Observer: Whatever you think of its privacy policies, one of the best things about Spotify is that it catalogs the number of times each song in its collection is played. Polygraph’s Matt Daniels took advantage of this to determine, via Spotify plays, which popular songs released between 1950 and 2005 truly stood the test of time. Surprisingly, the song from the pre-2005 era played in the heaviest rotation on Spotify was Eminem’s Oscar-winning anthem “Lose Yourself,” with over 59 million plays.
Rounding out the top five were The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” Linkin Park’s “Numb,” Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Farther down the list there are even more surprises—Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” comes in at number 12 even though it’s irrelevant outside of the holiday season. Also, Blackstreet’s perennially lip synced “No Diggity” placed at No. 24. The list heavily favors contemporary artists—a ’70s song doesn’t appear until number 19 (Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”) and it’s not until number 48 until a ’60s song creeps in (The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black”). Ironically, no songs from the 1950s are in the top 50. Mr. Daniels also points out that a song’s Billboard performance (or lack thereof) does not guarantee future popularity—for example, “Don’t Stop Believin’” barely charted on Billboard, but is now synonymous with the ’80s. This trend is borne out when Mr. Daniels examines the current music scene. Using data from between 2013 and 2015, he finds that tracks like Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” which were popular when first released, have faded from memory. On the flip side, OneRepublic’s “Counting Stars” and Lana Del Rey’s “Young And Beautiful” did not receive much attention upon release, but their popularity via word of mouth continues to this day. Though this data is telling, it’s not a perfect metric—Taylor Swift and the Beatles aren’t on Spotify, but there’s no denying their influence.
Fucking Eminem just dominating as always. Honestly if you look at a rappers career i feel like few come close to really touching what Eminem has done. I mean im not doing any research on any of this but dude has had put out a Hits upon hits, from real shit with punch lines that make you wild out like a black man on worldstar to all the white rap popish stuff that goes platinum and winning Oscars. He dominated CD’s when records were still a measuring stick and now with Streaming services he’s dominated that too.
I dont know what it is about Loose Yourself though but a part of me thinks its that Spaghetti line. I mean you already have the built in rap crowd that plays rap music constantly. But to push a song to the top of the list like that you need some strong white people staying power and i feel like that spaghetti line is the hook. Its been kind of a meme all over the internet now, Chapelle parodied it on his show, Its probably one of the most well known lines in that song. Nothing like the phrase “Mom’s Spaghetti” has ever been said in a rap song that way before and it just took over the world by storm and the proof is in the pudding/Spotify records/internet.
P.s- Do Black people like spaghetti? I mean im sure they have it occasionally but i feel like its not common food item. I just can’t picture them opening up a can of tomato sauce and boiling the pasta and all that nonsense.
The Ugly Orange 