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Back in the day, identifying the most popular album was relatively simple. You just looked at what album was purchased the most times. In the age of streaming, things have gotten a bit more complicated. Let me explain why.
What’s the Most Popular Album on Spotify?
If you look at the Guinness Book of World Records, the most streamed album of all-time on Spotify is ÷ [Deluxe] by Ed Sheeran. In other words, ÷ [Deluxe] is the most popular album on Spotify. Here are the top 5 albums on Spotify by total number of streams.
÷ [Deluxe] by Ed Sheeran (12.9B streams)
Un Verano Sin Ti by Bad Bunny (11.7B)
Dua Lipa [Complete Edition] by Dua Lipa (10.6B)
beerbongs & bentleys by Post Malone (10.6B)
Hollywood’s Bleeding by Post Malone (10.5B)
But I think this data is deceptive. Imagine you released a 10-song album. One song was a huge hit and got 15 billion streams. The other 9 songs collectively received 1000 streams. By total number of streams your album would be the most popular in Spotify’s history. But it’s not really the album that’s popular. It’s just that one song on the album. Summing the total streams of an album’s tracks might create a distorted picture. Let’s see what the top 5 looks like if we instead look at median streams per song.
Sour by Olivia Rodrigo (680M streams)
WHEN WE FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO by Billie Eilish (497M)
Un Verano Sin Ti by Bad Bunny (361M)
÷ [Deluxe] by Ed Sheeran (353M)
beerbongs & bentleys by Post Malone (310M)
This is a very different picture. In terms of total streams, Olivia Rodrigo’s debut is the 13th most streamed album on Spotify. In fact, Ed Sheeran’s ÷ [Deluxe] has 42% more streams than Sour. That’s not completely Sour’s fault, though. It only has 11 songs compared to ÷ [Deluxe]’s 16. Sheeran’s album is exemplary of a trend we see among nearly all of the most streamed albums. They are long. The reason for this is that if you are popular enough, more tracks usually mean more streams from your fans. Plus, you’ll have more opportunities to get added to popular playlists, which will also result in more streams. As we talked about a few weeks ago, more streams equal more income for an artist.
Let’s take this one step further and see what the top 5 looks like by the least played song on an album. What this means is that every song on the album has more streams than that track. This indicates dedication to an entire collection rather than just a few singles.
Sour by Olivia Rodrigo (242M streams)
÷ [Deluxe] by Ed Sheeran (197M)
Un Verano Sin Ti by Bad Bunny (188M)
Fine Line by Harry Styles (162M)
ASTROWORLD by Travis Scott (137M)
Using this methodology, Sour remains the victor. Additionally, Fine Line and ASTROWORLD sneak into the top 5. By total streams, those two albums are ranked 19 and 20 all-time. That’s a big jump, and suggests their aggregate streams undersell how popular they actually are.
The most shocking thing I learned from looking at minimum streams is that the first song on Billie Eilish’s WHEN WE FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO has only been played 93k times. This isn’t completely fair because that song - !!!!!!! - is just 13 seconds of Eilish and her brother talking. Nevertheless, that tells us that in the best case the album has only been played end-to-end 93k times. That’s astounding given that the songs on the album total 9.5B streams. Thus, most people playing the album are not listening to it in full. They are either picking out a few songs or listening to them in a playlist. This is likely not unique to Eilish.
Does all of this mean that ÷ [Deluxe] isn’t popular? Of course not. Ed Sheeran’s mathematical collection is in the top 5 by all metrics. It just goes to show that there are consequences for how we choose to measure things and that we shouldn’t blindly accept that one methodology is better than another.
A New One
"Since I Have a Lover" by 6lack
2023 - R&B
Last week, my colleague Brian Zisook called out the artwork for this vibey single on Twitter. He was correct to call it out. The image is striking. In the age of music streaming, where a beautiful visual can be reduced to a tiny thumbnail, you might think that artwork doesn’t matter anymore. It still does. If it didn’t, I would have never taken my colleague’s recommendation.
An Old One
"I Got It" by Gloria Spencer
1972 - Gospel
I recently read Peter Shapiro’s informative book Turn the Beat Around: A Secret History of Disco. Shapiro calls out this romp by Gloria Spencer as a song that influential disco DJ Nicky Siano would “stretch … completely out of shape.” I understand why Siano was working with this song. Spencer’s voice is one of the most powerful I’ve ever heard, and it pairs well with the song’s infectious groove. Her obscurity is proof that if you only ever listen to the hits, you’re going to miss out on some divine talents.
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The intersection of music and data
Would be interesting to factor in the physical sales too, and compare with historical albums. Maybe by year rather than all time, since obviously older albums have had more time to sell millions.