She 💁‍♀️ Streams, He Streams: Who's Tuning in to What?

👋 Hey folks,

I'm delighted to share another data tidbit with you, right before I embark on a plane to the Caribbean. No complaints from me! 🍹

Today, we're delving into some intriguing numbers that shed light on how different genders are shaping the music landscape, both as artists and Spotify listeners across various genres.

Now, when I mention "gender", I'm referring to two (limited) data points:

1. How listeners identify their gender when using Spotify (limited to she/he in the dataset I have).

2. The gender classification of artists, which can be she, he, or a mix of genders.

Let's dive right in and explore what's happening in the realm of music and gender!

Let's kick things off with this data:

In general, Spotify comprises 44.7% female listeners, yet only 22.9% of the streams come from female or mixed-gender artists.

💁‍♀️ Female listeners stream 32% of their music from female or mixed-gender artists.

🙋‍♂️ Male listeners stream 18.9% from female or mixed-gender artists.

💿 When listeners personally select their music (without playlists or algorithms), they stream 23.2% from female artists, which is a slight improvement of 0.3% compared to the overall listening pattern.

You may be curious about how I obtained access to this data. As previously mentioned in my updates, it's common for people to underestimate the sheer volume of available music data. One of the sources I frequently utilize is Every Noise, a platform continuously enriched with comprehensive data by Glenn McDonald, a data alchemist 🧙‍♂️ at Spotify. Today, I'll leverage some of this data.

The percentage of female listeners per genre

The percentage of female listeners within various top global Spotify genres, measured and ranked by streaming volume, is something I aimed to visualize below.

The visualization above illustrates the genres that typically garner a higher female audience compared to those favored by men. It's not surprising to observe that genres such as trap, hip-hop, and rap tend to have a predominantly male following. Also, as expected, K-Pop stands out with a remarkable 70% or more female listeners.

My curiosity also led me to explore whether there are variations in audience gender distribution among European countries and their respective local hip-hop scenes.

I found it intriguing that the Nordic countries have a larger proportion of female listeners, with Finland 🇫🇮 approaching a nearly equal 50/50 split.

Female listeners are one thing, but what about female artists?

Great question! That's why I delved into the percentage of female or mixed-gender artists within each genre and visualized:

1. On average, what proportion of female or mixed-gender artists men are listening to within a specific genre?

2. On average, what proportion of female or mixed-gender artists women are listening to within a particular genre?

I conducted a similar analysis for European Hip-Hop, and the results revealed a significantly lower percentage of female artists compared to female listeners, as we discussed earlier.

We also see that women tend to listen to a higher proportion of female or mixed-gender artists in the Hip-Hop genre compared to men.

One thing is unmistakable: There's a distinction between women listening to a particular genre and Spotify users listening to female artists.

With this awareness, it becomes evident that we need greater representation of female artists across numerous genres and must explore additional avenues to ensure that the talented women we do have receive the visibility and recognition they deserve.

That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks once again for tuning in, and I hope this update sparks your curiosity and prompts more questions. Feel free to join the discussion with me on X at @plan_bo.

Kindly note that this data undergoes daily updates, and there may be slight day-to-day variations.