K-pop, meditation music: Spotify brings new genres to India's millennials

Spotify has unveiled a new playlist called ‘India Discovers’ that includes 40 tracks by several emerging and established global artistes that millenials of the country have discovered on the music streaming platform in the past 60 days.

The insights are pretty interesting as the trend shows curious listeners are making the most of the platform and breaking away from the domain of regular genres to step into a refreshingly new musical space.

The 18- to 24-year-old listeners, currently the largest group on Spotify worldwide, comprising more than 34 per cent of overall listeners, are discovering artistes from the West as much as K-pop artistes.

The first among the three trends are collaborative tracks that have caught the fancy of listeners. These includes Normani collaborating with Khalid for Love Lies, and Scottish rock band CHVRCHES and Marshmello’s Here With Me.

K-pop is a surprise entry as it emerged as the second biggest trend, with South Korean pop artists making up 25 per cent of the playlist. Tomorrow X Together, girl bands (TWICE) and independent artists (SUNMI) were the leading artists from the K-pop genre.

There is more element of surprise as the young listeners are also discovering artistes creating sleep/meditation songs 

Artistes such as Haley Reinhart, and Kurt Hugo Schneider, Sam Tsui and DSharp, who did cover versions of popular tracks also made it to the list with Can't Help Falling in Love and Girls Like You, respectively.

Here are the top 10 most discovered artists by Indian millenials on Spotify India for the first time over the past 60 days 

1. Normani

2. CHVRCHES

3. Cigarettes After Sex

4. Au/Ra

5. AronChupa

6. Haley Reinhart

7. TOMORROW X TOGETHER

8. Steven Goldmund

9. iKON

10. Rand Aldo

The top 10 K-pop artists that Gen Z is discovering in India:

1. TOMORROW X TOGETHER

2. iKON

3. SUNMI

4. TWICE

5. MAMAMOO

6. BIGBANG

7. ITZY

8. MOMOLAND

9. SEVENTEEN

10. Red Velvet

Here are the top 5 artists discovered on Spotify India, based on their collaborations:

1. Normani (with Khalid for Love Lies)

2. CHVRCHES (with Marshmello for Here With Me)

3. Au/Ra (with Alan Walker for Darkside)

4. Lil Jon (with DJ Snake for Turn Down For What)

5. Slushii (with Marshmello for Twinbow)