Exploring regional listening preferences
In previous posts we looked at how gender and age can affect listening preferences. Today we take a look at how the location of a listener may affect their listening preferences.
For this study, I sampled the listening preferences of about a quarter million listeners that have a zip code associated with their account. update: Listener data is drawn from a variety of music streaming services that are powered by The Echo Nest. I aggregated these listeners into regions (state, regional and all-US). To compare regions I look at the top-N most popular artists based upon listener plays in each region and look for artists that have a substantial change in rank between the two regions. These artists are the artists that define the taste for the region.
As an example let's compare Tennessee to New England. If we look at the top 100 artists listened to in Tennessee and see which artists fall the furthest on the New England chart we find these 10 artists:
#ArtistRank in
TennesseeRank in
New EnglandDelta1Hillsong United971097-10002Juicy J47664-6173Young Jeezy78579-5014R. Kelly26259-23352 Chainz63288-2256Eric Church79286-2077The 197587268-1818T.I.40211-1719The Civil Wars22150-12810Blake Shelton58184-126
The first artist, Hillsong United is the 97th most popular artist in Tennessee for our sample of listeners. In New England, Hillsong United drops all the way to the 1097th artist, a drop in rank of 1,000. Hillsong United is a Christian rock worship band. Tennessee listeners, living in the heart of the U.S. Bible Belt, listen to Hillsong United much more than their New England counterparts. Second on the Tennessee list is Juicy J,a rapper, songwriter and record producer from Memphis, Tennessee. Third is Young Jeezy from nearby Atlanta Georgia. The rest of the top 10 is dominated by southern rappers, country, and folk artists.
Now let's look at top 100 New England artists and see which artists fall furthest on the Tennessee charts:
#ArtistRank in
New EnglandRank in
TennesseeDelta1Phish89431-3422Grateful Dead45222-1773Talking Heads86254-1684Neil Young53182-1295Bonobo60189-1296Billy Joel90218-1287Bruce Springsteen48175-1278The XX44158-1149Modest Mouse85179-9410Bob Marley30123-93
New England tastes run to jam bands, indie and classic rock.
Exploring Region differences on your own
I built an app that makes it easy to explore the regional differences in music. With the app you can select two regions and it will show you which artists are distinctive for each region.
Using this approach we can pick a single signature artist for each state. I do this by finding the top most distinctive popular artist for a state that hasn't already been selected for a more populous state. Here's the list of signature state artists:
StateNameState RankUS RankChangeAKGinger Kwan3312062-12029ALThe Civil Wars34110-76ARWiz Khalifa1569-54AZLinkin Park4798-51CABonobo2885-57COThe Naked And Famous48125-77CTDavid Guetta4380-37DERush38385-347FLRick Ross44103-59GAFuture33226-193HIJ Boog404703-4663IAB.o.B3282-50IDTegan and Sara31107-76ILSufjan Stevens3868-30INBlake Shelton3191-60KSEric Church48162-114KYFall Out Boy1759-42LAKevin Gates151359-1344MANeil Young49128-79MDKelly Rowland45217-172MER.E.M.28197-169MIYoung Jeezy34138-104MNMetric41211-170MOThe Shins2967-38MSAugust Alsina42909-867MTTim McGraw36187-151NCMiguel3788-51NDStone Sour47735-688NEBastille4889-41NHGrateful Dead29191-162NJBruce Springsteen23109-86NMAlan Jackson45425-380NVCiara34106-72NYJames Blake47130-83OHFlorida Georgia Line2675-49OKJason Aldean2484-60ORKurt Vile49212-163PAEdward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros4377-34RINirvana48126-78SCHillsong United24262-238SDHinder421154-1112TNJuicy J47151-104TXGeorge Strait16199-183UTAWOLNATION31111-80VADave Matthews Band48113-65VTPhish5353-348WAThe Head and the Heart2283-61WIJack Johnson4599-54WVmatchbox twenty48282-234WYDirty Heads481334-1286
It is pretty clear that people in different parts of the US listen to different kinds of music. These regionalisms can be used to help recommend music for people when you otherwise might not know anything about their music taste.
Note - the base map in the visualizations is shaded by population density.