Girls and Boys reaches 100 million milestone on Spotify

[idreamofpikas]

The channel itself has over 1.1 billion streams. To put this into perspective Suede have 175 million streams. The only two British 90's bands who are doing better are Oasis and Radiohead.

[daii]

Surprised to see ghost ship up there, I mean I love the song but is weird that it has more streams than the universal

[idreamofpikas]

Surprised to see ghost ship up there, I mean I love the song but is weird that it has more streams than the universal

It is a Spotify era song. That is going to give it an artificial push as a decent percentage of people who like the Universal will already own it and may use other devices to listen to it. A newer song will also be listened to more to see if they like it. This will likely level out over the years.

Music released after 2012 will have this boost because that is when Spotify started to become mainstream.

[stephen]

Surprised to see ghost ship up there, I mean I love the song but is weird that it has more streams than the universal

It is a Spotify era song. That is going to give it an artificial push as a decent percentage of people who like the Universal will already own it and may use other devices to listen to it. A newer song will also be listened to more to see if they like it. This will likely level out over the years.

Music released after 2012 will have this boost because that is when Spotify started to become mainstream.

It's crazy isn't it how random songs become popular

[stephen]

How do we get fools day on spotify? something Mr Rowntree can look into?

[idreamofpikas]

How do we get fools day on spotify? something Mr Rowntree can look into?

Maybe a B-sides and rarities album.

[stephen]

How do we get fools day on spotify? something Mr Rowntree can look into?

Maybe a B-sides and rarities album.

I think they took it off YouTube as well? Maybe it was a band decision?

[JackS]

Surprised to see ghost ship up there, I mean I love the song but is weird that it has more streams than the universal

I think a theory I saw before was the algorithm heavily pushing it to Gorillaz fans, which does make sense. But agree it looks so weird to see it that high up.

Surely a certain inclusion next time Blur play live!

[Sledge Hammer]

Yeah must be the Gorillaz modern connection as The Universal is 100x better, The Universal is a stunning emotional song, the use of it on the British Gas advert for years really didn't help it.

[John_d]

I've mentioned this elsewhere but Ghost Ship tends to get a play if you let Spotify play on, choosing the songs. Somehow a bias must be shown towards it by Spotify. Imo it's a great song and miles better than Go Out, or Lonesome Street. The guitar playing is wonderful and it's a very strong melody.

I've noticed a few songs starting to get played on the radio that I had only previously stumbled upon on Spotify - "can you get to that" by Funkadelic and "Hot fun in the summertime" by Sly Stone being prominent examples.

[idreamofpikas]

I've mentioned this elsewhere but Ghost Ship tends to get a play if you let Spotify play on, choosing the songs. Somehow a bias must be shown towards it by Spotify.

I doubt it a human bias but the algorithm recommending songs that are most likely to be played to the end (rather than skipped) and possibly liked by the person listening to them.

There seems to be some frustration by some people about the songs/artists that are recommended on Spotify, but I think there is nothing about personal bias and all about their respective algorithms being designed to keep the Spotify listener listening as long as possible.

[stephen]

I guess it just fits in to other popular songs quite easily...

[thespider]

Yeah it is quite curious to see Ghost Ship have more plays than both Country House and Beetlebum. They were number 1 singles!

[Styopa]

Ghost Ship could be a Gorillaz song and by virtue of that alone has a more contemporaneous sound and potentially wider reach than most of Blur's back catalogue.

It's also much less anachronistic than some of Blur's biggest hits. Ghost Ship could arguably have existed any time in the last 40 years or so whereas songs like Country House and Parklife have a Britpop time-stamp on them. That could make the latter off-putting to some people.

I imagine Tender and Coffee and TV also benefit from having a more universally generic sound, for want of a better term. Gospel being more widely embraced in pop culture than music hall for instance.

Still, I would have expected the Universal to be higher, pre-2012 or not. If anything that is a song that has really grown in stature over the decades.

I'm also surprised that Beetlebum isn't higher.

[idreamofpikas]

Still, I would have expected the Universal to be higher, pre-2012 or not. If anything that is a song that has really grown in stature over the decades.

I'm also surprised that Beetlebum isn't higher.

Both are now on 27.7 million. They are fantastic amounts for songs from the 90's that did not break America, still by the far the largest music listening audience. They'd make the top 5 of every other British 90's band apart from Oasis, Radiohead and the Verve (only one would make the top 5, the other would have to settle for 6th).


Lyla 21 million, The importance of Being Idle 24.4 million, The Hindu Times 11.7 million, Go Let It Out 15.6 million, All Around the World
24.3 million. All no1's by Oasis. By comparison the Universal and Beetlebum are doing well.

Now Blur's catalogue is hindered by the fact that Damon and Graham have moved on. Other acts are either still together or still performing on tour the songs that made them famous. Had there been more than one Blur tour or album in the spotify age (2012 onwards seems to be when it became mainstream) we'd probably see even bigger numbers, but right now 1.1 billion is pretty impressive.

I am puzzled why we have not seen a B-sides album or even another Greatest hits album, something to inject a bit of life into the Blur catalogue.