Spotify debuts weekly top 50
The music-streaming service launches most-streamed and most-shared song lists, as well as a feature that tracks number of plays.
This week the most streamed song on Spotify in the U.S. is "Can't Hold Us" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and the most shared song on social networks is "Lift Me Up" by Five Finger Death Punch.
How did this information become available?
Spotify launched a new feature Tuesday that provides weekly updates of the 50 most streamed and viral songs within its music-streaming platform.
Dubbed Spotify Charts and available in 28 countries, this top 50 feature also shows how many plays each song has to date. ("Can't Hold Us" is at 1.7 million as of press time.) Soon, the play counts feature will roll out to all artists on Spotify, not just those in the top 50.
"What's so powerful about the streaming charts is they let you hear what people are really listening to, right now, and not just what they're buying," Steve Savoca, Spotify's head of content, said in a statement. "We want to be the best artist promotional platform in the world, and showing play counts is a clear step in that direction. Now artists can get immediate feedback from their fans on how their music is performing on Spotify."
Spotify has more than 24 million active users and more than 6 million paying subscribers. With these types of numbers, feedback via play counts could prove substantial to artists.
The top 50 charts are refreshed each Monday, but users can look back and see past week's chart makers. Spotify also has made the charts embeddable via a free widget.
In other music-streaming news, Pandora launched a new feature on Tuesday: Pandora Premieres. This music station allows listeners to preview upcoming albums up to a week before they are released. The company said it will offer previews from a wide variety of artists, both established and emerging, across multiple genres.
Competition in the streaming music industry has been heating up. Along with the traditional players of Spotify and Pandora, Google is getting in on the act with its $9.99-per-month All Access service. Moreover, Twitter launched the #music discovery app, and Apple is believed to be prepping a music-streaming service that would debut this summer.