Shazam partners with the BBC to identify “twin cities” around the world

The BBC has launched an interesting tool in partnership with Shazam, allowing anyone to enter a city and find its musical twin, based on the top 10 songs being looked up during November 2015 in 4,900 different places. 

For example, entering Exeter, UK brings up the top 10 most looked up tracks - the list is topped by WSTRN “ln2” - and shows that Queenstown, New Zealand is exeter’s musical twin, with three tracks in common (“Chunky”, “Never Forget You” and “Be Right There” if you need to know). 

In a similar fashion, London is paired up with Kaipoi, New Zealand, with six tracks in common, and New York is paired up with Singapore, with five tracks in common. 

On a global level, Adele’s Hello was the most looked up song during November and was present in the top 10 of over half of the cities tracked, but  Major Lazer’s “Lean on” and Drake’s “Hotline Bling” also did very well globally.

The lists stress the similarities between cities around the world, which inevitably put the emphasis on major pop artists. It would possibly be even more interesting to look at the overlap in interest towards independent artists, which could shine a spotlight on how word of mouth around music spreads globally during the early stages of an artist's career.

Try out the tool [here]. 

(Andrea Leonelli)