This link has some cool tools for seeing what the most popular songs have been on Spotify. [poly-graph.co]

One can see that the most popular song from the 1990s is, by far, Smells Like Teen Spirit.

The Stones have the most popular song from the the 1960s and it is....drum roll.... Paint it, Black.

Start Me Up is the Stones 2nd most played song on Spotify after PIB.

(The Beatles are not on Spotify).

It's interesting that 2 of the songs in the top 5, Paint it Black and Angie, are not 'warhorses'. 5 of the top 15 have Mick Taylor on them, 7 have Brian Jones

The list only includes songs that originally charted on Billboard; this explains "Gimme Shelter"'s absence. SFTD is included because it charted in 2003.

Here are the most played Stones songs on Spotify:

Paint It Black — Rolling Stones The, 1966
25,816,438
Sympathy For The Devil — Rolling Stones The, 1968
22,299,932.
Start Me Up — Rolling Stones The, 1981
15,678,955.
Angie — Rolling Stones The, 1973
12,461,836
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction — Rolling Stones The, 1965
12,117,782
Brown Sugar — Rolling Stones The, 1971
10,046,997
Beast Of Burden — Rolling Stones The, 1978
9,896,281
Wild Horses — Rolling Stones The, 1971
9,085,373
You Can't Always Get What You Want — Rolling Stones The, 1969
8,403,896
Jumpin' Jack Flash — Rolling Stones The, 1968
6,740,643
Miss You — Rolling Stones The, 1978
5,227,456
Honky Tonk Women — Rolling Stones The, 1969
5,169,036
Ruby Tuesday — Rolling Stones The, 1967
3,562,741.
Tumbling Dice — Rolling Stones The, 1972
3,480,069
Time Is On My Side — Rolling Stones The, 1964



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2015-08-25 08:12 by Turner68.

Interesting. I think PIB tops the iTunes list, too, but SMU and Angie weren't in their top 5, if memory serves.

Quote
DandelionPowderman
Interesting. I think PIB tops the iTunes list, too, but SMU and Angie weren't in their top 5, if memory serves.

That's my recollection as well. I remember beast of burden being surprisingly high on iTunes.

Interesting stuff, indeed. Like the site argues, this is the way to measure the lasting impact of the songs outside of their 'heyday'.

If we suggest that the audience using spotify is relatively young, at least compared to the people who buy/bought physical items, the Stones made the most lasting impact with those dark masterpieces of the 60's, starting with "Paint It Black", together with "Sympathy" For The Devil" (and "Gimme Shelter" surely would be there, if it would be counted, like in iTunes). Then we have the usual suspects, even though the 'latter day' signature songs, "Start Me Up", and "Angie" beat "Satisfaction" and "Brown Sugar", which might surprise many... I am not that surprised: it is those very songs I find 'casual' fans strongly familiar with/interested in.

The only songs that I find surprisingly popular are "Beast of Burden" (beating easily many 'war horses', a'la JJF, HTW), and "Time Is On My Side". Ironically, the single B-side song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" seems to be nowadays more memorable than its A-side "Honky Tonk Women"...

- Doxa

I was recently at a 50th birthday party attended by four generations and a mid twenties chap asked me to name a good song. I chose brown sugar which he played on his smartphone then said " wow Ive never heard that one."

What a great life of musical discovery these young uns have ahead of them!

Slightly off topic I wonder how much the band gets paid for their songs being played. I am thinking they would get paid a pittance. Does anyone out there know. I pay about 10 $ a month for spotify if I play a 1000 songs a month that's about 1 cent per song. After spotify takes their share I would be surprised if the band got more than 10% of that. So for a million plays the band could get $ 1000 . ? Maybe

Quote
Anitapal82
Slightly off topic I wonder how much the band gets paid for their songs being played. I am thinking they would get paid a pittance. Does anyone out there know. I pay about 10 $ a month for spotify if I play a 1000 songs a month that's about 1 cent per song. After spotify takes their share I would be surprised if the band got more than 10% of that. So for a million plays the band could get $ 1000 . ? Maybe

between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream.

so the 20 million plays of PIB has earned them about $150,000.

Thanks turner 68 that's more than I thought, and ok if you can get someone to stream your song 20 million times. Not many can unfortunately, and music is very cheap for the consumer nowadays.

Here's a more detailed answer to how much artists earn from various streaming sites:

[www.theguardian.com]

Thanks Beast

Quote
Beast
Here's a more detailed answer to how much artists earn from various streaming sites:

[www.theguardian.com]

good article. one of the things it points out is that the number i cited is how much the *label* gets. the act gets just a fraction of that. your original estimate was probably pretty good Anitapal82.

It is a pitiful figure, even for the stones streaming millions of times ,most bands who used to get income from their back catalogue will have their income severely reduced. Still, for me, I am saving a fortune using spotify. And for stones fans it is all in there ( I should be a salesman for spotify). Even stones live 1965 from the Charlie is my darling box is in spotify. I was going to pay the $150 for it !

People are strange...
Jim Morrison

2 1 2 0

Quote
Turner68

5 of the top 15 have Mick Taylor on them, 7 have Brian Jones

I was immediately wondering when someone would bring that up...

It's interesting that 2 of the songs in the top 5, Paint it Black and Angie, are not 'warhorses'. 5 of the top 15 have Mick Taylor on them, 7 have Brian Jones

and all of them with Jagger-Richards-Watts-Wyman (no Darryl)

2 1 2 0

Quote
Come On
It's interesting that 2 of the songs in the top 5, Paint it Black and Angie, are not 'warhorses'. 5 of the top 15 have Mick Taylor on them, 7 have Brian Jones

and all of them with Jagger-Richards-Watts-Wyman (no Darryl)

No Wyman on JJF, SFTD and TD.

Quote
DandelionPowderman

Quote
Come On
It's interesting that 2 of the songs in the top 5, Paint it Black and Angie, are not 'warhorses'. 5 of the top 15 have Mick Taylor on them, 7 have Brian Jones

and all of them with Jagger-Richards-Watts-Wyman (no Darryl)

No Wyman on JJF, SFTD and TD.

He is with, but maybe not exactly on bass...

2 1 2 0

Quote
Come On

Quote
DandelionPowderman

Quote
Come On
It's interesting that 2 of the songs in the top 5, Paint it Black and Angie, are not 'warhorses'. 5 of the top 15 have Mick Taylor on them, 7 have Brian Jones

and all of them with Jagger-Richards-Watts-Wyman (no Darryl)

No Wyman on JJF, SFTD and TD.

He is with, but maybe not exactly on bass...

Yeah, forgot the keyboard on JJF

Quote
DandelionPowderman

Quote
Come On

Quote
DandelionPowderman

Quote
Come On
It's interesting that 2 of the songs in the top 5, Paint it Black and Angie, are not 'warhorses'. 5 of the top 15 have Mick Taylor on them, 7 have Brian Jones

and all of them with Jagger-Richards-Watts-Wyman (no Darryl)

No Wyman on JJF, SFTD and TD.

He is with, but maybe not exactly on bass...

Yeah, forgot the keyboard on JJF

So eager to write him off...

- Doxa

I think a contributing factor why Paint it Black is number one is because it was in the video game Guitar Hero 3. That game sold over 8 million copies, that's a lot of exposure of that song to a lot of teenagers at the time who probably had never heard it before. I remember that shortly after it came out back in 2008, Paint it Black became the number one Stones song on iTunes.