Spotify's Data Shows More Loyal 'Metal' Than 'Pop' Fans

Given the proliferation of pop music, one might feel it is the most popular music genre around — you can't be in a store, in the car, or just about anywhere else without hearing a pop song at least in passing. Spotify, though, has released some details that show all might not be as it seems – among the service's own users, at least, metal is in fact the #1 most popular music genre with pop slipping in at a close-but-no-cigar #2 ranking.

Such information comes from an insights post the service quietly slipped out a couple months ago, and that was recently spotted by the folks at Mashable. We've seen reports breaking down the most popular music streaming services (of which Spotify is not the top of the pack), but getting a breakdown of the music preferences is more interesting.

Metal as a genre scored quite a bit higher than all the other music genres, including pop (#2), folk (#3, surprisingly), country (#4), rock (#5), hip hop (#6), reggae (#7), jazz (#8), EDM (#9), classical (#10), and blues (#11).

Spotify went to some lengths to come up with its numbers, using The Echo Nest and more to identify so-called "core" artists for each genre. It accounted for "local genres" in different countries, and ultimately developed a genre loyalty chart — and top among it is metal, which is said to have the most loyal fan base.

SOURCE: Spotify