On this special episode, we crunch data related to the most-streamed songs of the year, and discuss the genres, artists and languages that defined 2024 on the charts. Among the things we talk about are whether the I-Pop hype is real, how catalogue tracks are contributing to plays for film music, and the main differences between the year-end India top 50s on Spotify and Apple Music.

Links mentioned in the episode:

ttps://www.hollywoodreporterindia.com/features/columns/bollywood-music-in-2024-the-hits-that-ruled-playlists

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-pop-why-indias-music-industry-hoping-becomes-next-big-bpdwc/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgZl8OcSRhM

In any given week, hits by K-Pop acts are among the handful of international tracks on the chart. With “APT.” by Rosie and Bruno Mars rising to the top 20, and consequently becoming the highest-ranked non-Indian single on the survey so far this year, we got K-Pop journalist and founder of media agency Bridge Asia, Riddhi Chakraborty, to plot the rise of the genre in our country and discuss why chart rankings are so important to its artists’ fandoms. As always, we look at key movements on the Spotify Weekly Top Songs India chart, this time for the survey published on November 29, 2024.

Three new entries as well as the biggest climber on this week's chart are remakes. Why are they so popular when they rarely improve on the original versions? On this week's episode, we discuss why labels love recreating older hits, whether they're mostly a Hindi film and pop music phenomenon, and how interpolations are a better option than remixes. As always, we look at key movements on the Spotify Weekly Top Songs India chart, this time for the survey published on November 15, 2024.

The nominations for the 2025 Grammy Awards were announced last week, evoking celebration for some Indian artists and disappointment for others, including those on the charts. This year, it seemed like there were a record number of submissions by Indian acts, several of whom shared 'For Your Consideration' posts on social media and a few of whom even put out ads in US music trade publications. On this week's episode, we discuss why the Grammys, which are given out by an American institution, hold so much weight with musicians in India. As always, we look at key movements on the Spotify Weekly Top Songs India chart, this time for the survey published on November 8, 2024.

In May 2023, "Haath Varti" by KSHMR and MC Stan, the first single from the former's concept album Karam entered Spotify's Weekly Top Songs Chart for India. That week, it was the only EDM track on the survey. This led us to a discussion on why EDM tends to draw more live audiences than it does on streaming. Now that we're into the last two months of the year, when there is a cluster of electronic music festivals, we felt it was a great time to revisit this conversation.

Historically, the last quarter of the year tends to be the busiest for new album releases. Earlier, they were timed to capitalise on the festive season. These days, they're more likely to be the result of the culmination of a year full of singles being bundled into an album, or an artist tying a fresh full-length to an upcoming concert tour or festival appearances. Keeping this in mind, we thought it would be a great time to revisit our episode on single vs. album marketing strategies. This episode was originally recorded in March 2024. Enjoy the revisit! We will be back with a new episode soon!

Prateek Kuhad's "Co2" entering the chart marks the rare instance of an English-language track by an Indian artist generating enough streams to reach the top 200. On this week's episode, we discuss why such occurrences are so few and far between, how he managed to do it, and why tunes such as this hit represent a niche within a niche. As always, we look at key movements on the Spotify Weekly Top Songs India chart, this time for the survey published on October 4, 2024.

With Diljit Dosanjh's 2020 track "Born To Shine" reaching a new peak in the aftermath of his tour announcement, we turn our focus to the country's thriving live music scene to discuss the unprecedented scramble for tickets for shows by acts such as Coldplay and him. We also list out the international concerts with the highest attendance figures so far, and predict who we think might be visiting next. As always, we look at key movements on the Spotify Weekly Top Songs India chart, this time for the survey published on September 20, 2024.