurt" has double the plays of any of his other songs (188 million to "I Walk the Line"'s 92 million and "Ring of Fire"'s 94 million) but is only ranked as his second most popular track, hopefully because some Spotify bot is going "Nah, man."
― President Keyes, Monday, 26 March 2018 12:57 (six years ago) link
I think there's some recency element in the algorithm
― MooVaughn.org (voodoo chili), Monday, 26 March 2018 13:00 (six years ago) link
yeah i think glenn broke that down at some point, there's a special sauce, maybe also taking into account how much it's been searched for, how many playlists it's in, etc.
― lol dis stance dunk (Doctor Casino), Monday, 26 March 2018 13:19 (six years ago) link
I was shocked recently to see that "Mary Jane's Last Dance" is edging out "American Girl" for most played Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers song on Spotify. Both have half the plays of "Free Fallin'" but its credited to solo Petty. Just had no idea it was that popular.
― sofatruck, Monday, 26 March 2018 16:00 (six years ago) link
Yeah, I wouldn’t have guessed that one would be even in his top 5 songs...
― absorbed carol channing's powers & psyche (morrisp), Monday, 26 March 2018 16:20 (six years ago) link
that makes sense to me, that was the massive single from the Greatest Hits album, which sold 12 million copies and was maybe the first Petty album that for my generation was somewhat aimed in our direction. I was 18 when it came out and the previous albums several albums he'd released were all imo a bit more "adult" (Southern Accents, Full Moon Fever, Into the Great Wide Open, Traveling Wilburys.) I liked them but MJLD was a song definitely with an eye on younger listeners, if only for the video. which was huge.
― omar little, Monday, 26 March 2018 16:31 (six years ago) link
"An Ending (Ascent)" has over 57 million streams! Why?
I think this was in Trainspotting? pretty sure there was a film placement that kickstarted its popularity
― sleeve, Monday, 26 March 2018 16:31 (six years ago) link
yeah it's used in lots of TV shows/movies, including Traffic, which I think is what you're thinking of, but that still struck me as a crazy high number.
― MooVaughn.org (voodoo chili), Monday, 26 March 2018 16:41 (six years ago) link
xpost (re: Petty)Interesting -- I see it came out in fall '93, and that was definitely a moment when the song/video would have fallen thru the cracks for me (my first year of college).
― absorbed carol channing's powers & psyche (morrisp), Monday, 26 March 2018 16:42 (six years ago) link
Yeah I can see that in retrospect. That 93 GH package was actually my intro to Petty (was 15 or so) but that song never clicked that much for me then, so I guess I never picked up on how popular it was.
― sofatruck, Monday, 26 March 2018 17:13 (six years ago) link
"Deep Blue Day" is the Trainspotting selection. It's from Apollo, which for about 20 years has been my favorite ambient Eno – perfect for 9:30 p.m. weeknight writing.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 26 March 2018 17:17 (six years ago) link
kind of pointless to parse this for still-active huge artists, but kendrick lamar's top track on Spotify, by a long shot, is "HUMBLE." with almost 900K plays. "King Kunta" which I think of as his signature song, is way down at 250K. clearly i'm not really in touch with his hitmaking! but also clearly, it'll be years before he could properly have a "this thread" kind of song.
― got the scuba tube blowin' like a snork (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 29 August 2018 16:40 (five years ago) link
it got way more airplay iirc
― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Wednesday, 29 August 2018 17:18 (five years ago) link
https://www.billboard.com/music/kendrick-lamar/chart-history/hot-r-and-b-hip-hop-airplay
wow, yeah, pretty clear, thanks! i must have just been out of the loop last summer...
― got the scuba tube blowin' like a snork (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 29 August 2018 17:33 (five years ago) link
Ha I recently heard some younguns talking about the day Humble dropped as like the most momentous musical day of their lives, like now we know what it was like when you guys first heard Teen Spirit
I think the ilm reaction was like hmm this is okay
― President Keyes, Thursday, 30 August 2018 00:35 (five years ago) link
Queen has come up before but the recent ascent of "Don't Stop Me Now" seems a conspicuous example. Almost: beaten only by "Bohemian Rhapsody" over at Spotify nowadays, but I virtually never heard it anywhere for the first couple of decades of its existence.
("This Must Be The Place" is the other one, but I see y'all discussed that in the past.)
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Thursday, 30 August 2018 05:01 (five years ago) link
"Don't Stop Me Now" is a good one. I work pub quizzes and that song came up in an audio round (i.d. a song and artist from a 15-20 second clip) one time recently--I was genuinely surprised how many people nailed both, particularly in the company of newer and/or more obvious tracks in the round that they didn't.
Was it in a movie or commercial?
― Ubering With The King (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 30 August 2018 05:14 (five years ago) link
Yeah, I think its resurgence can be traced back to 2004 when it was used in the most memorable scene of Shaun of the Dead.
― triggercut, Thursday, 30 August 2018 06:11 (five years ago) link
I had never heard "A Million Reasons" before checking Lady Gaga's Spotify profile, but it seems it's her... most streamed song?
unfortunately it's an overwrought, schmaltzy ballad - a missed opportunity
― niels, Monday, 22 October 2018 11:20 (five years ago) link
I wonder how much that has to do with the song having only been released after Spotify became one of the primary ways people hear new music, as opposed to e.g. the diamond-certified "Poker Face". (I've never knowingly heard it before either.)
― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Monday, 22 October 2018 11:48 (five years ago) link
yeah, that was my first thought too
― niels, Monday, 22 October 2018 11:55 (five years ago) link
Ugh, one that just occurred to me as a very real likelihood: Todd Rundgren - 'Bang the Drum All Day'
― a butt, at which the shaft of ridicule is daily glanced (Old Lunch), Monday, 22 October 2018 12:54 (five years ago) link
At 2.7M + 1.6M (for two different versions that appear in his 10 most streamed songs), Spotify thankfully has its play count well below "I Saw the Light" (10.8M) and "Hello It's Me" (5.7M + 4.7M for two different versions), although that's still higher than it should be.
― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Monday, 22 October 2018 13:02 (five years ago) link
ITunes store also seems to rank it #3.
― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Monday, 22 October 2018 13:04 (five years ago) link
yeah, gaga is one of those where songs from 2008 got bought on iTunes, not streamed on spotify. but bear in mind that spotify's ranking algorithm includes some recency/hotness special sauce, not just raw play count - if you dig in it looks like this:
Million Reasons 259mBad Romance 250mPoker Face 249mThe Cure (??) 233mApplause 187m Telephone 182mJust Dance 159mBorn This Way 130mDo What U Want 117mPaparazzi 101m
that still suggests some kind of VERY intense marketing on that last album that nonetheless completely escaped me. has she stayed huge in some region of the world whose pop charts don't align with the US's? but also comports perfectly with her peak stardom being pre-Spotify. her legacy songs, and the ones anybody would sing if you prompted them to produce a lady gaga numberb are all from 2008-2011.
"bang the drum" not being rundgren's really surprises me. it's the only thing by him you will ever hear on the radio at least in the US. my gut says it's a case of "song wasn't added to spotify until recently" but maybe "i saw the light" was on a soundtrack or something?
― |Restore| |Restart| |Quit| (Doctor Casino), Monday, 22 October 2018 15:12 (five years ago) link
"bang the drum" not being rundgren's really surprises me. it's the only thing by him you will ever hear on the radio at least in the US.
I still hear "Hello, It's Me" and "I Saw The Light" frequently on the oldies station.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Monday, 22 October 2018 15:17 (five years ago) link
Yeah, I don't really trust Spotify play counts either, which is a reason I also checked iTunes for Rundgren.
I know I heard "Hello It's Me" a lot growing up without seeking it out but idk about recent oldies/AC formats. It's also been in a bunch of shows and movies.
― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Monday, 22 October 2018 15:43 (five years ago) link
how representative is iTunes though? I know a handful of people who purchased files there, personally always found it a bit of a joke... maybe bigger in the states
and yes, there must have been some kind of massive promotion for the latest gaga album that completely escaped me
― niels, Monday, 22 October 2018 15:47 (five years ago) link
(I actually didn't know that song was called "I Saw The Light" until now.)
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Monday, 22 October 2018 16:02 (five years ago) link
iTunes was reported as accounting for 63% of the online music market and 29% of all music retail in 2012: https://www.cepro.com/article/itunes_dominates_download_market_streaming_audio_grows/
65-70% of the declining download market in 2016: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/26/spotify-music-download-apple-itunes-streaming-vinyl
― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Monday, 22 October 2018 16:02 (five years ago) link
wow
I gotta say, it's amazing to me that people will pay for Lady Gaga mp3s
― niels, Monday, 22 October 2018 16:16 (five years ago) link
"A Million Reasons" is terrific, GTF out!
― a neon light ablaze in this green smoky haze (morrisp), Monday, 22 October 2018 17:06 (five years ago) link
here in Wisconsin "Bang on the Drum" is by far his most popular song but for other reasons. I don't know if I've ever actually heard it on the radio. "I Saw the Light", on the other hand...
― frogbs, Monday, 22 October 2018 17:11 (five years ago) link
bang on the drum was all over tv in carnival cruise ads for at least a decade
― voodoo chili, Monday, 22 October 2018 17:17 (five years ago) link
I thought it was an afternoon drive time staple. The whistle blows, you punch the clock, you get in your Chevy and roar down the highway smackin the console to that funky beat ol Todd is throwin down.
― a butt, at which the shaft of ridicule is daily glanced (Old Lunch), Monday, 22 October 2018 17:17 (five years ago) link
I don't know if they've been mentioned already but Public Enemy biggest song on Spotify is "Harder Than You Think"... I don't even know that song !And their biggest hit is "Give It Up" apparently.
― AlXTC from Paris, Tuesday, 23 October 2018 09:02 (five years ago) link
A bit like Tricky - the only thing I ever heard on the radio was "Black Steel"
― Mark G, Tuesday, 23 October 2018 11:09 (five years ago) link
Still, it did lead to http://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2000/07/black-steel-in-the-hour-of-chaos/ which is probably the best thing, ever.
― Mark G, Tuesday, 23 October 2018 11:10 (five years ago) link
I guess The Grateful Dead are too obvious for something like this? "Friend of the Devil" and "Casey Jones" both have a lot more Spotify streams than "Touch of Grey" (their only top 40 hit).
― justfanoe (Greg Fanoe), Tuesday, 23 October 2018 13:10 (five years ago) link
Those two songs were already FM radio mainstays by the time Touch of Grey came out
― President Keyes, Tuesday, 23 October 2018 13:44 (five years ago) link