Apple’s Beats 1 ‘radio’ station has been with us for over a month now, so it’s had plenty of time to show its true colours.
And it turns out, Beats 1 is heavily biased towards hip-hop and rap. We’re not really surprised.
That’s according to new data compiled by Quartz and a programmer called Callum Jones, which attempts to show the “tastes and habits” of the fledgling station.
To that end, over 12,000 songs were tracked over a month-long period between early July and early August.
The study found that hip-hop and rap are, by far, the most popular genre, with 1,726 cumulative plays.
Image credit: Quartz
That’s not a huge surprise, as Beats 1 is the spiritual successor to Beats Music, the brainchild of Beats founder hip-hop legend Dr Dre.
Alternative was next up with 1,506, followed by electronic music at 802.
Woe betide fans of blues (12), soul (11), and techno (10), genres which ranked amongst the least played on the station.
The most popular artist on the service is singer The Weeknd with 180 plays, 107 of which were for the song “Can’t Feel My Face”.
Image credit: Quartz
As a result, that song tops the list for most popular tracks too.
The second most popular artist was Drake, followed by Disclosure.
Meanwhile, in second place for top tracks was “New Americana” by Halsey, followed by Selena Gomez’s “Good For You”.
Image credit: Quartz
Related: Apple Music review
Beats 1 has received a fair amount of criticism for playing too much hip-hop, although that’s down to individual tastes.
However, Apple does peddle Beats 1 as “the world’s local station”, so some might argue that the focus on one particular genre is unrepresentative.
Are you a fan of the Beats 1 genre breakdown? Let us know in the comments.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
