Spotify Charts launch to showcase top 50 songs each week, with play-counts now available for all songs

Spotify has launched its very own charts, as it looks to showcase the top 50 songs by region.

Spotify Charts constitute both the top 50 most listened to (the Spotify 50) and the top 50 most shared (the Social 50) songs on the music-streaming platform every week.

Charts can be configured by each of the 28 territories Spotify is available in, from Australia through to the US, and you can scroll back to see the previous 4 weeks’ charts too. They’re updated every Monday at noon EST.

You can also embed the charts on your own website, which is an obvious step for Spotify to take, as it looks to increase its online presence.

This mirrors the move it made last year when it launched embeddable play buttons, letting bloggers and other online publications build music directly into their site – the one obvious downside was, however, that it would only work if the end-user was signed-in to Spotify.

With the charts, however, these will show up regardless of whether the end-user is signed-in to Spotify. But to click through and listen to a track in the browser, they will be required to log-in to their account.

“What’s so powerful about the streaming charts is they let you hear what people are really listening to, right now, and not just what they’re buying,” explains Steve Savoca, Head of Content at Spotify.

Play counts for all

In related news, Spotify has also officially announced play counts for all tracks, a week after some users started seeing this feature appear in their account. So for any artist you visit, you’ll now see their total number of global plays since Spotify launched in October 2008.

This feature launches initially for the desktop client only, and if it’s not showing up yet in your account, it will do in the coming weeks.

“We want to be the best artist promotional platform in the world and showing play counts is a clear step in that direction,” adds Savoca. “Now artists can get immediate feedback from their fans on how their music is performing on Spotify.”

Spotify data was already being tapped for other charts, including the Billboard 100 in the US, but it makes sense that Spotify should have its own dedicated charts, with total number of streams visible to all.

As things stood, users could access a “Top Lists” section which surfaced the top-played tracks and albums, ranked from 1-100 by region. However, it also includes a filter for ‘everywhere’ – this is a key omission from the new Charts feature, and it would be good to have a global perspective as well as a local one.

Spotify is  now availabl.e in 28 territories, including the UK, US, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, and most of Europe. It now claims more than 24 million users, 6 million of whom are paying subscribers.