Is Your Hometown's Music Really All That Special?
Is Your Hometown's Music Really All That Special?
We love to think the city we call home is unique, including the music we love. Are the songs your fellow denizens playing on Spotify actually different from anywhere else in the U.S.A.?
Last week, we lost one of the most prolific pop singers of the 1980s: Florence Warner died at age 77.
“Never heard her” you say?
Oh yes you have. If you grew up in Atlanta, Calgary, Cleveland, Charleston, Cedar Rapids, Greensboro & Winston-Salem, Green Bay, Houston, Lafayette, The Quad Cities, Milwaukee, Knoxville, Nashville, Peoria, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Diego, or Salt Lake City during the 1980s, you heard Florence on one of your big local TV stations belting out a song of pride in your hometown.
“Wait---that song wasn’t really about MY town?”
I’m afraid not.
In total, Florence claimed 120 different cities were “the best hometown” she knows. Frank Gari originally wrote the song as a love-letter from WISN-TV 12 to its city Milwaukee. With only minimal changes, Frank recycled the same song for TV stations as far away as Melbourne, Australia.
Ironically, people actually believed these generic platitudes were about their hometown. This American Life featured a Calgarian downright betrayed to hear Florence sing about Milwaukee. I personally had to break it to a Pittsburgher friend that we had the exact same song in Georgia.
There’s something in us that deeply wants our hometowns to be unique.
When it comes to the songs your fellow denizens love most, is your hometown actually unique?
Let’s find out together by analyzing local Spotify data to see what they’re playing in your town.
Analyzing local vs. national Spotify data
Spotify releases the Top 100 most streamed songs each week for variety of local metropolitan areas throughout the U.S. I picked 23 representative markets and analyzed the songs each city played most for the week ending September 5th, 2024. Before revealing the findings, I owe you two details on how I compared the data.
1) Rank numbers: Great for countdowns. Lousy for data analysis.
Unlike nationwide data, Spotify doesn’t release the exact number of streams each song received by market, only the rank. Rank lists are a terrible way to compare data because they exaggerate differences that don’t actually exist in some cases and downplay differences in other cases. Fortunately, I do have extensive data on how a song’s Spotify rank compares to how many times users play it. I used this data to estimate how many times people in each city played each song.
2) Correlation: The objective way to compare things
I then calculated the correlation coefficient between the Top 100 songs in each city and those songs in Spotify’s nationwide Top 200 chart. To put it plainly, correlation tells you how closely Fact Two matches Fact One. If the correlation coefficient equals “1”, X and Y are the exact same number. If it’s “0” X and Y have nothing to do with each other.
Here’s an example of the top 100 songs in two cities. City A’s scores are from left to right. City B’s scores are from bottom to top. While they don’t match exactly, the vast majority of songs have essentially the same streaming performance in both cities. You could easily use data from City A to pick songs folks in City B like.
Here’s another example with two different cities. You’ll notice the two cities’ scores kind of track with each other, but with far less precision or regularity. That’s “Moderate” correlation.
Is your city really special?
Does the music people play most on Spotify in your city vary significantly from what Americans in general play most?
Prepare to be disillusioned again.
From Houston to Philadelphia and from Seattle to Memphis, 21 out of the 23 cities’ top 100 songs correlate with the entire U.S.A. in the “very strong” range.
In practical terms, that means if you know the songs Americans stream most on Spotify, folks in your town are pretty much streaming the same songs.
The only two cities where the most played songs on Spotify differs significantly are Miami and… [checks notes… ] Omaha?
What does vary from city to city?
The biggest differences are in the styles of music they play from town to town. Overall in the U.S. for the week I examined…
62 of the Top 100 songs are Pop
18 are Country
8 are Hip Hop
Only 2 are from Spanish-language genres
(The remaining ten songs are mostly Classic Hits.)
In Miami, however, 42 out of the Top 100 songs are Spanish language titles. In Seattle, Detroit and Nashville, none are.
Meanwhile in Omaha, half (50) of the 100 most-played songs are Country songs. In L.A., only two Country titles are in the Top 100.
Hip Hop is a big more stable, ranging from 14 songs in Memphis to only 4 in Salt Lake City.
What role does the mix of people from different backgrounds play in these differences?
To be blunt, Country is for white people. There’s a very strong correlation (8.00) between the percentage of Caucasian (NOT including Asian) residents in a metro area and the percentage of Country titles in their most played songs on Spotify:
Some cities—notably Portland, Austin, Los Angles and New York—play fewer Country titles than their percentage of White residents would suggest. In contrast, Memphis plays a lot more Country than predicted, suggesting their White residents really really love Country. As you probably already observed, Country is bigger in the South and Midwest.
Hip Hop does correlate with the size of a city’s Black community, but not as directly as you might assume.
Memphis has both the highest percentage of African-American residents and the biggest share of Hip Hop titles in their Top 100. However,
Orange County, California (Anaheim) and Salt Lake City have very few Black residents and still enjoy Hip Hop.
The reason is obvious: All kinds of people love Hip Hop.
Miami has the highest percentage of Hispanic residents and plays more Spanish-language songs than any other metro area. However, not all cities’ Hispanic residents prefer Spanish-language titles.
In metro Denver, 23% of residents are Hispanic, but almost none of the Top 100 songs most played on Spotify are Spanish-language titles. The San Francisco Bay Area has fewer Hispanic residents, but more Spanish-language hits.
Frankly, It’s embarrassing that we examine Hispanic Americans as one group: Both the predominant countries of origin of a person’s family, as well as how long one’s family has been in their current community, plays a significant role in the styles of music each person will enjoy.
Likewise, I’m doing a disservice by tallying “Spanish-language” music. There’s a much wider variety of music styles sung in Spanish than there are in English. From Ranchera to Reggaeton, from Merengue to Cumbia. I lump them together here merely to have a category with enough songs to meaningfully compare.
Pop is every city’s second favorite
On one hand, Pop is the genre that draws listeners from a wide variety of people. After all, Pop is short for Popular. In a Top 100 list, however, Pop gets the leftovers from Country and Spanish.
Let’s reexamine each city by its genre mix: Miami is special because they listen to a lot of Spanish-language titles. Omaha is special because they listen to so much Country.
Do individual songs vary from city to city?
So what do these differences look like in terms of actual songs?
Below, I’ve listed the Top 10 songs by genre for the U.S.A. and each of the 23 cities. I’ve then ranked those songs by genre.
Only Two Top 10 Pop songs vary much from city to city
Among the USA’s Top 10, most songs have almost the exact same rank in all 23 cities. The only two songs that perform significantly differently in different cities are:
“A Bar Song (Tipsy)” performs better in places that love Country and worse in places that don’t. It’s #1 in Omaha, but only #17 in Los Angeles.
“Die With A Smile” varies from #1 (in Anaheim) to #7 in cities ranging from L.A. to Nashville. I don’t see an obvious reason here.
Here are the remaining songs that are Top 10 in at least one city, but not nationwide.
New York and L.A. aren’t still into “Too Sweet”, Beautiful Things,” “Lose Control,” or Stick Season”. Omaha and Memphis still like these songs.
Miami and Anaheim aren’t playing “Pink Pony Club” as much as Seattle, Portland or Minneapolis. :
Country’s Top 10 songs are remarkably similar from city to city
The big variation is how many Country songs each city has in its Top 100. What doesn’t vary much is which songs people play most when they are into Country.
The only real variation is the appeal of the Hip Hop / Country hybrid “Whiskey Whiskey.” They love it in Memphis, but not so much in Atlanta and Charlotte.
More variation among Hip Hop than other genres
While some Hip Hop titles are popular everywhere, there are some that are more popular in cities where Hip Hop in genera is more popular.
Memphis loves their hometown Rapper GloRilla: “Yeah Glo!”, ” TGIF” and “Wanna Be” (with Megan Thee Stallion) are all Top 10 in Memphis. It’s the only case where a hometown artist has songs in the Top 100 on only the artist’s hometown.
“misses” by Dominic Fike is more poplar in west coast cities and in Miami than in the South.
Why Miami is truly special
Miami could have been a lot like Atlanta had history unfolded differently. A century ago, many African-Americans moved to Miami during a South Florida real estate boom. Jim Crow came, too. The White police chief bragged about his Klan membership.
But when Fidel Castro successfully toppled the Cuban government and instituted a Soviet-influenced communist regime, wealthy Cubans fled to Florida. Today, Miami is the largest city with a Cuban-American plurality. Unlike many other U.S. cities, Miami does not have a very large Mexican-American population.
Living up to its “Gateway to Latin America” nickname, Colombian artists including Kapo, Feid , Nanpa Básico and Ovy On The Drums have Top 40 Reggeton and Urbano hits in Miami that aren’t among Spotify’s top songs anywhere else in the U.S.
That’s unique. Of the 23 metro areas I examined, Miami is the city with songs among its 50 most played songs that never charted on Spotify’s nationwide Top 200.
Also noteworthy is that the three of the four biggest Spanish-language songs in other U.S. cities are completely missing from Miami’s Top 100: Peso Pluma & Neton Vega - “LA PATRULLA”, Luis R Conriquez & Neton Vega, “Si No Quieres No” and Fuerza Regida’s “NEL” are among the four most-played Spanish language songs in L.A, and the O.C., San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Austin, and Phoenix—but not Miami.
The reason is simple: They’re Regional Mexican songs from Mexican artists and Miami has a relatively small population of Mexican decent.
Why is Omaha statistically special?
If there’s a song that explains Omaha, it’s “Fishin’ In The Dark.”
It was a #1 Country hit for The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1987. It’s remained a Country staple ever since and is catching on with new fans today. It’s among the Top 100 most-played songs on Spotify in Omaha—and only in Omaha.
The fine people of Omaha listen to more Country titles and fewer Pop titles on Spotify than any other city examined. Unlike other markets where Country is popular, Omaha doesn’t have a large Black community and also doesn’t have a large Hispanic population. Omaha has fewer Hip Hop titles among their 100 most-played songs on Spotify than any other place except Salt Lake City.
Omaha also streams more Classic Hits than any other market I examined. “AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long,” Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me” and Journey’s “ Don't Stop Believin'“ rank higher in Omaha than in any other city herein.
Finally, Omahans is less likely to explore album cuts on new Pop releases. Nationwide, listeners are sampling Sabrina Carpenter’s “Don’t Smile” and “Dumb & Poetic”, as well as Billie Eilish’s “WILDFLOWER.” In Omaha? They’re sticking with “Espresso” and “BIRDS OF A FEATHER.”
Omaha is unique in how completely they embrace the tried and true. Perhaps its the new Peoria.
So your town isn’t special?
If you’re programming a local radio station anywhere other than Miami, you can safely use nationwide music data to pick the big hits.
Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Billie Eilish have Top 10 hits from coast to coast.
If your town likes Country, they like Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan, and Luke Combs.
And while GloRilla might be especially big in her hometown, “Yeah Glo!” is big from Detroit to Dallas.
And yet, while we may all share the biggest hits, there’s still plenty of local flavor when you know where to look
In Mount Airy, North Carolina, WPAQ Radio specializes in the Bluegrass and old-time string music that originated from the Blue Ridge.
Palm Springs, California’s 107.3 Mod FM plays Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mel Torme to match the town’s mid-century vibe. Down the dial, K-GAY 106.5 & 92.1 plays dance music for the Coachella Valley’s large LGBTQ+ community.
Drive deep enough into Texas and you’ll hear Country artists who are legends there, but largely unknown outside of the Lone Star State.
And that’s not even exploring the wide range of music you’ll hear in languages other than English, from Bollywood hits to French language songs from Sierra Leone… and that’s just in Durham, North Carolina.
Maybe it’s fitting that Florence Warner could belt out the same song about any city in the U.S.A. and people actually believed it was true. It’s having hits we all know that helps create our common American culture.
We could use some things in common these days.
Data sources for this post:
Spotify Charts for the U.S.A. and selected metro areas for the week ending 9/5/2024: https://charts.spotify.com/charts/overview/us
U.S. Census Bureau https://www.census.gov