Tag: trend

ASMR’s Soft Sounds Are Making Noise on Spotify

January 22, 2019

Shhh, come closer and listen to chill whispers and the sound of tapping on pineapples. No, this isn’t a joke—those are the soothing vibes ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) fans can’t get enough of. Whether you find it captivating or cringeworthy, ASMR is a hit on Spotify, clocking 2.1 million streams every day for the past three months.

ASMR is often described as a relaxing “braingasm” sensation that washes over devotees when they hear certain sounds like whispers, crumpling paper, tapping fingernails, jingling coins, or popping bubble wrap. Even the crunch of pickles being chewed has a sizeable audience.

So why are these goosebump-inducing, short streams of trigger noises attracting so many fans?

For some, it’s all about the effect. Listeners who find ASMR meditative can experience immediate mental and physical relaxation, according to David Kaplan, chief professional officer of the American Counseling Association. “You can’t be relaxed and stressed out at the same time,” he says. “Meaning, if you’re positively affected by ASMR, chances are your stresses will at least momentarily melt away.”

Celebrities are succumbing to the sound of semi-silence, too. Ariana Grande, Cardi B, Janet Jackson, and Jake Gyllenhaal all have held press interviews entirely in whispered tones.

Plenty of people, however, feel like their skin crawls when they listen to the sounds of ASMR. And anyone with misophonia, also called selective sound sensitivity syndrome, can’t stand ASMR. Sounds like chewing, lip-smacking, or swallowing will instantly trigger annoyance and anxiousness. Yet they’re pure bliss to ASMR lovers.   

The most-listened-to sounds on Spotify comprise as obscure an ASMR hit list as you might imagine. Tongue-clicking, blowing in ears, folding nylon fabric, and the aforementioned tapping on pineapples top the chart. And they all transcend generations as well as geography. But ASMR is most popular in English-speaking countries (i.e., US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada), and listeners ages twenty-five to forty-four comprise the lion’s share of the streaming totals.

Curious if you’ll find ASMR soothing or strange? Check out our ASMR playlists, including Sleep Sounds, Trigger Sounds, and Binaural Beats—pineapple tapping included, of course.

Interested in giving ASMR a try, but not sure where to start? Try a tapping playlist.

Superstitious? Data Says These Are the Luckiest Songs for Football (Soccer) Fans

June 12, 2018

When countries play “the world’s game,” a.k.a. soccer or football, it takes a lot to win: skill, strategy, teamwork, and sometimes a bit of luck. The result of any hotly-contested, 90-minute match could depend on a millimeter of soccer cleat, a freak ricochet off a defender’s leg, and too many other variables to count.

Where does this kind of game-winning luck come from? Could music have anything to do with it?

We had some fun determining the luckiest song for fans in each of these soccer-loving countries. We used anonymous, aggregated data about what fans were listening to when their team won or lost previous games, as well as a few other factors. (If you’re interested in exactly how we created the actually-quite-rigorous “superstition score” that chose these songs, see the methodology below.)

Here are the songs that, according to our scientifically-derived superstition score, will help each of these 12 football-loving countries win their games.

If you’re looking for something lucky to play before your team’s next match, search no further.

Argentina: Soda Stereo – “Cuando Pase El Temblor”

Australia and Germany: Bag Raiders – Shooting Stars

*Oddly enough, Australia and Germany share the same lucky song!

Brazil: Matheus & Kauan — Decide Aí – Na Praia / Ao Vivo

Colombia: Cali Y El Dandee – Por Fin Te Encontré

France: Snoop Dogg – Young, Wild & Free (feat. Bruno Mars)

Japan: ONE OK ROCK – Clock Strikes

Mexico: Panteon Rococo – La Dosis Perfecta

Perú: Los Abuelos De La Nada – Mil Horas

Spain: Beret – Dime Quien Ama de Verdad

Sweden: Nause – Dynamite (feat. Pretty Sister)

England: The Killers – Mr. Brightside

Methodology

If you want to geek out about this, here’s where these songs came from. We ranked songs in each country by a superstition score consisting of a weighted mix of the following metrics, normalized where appropriate by each song’s share of streaming, to accommodate for normal variation of overall streaming levels there:

  • Win-to-loss score: the ratio between a song’s streams in the country on winning days vs. losing days
  • Match day score: the ratio between a song’s streams in the country on game days vs. other days
  • Country relevance score: the ratio between a song’s streams in the country vs. elsewhere — i.e. how unique it is to that country
  • Country rank score: the song’s highest rank in a country on match days

Did we have to apply such rigor to answer this question? Probably not, but we figured that the teams are working hard and playing hard, so we should too.