Working from home? What music is most popular for that?

Another six week or so and many of us will mark one year of working at home. I haven’t been into the physical radio station (The Edge and Q107/Toronto) since last February. Almost all my compatriots have been working remotely thanks to Dropbox, home studios, VPNs, and Zoom. I wonder how much mail I’ve got waiting for me?

Which brings me to this: What kind of music are you listening to while working from home? Sounds like an opportunity for one of those embedded advertorial articles.

Made.com, an online furniture retailer, commissioned a study that involved analyzing 2,000 “work from home” playlists on Spotify in an effort to find the artists who appeared the most. Here are the results.

1. Taylor Swift (appeared on 45 WFH playlists
2. Khruangbin (14)
3. Ariana Grande (13)
4. Harry Styles (12)
5. Sam Hunt (11)
6. SHINee (10)
7. Mr. Hong (10)
8. Johnnyswim (10)
9. Everlast (10)
10. Champion (10)

As for the most popular songs, it was a three-way tie between “Adore You,” “August” from Taylor Swift, and “Light On” by Maggie Rogers. The full list was very, very pop-heavy. And beats-per-minute were very important, too. Neuroscience says that musical tempos between 50 and 83 BPM helps increase concentration. Check out this list.

1. Harry Styles, “Adore You” (99 BPM)
2. Taylor Swift, “August” (90 BPM)
3. Maggie Rogers, “Lights On” (102 BPM)
4. Taylor Swift, “the 1” (140 BPM)
5. Billie Eilish, “everything I wanted” (120 BPM)

Slow down the music, people. You’ll be more productive.

Investigate the whole study here.