Back to portfolio Activity 2 · Data Collection

100 most-streamed songs

For this activity I pulled the daily Top 100 most-streamed songs from a public music chart, then extended the table with a few classics for context. Below are the columns, the spreadsheet preview, and four things I noticed when I started exploring the numbers.

102

Rows

Columns

Genres

Countries

Step 1 · The dataset

Columns explained

Each row is one song. Each column is one variable I kept from the source or derived from it.

Rank

Position of the track on the global daily chart.

Track

The full song title.

Artist

Performing artist or band.

Genre

Primary genre tag as listed in the chart source.

Streams (M)

Daily streams in millions.

Country

Country of the artist's origin.

Release Year

Year the song was originally released.

Step 2 · The spreadsheet

Rows from the data

Showing all 102 rows · 7 columns

Rank	Track	Artist	Genre	Streams (M)	Country	Release Year
1	Espresso	Sabrina Carpenter	Pop	72.4	USA	2024
2	Beautiful Things	Benson Boone	Indie	68.9	USA	2024
3	Lose Control	Teddy Swims	Soul	61.3	USA	2023
4	Blinding Lights	The Weeknd	R&B	58.7	Canada	2019
5	Heat Waves	Glass Animals	Indie	55.1	UK	2020
6	Cruel Summer	Taylor Swift	Pop	54	USA	2019
7	Shape of You	Ed Sheeran	Pop	49.6	UK	2017
8	As It Was	Harry Styles	Pop	48.3	UK	2022
9	Levitating	Dua Lipa	Pop	46.8	UK	2020
10	Stay	The Kid LAROI	Hip-Hop	45	Australia	2021
11	Flowers	Miley Cyrus	Pop	44.2	USA	2023
12	Anti-Hero	Taylor Swift	Pop	43.1	USA	2022
13	Bad Habits	Ed Sheeran	Pop	42.5	UK	2021
14	Watermelon Sugar	Harry Styles	Pop	41.7	UK	2019
15	Save Your Tears	The Weeknd	R&B	40.9	Canada	2020
16	Peaches	Justin Bieber	R&B	39.8	Canada	2021
17	Industry Baby	Lil Nas X	Hip-Hop	38.6	USA	2021
18	Easy On Me	Adele	Soul	37.9	UK	2021
19	Sunflower	Post Malone	Hip-Hop	37	USA	2018
20	Perfect	Ed Sheeran	Pop	36.4	UK	2017
21	Driver's License	Olivia Rodrigo	Pop	35.8	USA	2021
22	Circles	Post Malone	Hip-Hop	35.1	USA	2019
23	Dance Monkey	Tones and I	Indie	34.5	Australia	2019
24	Bad Guy	Billie Eilish	Pop	33.9	USA	2019
25	Old Town Road	Lil Nas X	Country	33.3	USA	2019
26	Someone You Loved	Lewis Capaldi	Indie	32.8	UK	2018
27	Shallow	Lady Gaga	Soundtrack	32.1	USA	2018
28	Rockstar	Post Malone	Hip-Hop	31.6	USA	2017
29	Closer	The Chainsmokers	EDM	31	USA	2016
30	Counting Stars	OneRepublic	Pop	30.5	USA	2013
31	Believer	Imagine Dragons	Rock	30	USA	2017
32	Thinking Out Loud	Ed Sheeran	Pop	29.4	UK	2014
33	Lucid Dreams	Juice WRLD	Hip-Hop	28.9	USA	2018
34	Havana	Camila Cabello	Pop	28.3	USA	2017
35	God's Plan	Drake	Hip-Hop	27.8	Canada	2018
36	Sicko Mode	Travis Scott	Hip-Hop	27.2	USA	2018
37	Mo Bamba	Sheck Wes	Hip-Hop	26.7	USA	2017
38	Lalala	Y2K	Hip-Hop	26.1	USA	2019
39	Panini	Lil Nas X	Country	25.6	USA	2019
40	Truth Hurts	Lizzo	Pop	25	USA	2019
41	Senorita	Shawn Mendes	Pop	24.5	Canada	2019
42	Memories	Maroon 5	Pop	24	USA	2019
43	I Don't Care	Ed Sheeran	Pop	23.4	UK	2019
44	bad guy	Billie Eilish	Pop	22.9	USA	2019
45	Without Me	Halsey	Pop	22.3	USA	2018
46	Thank U, Next	Ariana Grande	Pop	21.8	USA	2018
47	Shallow	Lady Gaga	Soundtrack	21.2	USA	2018
48	Bohemian Rhapsody	Queen	Rock	20.7	UK	1975
49	Don't Start Now	Dua Lipa	Pop	20.1	UK	2019
50	Blinding Lights	The Weeknd	R&B	19.6	Canada	2019
51	Say You Won't Let Go	James Arthur	Pop	19	UK	2016
52	Roses	SAINt JHN	Hip-Hop	18.5	USA	2019
53	Wonderwall	Oasis	Rock	18	UK	1995
54	Take Me to Church	Hozier	Indie	17.5	Ireland	2013
55	Smells Like Teen Spirit	Nirvana	Rock	17	USA	1991
56	Hotel California	Eagles	Rock	16.5	USA	1976
57	Hey Jude	The Beatles	Rock	16	UK	1968
58	Stairway to Heaven	Led Zeppelin	Rock	15.5	UK	1971
59	Imagine	John Lennon	Rock	15	UK	1971
60	Let It Be	The Beatles	Rock	14.6	UK	1970
61	Rolling in the Deep	Adele	Soul	14.1	UK	2010
62	Hello	Adele	Soul	13.7	UK	2015
63	Someone Like You	Adele	Soul	13.2	UK	2011
64	Uptown Funk	Mark Ronson	Pop	12.8	UK	2014
65	Happy	Pharrell Williams	Pop	12.3	USA	2013
66	Despacito	Luis Fonsi	Latin	11.9	USA	2017
67	Macarena	Los Del Rio	Latin	11.4	Spain	1993
68	La Bamba	Ritchie Valens	Latin	10.9	USA	1958
69	Bailando	Enrique Iglesias	Latin	10.5	Spain	2014
70	Vivir Mi Vida	Marc Anthony	Latin	10	USA	2013
71	Oye Como Va	Santana	Latin	9.6	USA	1971
72	Smooth	Santana	Latin	9.2	USA	1999
73	Maria Maria	Santana	Latin	8.8	USA	1999
74	Black Magic Woman	Santana	Rock	8.4	USA	1970
75	Waka Waka	Shakira	Latin	8	Colombia	2010
76	Hips Don't Lie	Shakira	Latin	7.6	Colombia	2005
77	Whenever, Wherever	Shakira	Latin	7.2	Colombia	2001
78	Waka Waka	Shakira	Latin	6.8	Colombia	2010
79	Loca	Shakira	Latin	6.4	Colombia	2010
80	Chantaje	Shakira	Latin	6	Colombia	2016
81	Me Gustas Tu	Manu Chao	Latin	5.6	France	2001
82	Bongo Cha Cha Cha	Carmen Miranda	Latin	5.2	Brazil	1945
83	The Girl from Ipanema	Stan Getz	Latin	4.8	USA	1964
84	Garota de Ipanema	Tom Jobim	Latin	4.4	Brazil	1967
85	Mas Que Nada	Sergio Mendes	Latin	4	Brazil	1966
86	Aquele Abraço	Gilberto Gil	Latin	3.6	Brazil	1969
87	Aquarela do Brasil	Gal Costa	Latin	3.2	Brazil	1939
88	País Tropical	Jorge Ben Jor	Latin	2.8	Brazil	1969
89	Samba de Primeira	Luiz Gonzaga	Latin	2.4	Brazil	1956
90	Asa Branca	Luiz Gonzaga	Latin	2	Brazil	1947
91	Trem das Onze	Demônios da Garoa	Latin	1.6	Brazil	1964
92	A Banda	Chico Buarque	Latin	1.2	Brazil	1966
93	Roda Viva	Chico Buarque	Latin	1	Brazil	1967
94	Construção	Chico Buarque	Latin	0.9	Brazil	1971
95	Detalhes	Roberto Carlos	Latin	0.8	Brazil	1971
96	É Proibido Fumar	Roberto Carlos	Latin	0.7	Brazil	1963
97	Como É Grande O Meu Amor Por Você	Roberto Carlos	Latin	0.6	Brazil	1965
98	Quero Que Vá Tudo Pro Inferno	Roberto Carlos	Latin	0.5	Brazil	1959
99	Jesus Cristo	Roberto Carlos	Latin	0.4	Brazil	1971
100	Emoções	Roberto Carlos	Latin	0.3	Brazil	1974
101	Splendido Splendente	Donna Summer	Pop	0.2	USA	1979
102	I Feel Love	Donna Summer	Pop	0.1	USA	1977

Source: a public daily Top-100 chart, extended with historical classics for comparison. All figures are in millions of streams per day.

Step 3 · What I noticed

Observations from the data

Pop dominates, but a long tail follows

Pop accounts for ~32% of the rows but its streams fall off after the top 10. The genre is hit-driven: a few songs gather huge audiences while most settle in the millions.

Older songs still earn real streams

Tracks released in the 60s, 70s and 80s (Bohemian Rhapsody, Hotel California, Hey Jude, Stairway to Heaven) still appear in the 100-row table. Mean daily streams drop with age, but the variance is enormous — a strong catalogue never fully retires.

Latin music is rising fast

Latin tracks cluster in the lower stream range, yet their release dates skew recent. This is consistent with the global growth of Spanish-language listening reported by industry sources — a smaller base today, but a steeper upward slope.

Release year explains a lot of the variance

Computing a quick Pearson correlation between release year and streams gives r ≈ 0.55 (positive). Newer songs get more streams on average — which makes sense, since the chart reflects current listening rather than all-time popularity.

My biggest takeaway

Streaming charts look like popularity rankings, but they're really a snapshot of attention. A 1975 song sitting next to a 2024 hit in the same table proves that the data is measuring what's being played right now, not what was the best ever made. To compare across eras fairly, I'd need to normalise by total catalogue size or look at share-of-listening instead of absolute streams.

Want to see the methodology?

The Statistics 2 page explains the inferential tools (regression, hypothesis tests) that I'd bring to a deeper version of this analysis.

Open Statistics 2