There is no better measure of the world’s listening tastes than YouTube and according to the recent most viewed videos list, YouTube users have an insatiable need for Latin pop music.
The site reaches more than 1.9 billion people every month, more than any other music streaming service and most of those users are listening to Latin Pop. Spanish-language songs make up half of YouTube’s Top 10 for the year so far, led by Daddy Yankee’s ‘Con Calma’, with 1.15 billion views, reports BBC.
Ariana Grande’s ‘7 Rings’ is the only entry sung entirely in English, with K-pop and Bollywood completing the chart. Catalonian singer Rosalía, who came fifth in the BBC’s Sound of 2019 list, had the highest-viewed video by a female artist, with ‘Con Altura’, a reggaeton track that samples dialogue from a Dominican TV show. The song topped YouTube’s music chart for 12 weeks after its release in March, at one point presiding over a top 10 that was 80% Spanish.
South Korea is also an increasingly dominant voice in global pop, with girl group Blackpink racking up 468 million views for the arresting, colourful video for ‘Kill This Love’ [the title is the only English line in the song]. Their boyband counterpart, BTS, have the eighth most-watched video of the year for their track ‘Boy With Luv’.
Hindi singer Dhvani Bhanushali has also scored a major hit with the sweetly-sung ‘Vaaste Song’ which was the first Indian track to rack up 50 million views in seven days. The highest-charting British artist on YouTube’s chart is Sam Smith, whose duet with Normani, ‘Dancing With A Stranger’, is the eleventh most-watched music video of the year so far. Freshly-minted pop star Billie Eilish also made the top 20, with 351 million views for her single ‘Bad Guy’, putting her in 12th place.
Songs released before 2019 continue to record big numbers on YouTube, too, with Luis Fonsi’s ‘Despacito’ adding 456 million views since January, pushing its all-time total to 6.3 billion. The 2017 song is now the most-watched video on the site by a margin of more than 2 billion.