Pandora Creates Charts For Rising Artists, Trendsetters, Top Hits

Pandora has launched three charts powered by Next Big Sound: Trendsetters, Predictions and Top Spins.

The Trendsetters Chart highlights the 20 up-and-coming artists with the most stations added over the past week. Artists graduate from the Trendsetters charts once they reach the “mainstream” stage of their career, as classified by their social and streaming trajectory.

The Predictions Chart predicts which artists are most likely to hit the Billboard 200 chart for the first time within a given year, and is driven by a proprietary algorithm built by the Next Big Sound data science team. The model is based on artists that have previously reached this milestone, and the social and streaming activity that preceded this success.

The Top Spins Chart features the 100 songs spun the most on Pandora over the past week, with spin counts ranging between 1.5 to 10 million plays per week. Songs sunset after 16 weeks unless they are on a “hot streak,” a term that refers to any track that has not yet reached its peak rank and spin count.

“Pandora has 100 million listeners visit every three months, and they are deeply engaged, listening 24 hours each month—over two and half times greater than any other service. This generates hundreds of thousands of data points every day that help us map and predict a song’s trajectory,” said Sara Clemens, Chief Operating Officer of Pandora. “Our charts are the visualization of this fan activity, and are an easy to use tool that gives artists and their teams vital information to help them make decisions and grow their careers.”