Music streamer SoundCloud has revealed the top music played on the service during the past year. Chance The Rapper's Coloring Book was the most streamed album on SoundCloud, while the most listened to song was "Panda" by Desiigner.
It was an interesting transition year for SoundCloud, as the streaming service attempted to cope with its mainstream visibility while still remaining the go-to streamer for underground music and DJ mixes. Though the rumored acquisition by Spotify, the world's most popular on-demand music streaming service, didn't pan out, rumors continued to swirl that the financially struggling SoundCloud is ripe for the picking by a larger company.
SoundCloud also made strides in 2016 when it announced that it would no longer be removing DJ mixes from its website for copyright infringement, which had previously been a huge issue for the company.
Hip-Hop Reigns Supreme At SoundCloud
SoundCloud has just released some interesting data regarding the top music played on the streamer in 2016. While many perceive SoundCloud first and foremost as a source of EDM — or electronic dance music — tracks, mixes, and remixes, it was hip-hop that provided both the top song and album played on the streamer last year.
Chance The Rapper's Coloring Book album was the most listened to on SoundCloud, while Desiigner's breakthrough hit "Panda" was the top song played by listeners. In addition, another hip-hop star, Lil Uzi Vert, was the most followed artist on the streamer. While SoundCloud did not provide a specific order, the top 5 genres on the service were hip-hop, pop, electronic, house, and rock, while various trap music subgenres were listed as "tags with buzz in 2016," including #trapsoul, #latintrap, and #afrotrap, joined by other emerging styles such as #cloudrap, #vaporwave, #retrowave, and #phonk.
Top Cities Posting Music On SoundCloud
The top cities driving creativity on SoundCloud were listed as London, Los Angeles, Hanoi, Cairo, Berlin, Mexico City, Jakarta, Paris, Chicago, Lima, Toronto, Tokyo, and San Paolo. The company also revealed that 3 million of the 12 million creators heard monthly on the service are members of generation Z, highlighting the numerous contributions of the youngest generation to the site.
"Because of you, our connected community of listeners, curators and creators, SoundCloud is constantly driving culture and creativity forward and creating new trends. In many cases, what's "breaking" or "new" everywhere else, is born on SoundCloud," the company posted on its blog, as it looked forward to future musical evolution, wishing artists their "most creative year yet. We can't wait to see what 2017 brings."
