Ever wondered which city has the best music scene of them all? Researchers at Replay Poker have analysed the music fan bases of 34 US cities to discover which artists have the greatest popularity.
Their research considers the size of each artist’s fan base according to Spotify’s audience insights and estimates how much an artist earns per year from a city based on the average number of times that a fan would stream an artist per month. Their analysis also compared Spotify charts where we looked at the weekly top charts for each city in the world for the past 6 months to see which cities have the most similar music tastes.
Key findings:
- Drake is Atlanta’s most popular musician right now with 144k of his fans on Spotify from Atlanta, generating him an estimated $245,549 a year in equivalent Spotify earnings from streams
- Atlanta native, Lil Baby, is the city’s second most popular music artist with an impressive 98,300 fans from which he makes an average of $167,621 a year from streams on Spotify.
- “Or Nah” rapper Ty Dolla $ign ranked as one of Atlanta’s least favourite musician with only 1,580 in Atlanta, only earning her $2,694 a year from streams from his Atlanta fans.
- Toronto, CA has the most similar music taste to Atlanta in the world and Osaka, JP has the least similar music taste to Atlanta.
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The top 20 most streamed artists in Atlanta right now
- Our analysis revealed that Atlanta’s most streamed artist right now is Drake with 144,000 fans in Atlanta who generate him an estimated $245,549 a year in equivalent Spotify earnings from streams.
- Atlanta native Lil Baby is the city’s second most popular music artist with an impressive 98,300 fans from which he makes an average of $167,621 a year from streams on Spotify.
- Bad Bunny is the 3rd most popular musician in Atlanta with 87k fans ($148,352 estimated yearly earnings) and Taylor Swift ranked in 4th place with 85,900 fans ($146,477 estimated annual earnings).
- “Or Nah” rapper Ty Dolla $ign ranked as one of Atlanta’s least favourite musician with only 1,580 in Atlanta, only earning her $2,694 a year from streams from his Atlanta fans.
| Rank | Artist | Fans in Atlanta (Total) | Fans per 10k people in Atlanta | Estimated Yearly Earnings ($) |
| 1 | Drake | 144,000 | 3,215 | 245,549 |
| 2 | Lil Baby | 98,300 | 2,195 | 167,621 |
| 3 | Bad Bunny | 87,000 | 1,943 | 148,352 |
| 4 | Taylor Swift | 85,900 | 1,918 | 146,477 |
| 5 | The Weeknd | 85,200 | 1,902 | 145,283 |
| 6 | Doja Cat | 78,900 | 1,762 | 134,540 |
| 7 | Future | 76,500 | 1,708 | 130,448 |
| 8 | Juice WRLD | 76,300 | 1,704 | 130,107 |
| 9 | XXXTENTACION | 70,700 | 1,579 | 120,558 |
| 10 | Kanye West | 69,400 | 1,550 | 118,341 |
| 11 | Kendrick Lamar | 69,400 | 1,550 | 118,341 |
| 12 | Olivia Rodrigo | 68,100 | 1,521 | 116,124 |
| 13 | Billie Eilish | 67,500 | 1,507 | 115,101 |
| 14 | Bruno Mars | 63,100 | 1,409 | 107,598 |
| 15 | Post Malone | 62,700 | 1,400 | 106,916 |
| 16 | Rihanna | 60,800 | 1,358 | 103,676 |
| 17 | Ariana Grande | 60,500 | 1,351 | 103,165 |
| 18 | Harry Styles | 59,500 | 1,329 | 101,459 |
| 19 | Lil Uzi Vert | 57,200 | 1,277 | 97,537 |
| 20 | DaBaby | 56,100 | 1,253 | 95,662 |
Which cities in the world have the closest music taste to Atlanta’s?
- For this analysis, we sourced the data through Spotify charts where we looked at the weekly top charts for each city for the past 6 months and checked which songs appeared in each city. We then compared each city against each other, to see which cities contain songs that also appear in other cities.
- Based on this, of the 378 songs which have appeared on Atlanta’s Spotify top charts in the past 6 months, 273 (72%) of them also appeared in Toronto, CA, (more than anywhere in the world) meaning Toronto is Atlanta’s musical twin city.
- Osaka, Japan had the least similar music taste to Atlanta in the world with only 0.8% of songs on each city’s local top chats matching.
| Rank | City | # of songs shared | % of songs matching |
| 1 | Toronto | 273 | 72% |
| 2 | Vancouver | 263 | 69% |
| 3 | Ottawa | 252 | 67% |
| 3 | Calgary | 252 | 67% |
| 5 | Montreal | 214 | 57% |
| 6 | Sydney | 173 | 46% |
| 7 | Cape Town | 172 | 46% |
| 7 | Melbourne | 172 | 46% |
| 9 | Brisbane | 159 | 42% |
| 10 | Auckland | 155 | 41% |
Methodology:
- Our analysis of the most popular and highest-earning artists in 34 US major cities. Artist fan bases were calculated per 10,000 of a city’s local population size.
- The number of fans per artist in each city was sourced from Spotify’s Ad Studio. By targeting the maximum possible reach for fans of specific artists, we were able to discover the estimated size of each artist’s fan base in each major US city, according to Spotify listeners.
- The total estimated earnings each artist makes per year from their fans in each city is based on the following calculation:
- The average Spotify user in Europe streams 99 minutes of music per day.
- 99 minutes divided by the average length of a song on Spotify (3 minutes 19 seconds) equals 29 songs.
- A fan streaming 99 minutes at least once per month listens to 348 songs a year.
- 348 streams multiplied by the number of fans per location equals the number of songs listened to in one year per location per artist.
- That figure multiplied by Spotify earnings per stream equals total artist earnings per city.