How We Listen to Music - SXSW 2015

How we listen to music
Paul Lamere
SXSW
March 17, 2015
#HowListen

Charts move into the
digital age
#HowListen

TheWho
#HowListen
TheWhat
TheWhen TheWhere
TheHow
TheWhy

What do we know about the user?
Age
Gender
Country
All user data anonymized

Spotify gender demographics
Female
46% Male
54%

Spotify age demographics
Percentage
0
10
20
30
40
Age range
0-12 13-17 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55+

Demographic charts
What are the kids listening to these days?
#HowListen

1. Hate Bein' Sober - Chief Keef
2. Marijuana - Kid Cudi
3. Buried Alive - Logic
4. Prayer Of The Refugee - Rise Against
5. Opposite Of Adults - Chiddy Bang
Distinctive tracks for an 18 year old US male

1. Ride - SoMo
2. Young Blood - Bea Miller
3. How To Be A Heartbreaker - Marina and The Diamonds
4. Voodoo Doll - 5 Seconds Of Summer
5. House Party - Sam Hunt
Distinctive tracks for an 18 year old US female

1. L.A.LOVE (la la) - Fergie
2. I Loved You - Blonde
3. Changing - Sigma
4. Let Her Go - Passenger
5. Promesses - Tchami
Distinctive tracks for an 18 year old UK female

1. Bad Moon Rising - Creedence Clearwater Revival
2. Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones
3. Into The Mystic - Van Morrison
4. Fire And Rain - James Taylor
Distinctive tracks for a 55 year old US male

How much music do
we listen to?
How many artists and songs do we really listen to in a year?
#HowListen

What was on your iPod?
2006 study
Songs on your iPod 3,542
Active songs in your iPod 1,274
Never played 64%
2011 study
Songs on your iPod 5,409
Active songs in your iPod 1,214
Never played 78%
iTunes Registry Music WithMe

One Year on Spotify - 55 year-old male track listening
1309 unique tracks listened to in a year
155 tracks in heavy rotation in a year

One Year on Spotify - 55 year-old male artist listening
363 artists listened to in a year
53 artists in rotation in a year

One Year on Spotify - 12-17 year-old female artist listening
390 artists listened to in a year
69 artists in rotation in a year

What is in your Spotify?
55+ year old males
Tracks in heavy rotation 155
Unique tracks played 1,309
Average plays per year 3,054
Artists in heavy rotation 53
Unique artists played 362
12-17 year old females
Tracks in heavy rotation 240
Unique tracks played 1,251
Average plays per year 4,823
Artists in heavy rotation 69
Unique artists played 390

1. Led Zeppelin
2. Miles Davis
3. Bob Dylan
4. Bruce Springsteen
5. Eric Clapton
First artist listened to by a 55 year-old male

1. One Direction
2. Beyoncé
3. Miley Cyrus
4. A Great Big World
5. Katy Perry
First artist listened to by a 12-17 year-old female

What do you play when you play a track?
The Track
The Album
The Artists
The Artists
The Artists
The Artists
The Artists
The Genres
The Context
search
playlist
radio

1. He's A Tramp - Peggy Lee
2. The Siamese Cat Song - Si and Am
3. I Wan'na Be Like You - Louis Prima
4. Singin' In The Rain- Gene Kelly
5. When You Wish Upon A Star - Louis Armstrong
Distinctive jazz tracks for a 12-17 year old female

Growth Charts
What’s climbing, what’s falling?
#HowListen

Listener growth
Carly Rae Jepsen
Selena Gomez
Kanye West
Major Lazer

Demographic charts
for specific time of day
How does our listening change over the course of a day?
#HowListen

1. Pink Moon- Nick Drake
2. Wild World - Cat Stevens
3. Shine - Benjamin Francis Leftwich
4. Banner (Acoustic) - LIGHTS
5. You've Got A Friend - James Taylor
Distinctive morning tracks for a 55+ year old female

1. Healing Sleep Music - Deep Sleep
2. Sleep Music - Binaural Beats Brainwave Entrainmen
3. Secret Zen - Classical Piano Music for Zen Meditation
4. 2/1 - 2004 Digital Remaster Brian Eno
5. Nocturne Best Studying Music- Calming Baby Sleep
Music Club
Distinctive late night tracks for a 55+ year old female

Exploring the rhythms
of a city with music
these little town blues
#HowListen

One week of listening in NewYork City

One day of listening in NewYork City

One day of listening in London

Spotify Listening on NewYear’s Eve in NewYork City

1. Uptown Funk - Mark Ronson
2. Auld Lang Syne - Susan Boyle
3. I Don't Fuck With You - Big Sean
4. Theme from New York, New York - Frank Sinatra
5. Auld Lang Syne - Mariah Carey
Top tracks played first in 2015

NewYear’s Eve Listening in five cities

Superbowl Sunday Listening - February 2015

Music Analytics
for Science
Comet 67P/Churymov-Gerasimenko
#HowListen

Strange spikes detected
“Don’t want to miss a thing” -Aerosmith
Robotic lander Philae touched down
on Comet 67P
“Close Shave” with Asteroid 2012 DA1
‘Potentially Hazardous Asteroid’ EM26
approaches
Rosetta spacecraft orbits Coment 67P
September Pi Orionids
Philae landing site selected

This was the headline …
https://insights.spotify.com/us/2014/11/21/aerosmith-rosetta-comet/

But maybe the headline should have been …
https://insights.spotify.com/us/2014/11/21/aerosmith-rosetta-comet/

The sounds of the city
Distinctive listening by City
#HowListen

The Sound of New Orleans
• Cassanova-RebirthBrassBand
• AllOnAMardiGrasDay-TheWildMagnolias
• MardiGrasInNewOrleans-ProfessorLonghair
• IFeelLikeFunkin'ItUp-ExtendedMix-RebirthBrassBand

The Sound of Nashville
• CoverMeUp-JasonIsbell
• SheLitAFire-LordHuron
• TurtlesAlltheWayDown-SturgillSimpson
• Sedona-Houndmouth

The Sound of Laredo
• SomeoneElseCallingYouBaby-LukeBryan
• TeLlevare-Siggno
• ¿PorQuéMeHacesLlorar?-JuanGabriel
• Aire-Intocable

Musical imports and exports
•Drake
•SamSmith
•alt-j
•Sia

Musical imports and exports
• OfMonstersandMen
• ÓlafurArnalds
• SigurRós
• Björk

Top Icelandic artist local favorites
• BubbiMorthens
• Hjálmar
• Valdimar
• GusGus

How we listen in
different contexts
Your favorite coffeehouse
#HowListen

One week of listening in NewYork CIty

Normalized US Coffee Listening

Normalized US Exercise Listening

Finding artists with
passionate fans
Using replays, tracks in rotation and plays per fan
#HowListen

Replays vs. the Age of the track - top 1,000 most popular songs
Let it Go
Intro - the XX
Are You With Me River Flows In You
All Day

1. Box Fan Sound
2. White Noise
3. Waterfall
4. Brown Noise
5. Pouring Rain
Most replayed deep tracks

Average artist tracks per fan
Grateful Dead
Glee Cast
Banda Sinaloense
Pierce the Veil

Artist passion by plays per fan
Grateful Dead
Glee Cast
Banda Sinaloense
Pierce the Veil

Finding song hot spots based
upon listening behavior
Some experimental work
#HowListen

Most ‘interesting’ bit at
3:29 to 3:45
Finding the hot spots in “In the air tonight”

Song cool spot:
The psychedelic interlude
Song hot spot:
The Guitar solo
Finding the hot spots in “Whole Lotta Love”

Hot spot:
Synth Chorus
Cool spot:
After the drop
Last Hot Spot:
“And it’s over”
Finding the hot spots in “Raise your weapon”

Top playlist names on Spotify
Rap
Country
House
Rock
Music
Chill
Party
Workout
Gym
Roadtrip
Context is the new genre
17 of the top 100 playlist names are genre related
41 of the top 100 playlist names are context related

Top context-related playlists
Chill Party Workout Relax Gym Dance Sleep Pregame Car
Feel Good Roadtrip Summer Work Study Sex Pump up Night
Drive Training Gaming Shower Ski Snowboarding Cafe
Homework Twerk On the road Motivation School 420 Dinner
Running Friends Sad XC School Yoga Winter Coffee Sleepy Flow
Girls Night Commute Drinking Crossﬁt Break Up Inspiration
Smoking Romance Afterski Preparty Beach Cardio Hike Fly
Afternoon Happiness Training Walk Predrinks Ofﬁce Cry
Wake up Travel Fitness Focus Cleaning Cruising Lifting Evening
Rainy Day Autumn Train Love Worship Depression Morning

Training and workout

Mood

Travel

Romance

Time

Focus

Socializing

Let’s ﬁnd music for a particular context by mining tracks
from the 1.5 billion existing playlists
“Create a playlist of mainstream tracks good for running for an 55 year-old male”
Context is important, but …
Context is hard!

The Playlist Miner
Query: Distinctive mainstream running songs for 55+ year-old male
tuesday run
fast run
running
songs for my run
running tunes
morning run
running
1.5
Billion
Playlists
10,000 running playlists
“running”

The Playlist Miner
ay run
fast run
running
songs for my run
running tunes
morning run
running
running playlists
aggregate tracks
100,000 ranked running songs
1. R
2. B
3. G
4. E
5. I
Filter tracks by
demographics,
popularity, etc.

The Playlist Miner
1. Running on Empty - Jackson Browne
2. Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
3. Gonna Fly Now (Rocky) - Bill Conti
4. Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
5. I Ran (So Far Away) - Flock of Seagulls
Filter tracks by
demographics,
popularity, etc.

1. Running on Empty - Jackson Browne
2. Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
3. Gonna Fly Now (Rocky) - Bill Conti
4. Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
5. I Ran (So Far Away) - Flock of Seagulls
Top 55+ year-old male Running tracks
Two old ladies are lying in a bed - Army Rangers
Hyper-distinctive 55+ male running track:

Top 18-24 year-old female Running tracks
1. Runaway Baby - Bruno Mars
2. I Just Wanna Run - The Downtown Fiction
3. Stronger - Kelly Clarkson
4. Fighter - Christina Aguilera
5. Every chance we get we run - David Guetta

1. On the Road Again - Willie Nelson
2. Running On Empty - Jackson Browne
3. Radar Love - Golden Earring
4. On the Road Again - Canned Heat
5. Ventura Highway - America
Top 55+ year-old male Roadtrip tracks

1. All Summer Long - Kid Rock
2. Beautiful Life - Union J
3. Superbad - Jesse McCarthy
4. Ride - JTR
5. Rockstar - A Great Big World
Top 18-24 year-old female Roadtrip tracks

1. Love Me - The Little Willies
2. Let’s Get it On - Marvin Gaye
3. A Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harum
4. Nobody Does it Better - Carly Simon
5. You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine - Lou Rawls
Top 55+ year-old male Sexy Time tracks

1. Love Faces - Trey Songz
2. Take You Down - Chris Brown
3. Dive In - Trey Songz
4. Birthday Sex - Jeremih
5. Kisses Down Low - Kelly Rowland
Top 18-24 year-old female Sexy Time tracks

1. Cry Like a Baby - The Box Tops
2. The Heart of the Matter - Don Henley
3. Crying in the Rain - The Everly Brothers
4. Crying - Roy Orbison
5. Always on my Mind - Willie Nelson
Top 55+ year-old male Break Up tracks

1. F*ck It (I Don’t Want You Back) - Eamon
2. Too Little, Too Late - JoJo
3. Potential BreakUp Song - Aly & AJ
4. Since U Been Gone - Kelly Clarkson
5. Leave (Get Out) - JoJo
Top 18-24 year-old female Break Up tracks

Making charts
personal
Your year in music
#HowListen

How we listen to music
Paul Lamere
@plamere
#HowListen
http://spoti.fi/HowListen
Resources:

How We Listen to Music - SXSW 2015

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