What makes Ireland's taste in music unique?
Spotify have created a
music map of the world, constructing playlists full of the songs that make each city unique.
"This is music that people in each city listen to quite a bit, which people in other cities also do not listen to very much. So it is, exactly, the music that makes them different from people everywhere else", the company said in their official release.
So far the streaming service have released lists of 'the most distinctively popular songs in
Dublin,
Cork and
Belfast relative to the rest of the world.' Each playlist is 100 tracks long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncu3gIPWzP0
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dublin-based mall-rockers The Coronas are an awful lot more popular in Cork and Dublin than they are in the rest of the world.
The same goes for Delorentos, Kodaline and The Republic of Loose.
The Frames, Bell X1 and Little Hours also feature heavily on the Dublin and Cork playlists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn2uZvbioSA
Turns out a lot of people really like radio-friendly rock music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMSKneELG-I
The Belfast playlist is a bit more eclectic, featuring a lot of country & western (Lisa McHugh), Irish folk music (Christy Moore, The Wolfe Tones) and a healthy helping of chart-pop (Pixie Lott, Nicole Scherzinger, Jason Derulo).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIh5dUOz824
Liverpool-born Irish country and western singer Nathan Carter's cover of 'Wagon Wheel' features on each of the playlists.
Meaning that one of the biggest differences between Ireland and the outside world right now is our nationwide adoration of this guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3h6Nr1Smw0
As far as cheesy, fiddle-heavy tracks go... it's an absolute banger.
It'll take you eighteen hours to listen to each of these playlists back-to-back, but there's no need to worry. If you're from Cork, Belfast or Dublin, you were probably already listening to these songs anyway.
