How music charts work: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and Deezer compared
Every streaming service publishes its own top songs, and they rarely agree. The differences are not random: each chart counts something slightly different, from a different group of listeners. Knowing what is counted makes the charts far more useful.
Every chart is a count of plays, but not the same plays
A streaming chart starts from a simple idea: the songs played most in a period, in a place. The details are where charts differ. Which plays count, over how many hours, in which country, and on which service: change any one of these and the list changes.
The four charts most people look at are built like this:
| Chart | What it counts | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Spotify | Streams by Spotify listeners in that country. Spotify counts a stream once a song has played for at least 30 seconds. | Daily and weekly |
| Apple Music | The most played songs by Apple Music subscribers in that country. Apple publishes the order, not the play counts. | Daily |
| YouTube | Views of the song's official video, lyric videos and user uploads that use the track, in that country. | Weekly |
| Deezer | Plays by Deezer listeners, with a global top list and lists per country. | Updated daily |
Why the same song ranks so differently
Different people use different services
Each service has its own audience. Spotify is strong with younger listeners in Europe and the Americas. Apple Music leans towards iPhone owners, which in many countries means older and better-off listeners. YouTube is the biggest music service in much of South Asia, Africa and Latin America, and it is where many people listen without paying for anything. Deezer has a larger share in France and parts of Africa and the Middle East than elsewhere. A song that is huge with one group can be barely visible to another.
Video changes what wins
YouTube counts views of videos, so songs with a viral dance, a big music video or a trend on short-form video do very well there. A slow album track that people play on headphones may do better on Spotify or Apple Music than on YouTube.
Daily charts move faster than weekly ones
A new release by a big artist can take the top of a daily chart on its first day and fall several places by the end of the week. Weekly charts smooth out these spikes. If you want to know what a country is really living with, compare the daily and weekly lists: songs that sit high on both are the lasting hits.
Charts are local
The global chart is dominated by the countries with the most listeners on that service. A song can be number one in Thailand or Argentina and never appear on the global list. That is why per-country charts are often more interesting than the global one.
Reading a country's chart well
- Look at the movement, not just the position. A song climbing from 40 to 12 in a few days is usually more telling than one that has sat at number 3 for months.
- Check two services. If a song is high on both Spotify and YouTube in the same country, it is a genuine hit across very different listeners.
- Notice the language mix. In many countries local-language songs fill most of the top places, while the global chart is mostly English and Spanish. The country chart tells you what people there actually play.
- Remember what is missing. Radio, CDs, vinyl, downloads and services that publish no charts are not in these lists. Streaming charts describe streaming listeners.
Songs that cross borders
Some of the most interesting chart stories are songs moving from one country to the next: a track breaks out in one place, then appears in neighbouring countries a few days later, then reaches the global chart. Following this is easier when you can see all the countries at once. On mdworks Music's spreading page, songs that are climbing in several countries at the same time are listed with the places they have reached.
What chart numbers do not tell you
A chart position says how often a song was played, not whether people like it. Songs played in the background, songs on popular playlists and songs attached to a trend all collect plays. Charts also reward release timing: an artist with a dedicated fan base can enter at the top in the first week and leave quickly. None of this makes charts useless. They are a good, honest measure of what is being played. They are just not a measure of quality.
How mdworks Music builds its lists
mdworks Music collects the public top-song lists of Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and Deezer for more than 70 countries every day. For each song it finds the official 30-second preview and measures the tempo, key and energy from the audio. The positions are the services' own; mdworks only gathers them in one place, so you can compare countries and services side by side. It is not affiliated with any of the services.
Common questions
Why does a song I hear everywhere not appear in the chart?
It may be popular on radio, in shops or on a service that does not publish a chart for your country. Charts only see their own service's plays.
Do repeat plays by one person count?
Generally yes, within limits that each service sets to filter out automated or fraudulent plays. The services do not publish the exact rules.
How quickly do new songs appear?
Daily charts usually show the previous day's plays, so a song released on a Friday can appear in Saturday's chart.