Spotify’s data gathering subsidiary The Echo Nest has surveyed Spotify users state-by-state for their favorite fourth of July songs—or as Echo puts it: tunes that “are played proportionally more on the Fourth of July than during the rest of the year.”
Here are some state’s Independence Day faves.
Click map for larger image.
For California, it’s ‘America F*ck Yeah’ from the 2004 comedy action film Team America: World Police. (If I am reading the map correctly, the song also appears to have tied in New Jersey with Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’ [no surprise there], but maybe it’s Washington, D.C.??).
David Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’ has won over Maryland.
Spotify users in South Dakota vote for ‘Rockin’ in the Free World,’ by Neil Young.
Spotify Oregonians favor ‘Everyday America’ by Sugarland.
Washington Staters choose ‘R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.’ by John Melloncamp.
Pennsylvanians pick ‘Star Spangled Banner’ by Whitney Houston
. . . and a plurality of states prefer ‘God Bless The USA’ by Lee Greenwood (20 by my count), at least Spotify-wise.
How did Echo Nest get this ranking? The survey group’s Paul Lamere explains:
“[We] collected the top most frequently appearing songs on the Fourth of July playlists and scored each song by calculating the ratio of the play counts that occurred on July 4, 2013 in the U.S. vs. play counts for the song during the following weeks. Songs that were played much more frequently on the Fourth than during the rest of July get a much higher score. Ranking songs by this ratio yields the list of distinctive Fourth of July Songs.”
