Bruce Springsteen song streams more than double after making Obama's 'Top Songs of 2019' list
Barack Obama is proving to be quite the musical influencer since his days in the White House.
The former president named 34 songs across a number of musical genres including rap, hip-hop, and salsa tracks to his “Top Songs of 2019” list in the final week of the year, and now new Nielsen data shared exclusively with Yahoo Finance shows every song on his list caught a streaming boost.
Even songs from well-established artists, like rock legend Bruce Springsteen’s “Hello Sunshine,” saw streams on premium and ad-supported platforms more than double after getting named to Obama’s list (The Boss’ track went from an average of 5,700 streams per day to more than 11,500.) Songs from less mainstream singers, like Angélique Kidjo’s cover of “La Vida Es Un Carnaval,” saw even larger boosts, with Kidjo’s track earning a 2700% jump in streams during the 48 hours after making the list.
Overall, songs that made the list saw streams on services like Spotify (SPOT) and Apple (AAPL) Music spiked an average of 20% when comparing the two days before Obama named his favorite songs to the two days that followed.
Other songs seeing impressive spikes in streaming included Raleigh, North Carolina-based rapper LesTheGenius’ “Raleighwood Hills,” which saw a jump of more than 1800% and The National’s “Oblivions,” which was streamed more than three times as much after earning the Obama nod.
From hip-hop to country to The Boss, here are my songs of the year. If you’re looking for something to keep you company on a long drive or help you turn up a workout, I hope there’s a track or two in here that does the trick. pic.twitter.com/mQ2VssyDwt
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 30, 2019
However, it’s not the first time that a mention from a president has been able to influence how a song performs. Last year, President Donald Trump boosted streams of Nickelback’s “Photograph” by more than 569% after tweeting a doctored clip of the band’s music video. And even Obama’s top summer music playlist boosted all of the 44 songs earning a place on that list, according to Billboard’s reporting at the time citing Nielsen data.
Zack Guzman is the host of YFi PM as well as a senior writer and on-air reporter covering entrepreneurship, cannabis, startups, and breaking news at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @zGuz.
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