Music Engagement on Spotify with Chinese Musicians

Two of the three most affluential Chinese pop artists Jay Chou and JJ Lin both have over 2 million streams on the US-based music streaming platform, Spotify. Banned in China but not Taiwan or Hong Kong, Spotify, the self-proclaimed ‘most popular audio streaming platform’ in the world, is an essential tool for musicians and artists to get their music out.  ‘Streaming is the most important music distribution platform today,’ Beijing-based indie rockers Default’s guitarist and vocalist Eric tells Hybrid. As of April 15^th, Default’s monthly listeners surpassed two thousand.  A Month on Spotify is equivalent to 28 days.

So, who’s engaging with artists and bands from Greater China on Spotify?

To get to the bottom of who’s listening to music from the Sinophone world, Hybrid’s culture editor and writer Rochelle Beiersdorfer crunches the numbers and chats with some Oxford Brookes students, culture scholars and Chinese indie bands.