Streaming World: Back To 2012

Not all elements can face the test of time the same way. Some will get erased within’ seconds, others will last forever. This samelogic perfectly applies to our favorite music tunes. As a music industry watcher, one of the most appreciated functionality of streaming is that we can check results of pretty much every single track from all artists, enabling in-depth analysis of various categories.

This includes analyzing which hits from certain periods remained the most relevant nowadays and which ones got

forgotten.

Is there anybody out there?

Today we will be reviewing that way the year 2012. It was incredible by the amount of monstrous hits which emerged in no time – Somebody That I Used To Know, Radioactive, Just Give Me A Reason, Gangnam Style, Video Games, Call Me Maybe, We Are Young, Diamonds, Ho Hey, Scream & Shout, Thrift Shop, etc, the list is insane. The most absurd result is that only one of those massive tunes figures among the Top 8 most streamed songs from that year at Spotify. You can place your bet on who’s coming inside the leading tier – feel free to guess the top 10 on comments before reading the list!

This is how we do

As every listing must be checked with its methodology in mind, I’ll be explaining the list’s rules right now. First, the key element is that I’m using the release year of the parent album to define the year of a song. For example, if the third or fourth single of a 2012 album has been promoted in 2013, I’m still considering it a 2012 hit. Second, all streaming totals refer to Spotify plays of all versions of the same song-artist combined. Cover versions by external acts are not considered. Third, I’m voluntarily excluding local hits. I have identified 61 hits with 150 million streams or more from 2012, but some local acts could be up there too. I’ll not be listing them since they are not of interest in terms of biggest global hits, and, let’s be honest, they are also pretty hard to identify. This highlights a more general concern which is the absence of this kind of lists made by Spotify themselves. It is simply not possible to know the most streamed songs from 2012 into the platform. Thus, I went through best selling albums, singles, acts of 2012/2013 in the US/UK, best rated albums lists from that year, biggest airplay hits of the year and more, but there is still for sure a few missing songs which is why your comments and help is more welcome than ever!