Categories: Streaming

Hip hop the top genre on Spotify, while radio continues to go ‘pop’, study finds

Hip hop is the most listened to genre on Spotify, accounting for 38% of streams, while pop music is the most chosen genre for radio airplay, accounting for 42% of spins, a new study by Viberate has found.

Viberate analysed the most streamed genres on Spotify in June 2021, as well as the most played genres on the radio, based on the genres of the top 100 most-played artists on both mediums.

Along with hip hop, 27% of streams fall under the category of pop, while ‘Latin’ accounts for 18% of streams, ‘R&B’ accounts for 9%, and ‘rock’ and ‘electronic‘ account for 4% each.

On the radio, meanwhile, as well as pop, 33% of plays are from the ‘rock’ genre, followed by 11% for ‘electronic’, 5% for ‘R&B’ and 4% for ‘hip hop’.

On average, the 100 most streamed Spotify artists account for 214.8 million streams per month, while the 100 most-played artists on the radio account for 154,000 monthly plays between them.

Viberate also found that of the 100 most streamed artists on Spotify, 80% of them have careers shorter than 15 years, while in terms of the radio, the corresponding figure is 64%.

The most-streamed artists on Spotify in June included Olivia Rodrigo (who alone accounted for more than one billion streams), Bad Bunny, Rauw Alejandro, Drake and Justin Bieber.

The most-played artists on the radio, meanwhile, were Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd, Michael Jackson and Queen.

According to Viberate, Europeans tend to spend more time listening to the radio (116 minutes per day) than they do listening to streaming services (99 minutes per day).

In the US, however these figures are reversed, with individuals allocating 99 minutes per day for radio compared to 140 minutes per day for streaming.

As Viberate put it, its research indicates that ‘streaming creates hype, while radio drives long-term engagement‘. The full report can be found here.