How Spotify revealed your uni’s music taste

There’s a reason why their playlists are so good

8 years ago

Sara Les | Brands

In November Spotify released their music rankings for sixty universities in the country.

Putting aside the typical rankings of student satisfaction and employability, Spotify analysed millions of streams to rank each university by six music genres: house, cheese, R&B, classical, who goes the biggest on a Wednesday and who discovers the most new music.

Now Spotify have explained how they came up with the first ever university music rankings. We have broke the rankings down by category to tell you where your university ranked and how Spotify did it.

Check out where Spotify ranked your uni’s music taste

Who listens to the most house?

While you’d expect the likes of Bristol, Leeds and Manchester to be avid house fans, it turns out they don’t even feature in the top 10.

Aberdeen topped the rankings for the university who listens to the most house. From January to October 2016, the typical house listener in Aberdeen listened to 1,154 streams compared to only the 615 streams per user in Manchester.

While dark horse Aberdeen ranked top – Plymouth, Surrey, Edinburgh and Exeter all ranked in the top five.

[infogram id=”a56603c9-1468-475d-82b8-a3d14099ce74″ prefix=”4mc” format=”interactive” title=”Who listens to the most house music?”]

Kishan Bodalia, a Tomorrowland DJ studying at Loughborough, spoke about the house results.

He said: “I am surprised Leeds and Manchester ranked so low for the ‘Househeads’ considering that these two cities are home to two of the UK’s most prestigious clubs for house music, Sankeys and Mission.”

Who discovers the most new music?

Caspar just got asked directly if he’s dating Polly after MAFS UK and he didn’t hold back

The FIVE wild couple swaps there’s rumoured to have been since MAFS UK 2024 was filmed

Revealed: The real reason Love Is Blind dropped Leo and Brittany is so much more brutal

‘I listened to them before they went mainstream’ – a phrase we’ve heard everybody say. Spotify found out who really discovers the most new music by analysing over four million streams on the Discover Weekly playlist.

From the academic heights of Oxford to the sportsmen of Bath, there are some shock members in this category.

With 484,118 streams of the Discover Weeky playlist between January and October, Salford students are the most original when it comes to their music tastes. They’re closely followed by Strathclyde, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Oxford.

[infogram id=”c1856642-612c-4334-a2a0-7b55123cad24″ prefix=”bcF” format=”interactive” title=””]

Find out how much new music your uni discovers

Who listens to the most R&B?

R&B is a hotly contested category between four of London’s universities: Goldsmiths, UCL, Brunel and King’s. Spotify have ranked each of the unis by the average number of R&B streams made between January and October this year.

Over 10 months, on average a King’s student listens to 306 more R&B streams than anyone at Goldsmiths.

[infogram id=”9b0c9448-f7c7-4722-9f67-5683af4fb8fe” prefix=”hAa” format=”interactive” title=””]

Who listens to the most cheese?

You either love it or you hate it. Turns out the majority of the UK’s universities love cheese but no-one more so than the students of Gloucestershire.

Of course Surrey, King’s and Salford are in the top 10 but nobody expected Gloucestershire to beat everyone else. This year, on average Gloucestershire students listened to 2,782 pop streams on Spotify.

[infogram id=”7f330d60-b601-4e41-b96e-968047b30a1c” prefix=”rE3″ format=”interactive” title=””]

Abhinay Settipalli, a DJ and Dentistry student, agreed with the range of unis in the top 10. He said: “One thing I’ve learnt from DJing is that cheesy music can be made to work with almost any crowd. Regardless of who you are, older music brings you to a slightly nostalgic mood.

“I’ve played to students in many parts of the UK and my personal experience only reinforces my view that cheese is universal and not restricted to a certain place. If you look at the top 10, the huge geographic range confirms that.”

Find out how much cheese your uni listens to

Who listens to the most classical?

Everyone has listened to classical to help them concentrate so it’s no surprise Cambridge came top, beating the likes of Oxford and Durham by over 100 average streams per user. A big upset was to see both Liverpool and UWE in the top five for classical.

[infogram id=”350fb6ce-1ec7-45d9-9bcb-0bb6fc6cf612″ prefix=”0ro” format=”interactive” title=””]

Who goes the biggest on a Wednesday night?

With Crisis Wednesdays at Trent, Hey Ewe in Loughborough and Pryzm Wednesdays in Leeds, Wednesday is arguably one of the biggest nights of the week and the most contentious music ranking.

Spotify ranked the data by analysing the percentage of streams for the week occurring on Wednesdays compared to the rest of the week.

Manchester beat everyone else to be the uni who goes the biggest on a Wednesday, followed by Sussex, Man Met and Cardiff.

On the league table as a whole, Kishan said: “I would’ve expected a stronger presence in cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds in the top 10 in these categories. It goes to show that even in cities less known for their music culture, music is still a strong component of student life.”

It seems Craig David would agree: