YouTube recently updated their YouTube Music Charts, which display data based on views for top artists, songs, and music videos in 44 countries and can be filtered by country or globally. YouTube Music Charts are part of an endeavor started in 2015, called YouTube for Artists, an artist-centric resource hub that provides news, education and insights for artists so that they can stay informed and gain the most value from their YouTube presence.
Music Charts originally rolled out in 2016 and the new updated versions aim to provide clear and concise charts for top artists, songs, and music videos. YouTube has also added a brand new trending section that is continuously updated to provide the most current snapshot of what YouTube’s 1.8 billion monthly global users are interacting with across the platform.
The Trending section is updated multiple times a day to provide real-time data. The Top songs,Top music videos, and Top artists sections are all updated weekly on Sunday at 12PM PST. While Trending provides an immediate snapshot of music videos with rising popularity, the top charts showcase the top-performing content on the platform based on overall performance of an artist, song, or music video, such as number of weeks on a specific chart, week-over-week percentage change, and weekly views.
The Top music videos chart gives a clear rundown of which official music video has the most views for the past week, and the Top songs section expands on this by including all views including user uploads and lyric videos that use the official version of the song. This chart can provide deeper insight into how users are listening to the music and what impact this has on the overall impression a song is making on the YouTube community.
If you’re interested in how these charts are calculated, YouTube has provided a quick overview and explanation here.
Similar functions and more specific data, such as plays within a city or artist views in different locations, are available on the Music Insights section of the YouTube for Artists page. The Music Insights page also provides play data for a larger selection of artists that do not make the Top artist, song, and music video sections as well as historic data for the artists that YouTube has added to this list, which is expanding to include more artists every day.
These charts provide valuable information and serve as a tool to grasp a better understanding of what is most popular and on the rise across the YouTube platform.
