Spotify’s “How Students Listen” Shows “Rocky Mountain High” Isn’t Just A Song, Among Other Things

Whiskey_Ginger10 years ago

Spotify recently used its access to a giant database of metrics about its music users (Big Brother is watching you listen to Nickelback) to put together a comprehensive, school-based set of data for its top 40 schools by most music played. The results are pretty amusing for some schools and rather predictable for some others. A selection of them from the article include:

-In “the city that never sleeps,” listening patterns indicate that NYU students get an hour’s less sleep on average. They also listen to more slowcore and hipster playlists.

-Cornell University listening spikes at 6am and 7am. One possibility: its students wake up and exercise before class more than those at other schools.

-University of Colorado Boulder students play our study-oriented Focus playlists the most. They’re also top streamers of Relax.

-Who listens to the happiest songs? it’s Iowa State, followed closely by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, University of Georgia, and University of Alabama.

-Texas A&M appears to follow fads and trends less than the other schools.

-Northeastern students enjoy metal, jazz, and Christian music, but not juggalos or listening at night.

– Ohio State listens to the most classical.

-Boston EDM duo Timeflies is really popular at Iowa State, relative to other schools. They played a show there in 2012, which appears to have gone well.

-Penn State kids rock out on high-energy music, R&B, punk, and the EDM artist Hardwell way more than the kids at the other schools.

-You can find fans of fast skatepunk music at Purdue.

-Students at the University of Alabama listen to country music at about twice the average rate (right). They also listen more to sleep-themed playlists.

-Speaking of which, Brigham Young goes to bed the earliest and wakes up the earliest, which might have something to do with its midnight visitor curfew (1:30am on Fridays).

-The top Latin music schools are University of Pennsylvania, University of Florida, and University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

-The University of Washington listens to the longest, most instrumental music.

-Peak listening is 4pm across all of the schools.

Out of those results, I’m going to say Colorado listening to most likely stoner playlists shocks exactly no one, but that Purdue being into a ’90s punk scene, which really peaked with “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2,” surprised me. I also would have never expected Ohio State to listen to the most classical music, but I suppose it’s because those students are trying to find epic music to set football highlight reels to in a desperate attempt to convince people that there are good things in Ohio. If so, it seems to be working so far. Ohio State is pretty awesome from what I’ve seen.

The full breakdown is here. Check out where your school falls, and if it has claimed the illustrious crown of “school that listens to the least Nickelback.”

[via Spotify]