Both Spotify and YouTube have new playlists of songs with at least one billion streams and views, respectively. After reviewing both lists, there’s a lot to learn about the streaming era and the strategy for both platforms respectively. I broke it all down with Tati Cirsiano, a music analyst at MIDiA Research.

There is plenty of overlap on both lists, but the differences are notable. Spotify’s list is more reflective of passive consumption — music playing in the background while doing another activity. This is why Spotify’s top-performing songs are more correlated with radio hits than YouTube, which is a more active consumption experience.

YouTube’s Billion Views Club also has more international stars than Spotify, which was over-indexed with English-speaking artists. With streaming continuing to grow across the world and plateauing in the United States, YouTube’s chart might be more reflective of future music consumption with a further fracturing of audiences.

We also talk about the growing competition between the two platforms.. As their billions playlists hinted at, the two corporate giants have different features and audiences, which could shape their future goals in music. Here’s everything Tati and I covered on the show:

0:52 Immediate takeaways from each Billions Club playlists
3:57 How “meme traffic” impacted both platforms
8:57 Passive consumption vs. active consumption
11:47 International differences between Spotify and YouTube
13:45 Few surprises on Spotify Billions Club playlist
14:49 The Justin Bieber conundrum
20:35 How Spotify and YouTube enable fragmentation of fandom
22:18 Gym-going and seasonality’s impact on streaming numbers
27:40 Short form videos eventual effect on YouTube streaming
29:41 YouTube vs. Spotify competition intensifying
38:31 MIDiA’s upcoming predictions report

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