India ranks 20th for global music influence, 6th for uniqueness in study spanning 30 nations

The Global Influential Music Index ranked US, UK, France, Germany & Canada as the top 5 musically influential countries worldwide. India was among the 3 Asian countries to feature in the list.

Representational image | Pixabay

New Delhi: A new global survey has ranked India 20th among countries that exert the most musical influence worldwide.

The Global Influential Music Index, conducted by Medimops, a European music CD and online records company, found that the US, UK, France, Germany and Canada were the top five countries that exerted the most musical influence worldwide. India, Japan and South Korea were the only Asian countries featured on the list. The study was conducted among 30 countries.

The study consisted of four categories — the most played acts originating from a country, global influence score based on how popular the music has become outside the origin country, the number of historically-renowned musicians and the uniqueness of music.

The top countries were decided based on a cumulative score combining musical influence, music infrastructure and genre output.

With a global score of 58.4, India ranked 20th, above countries like New Zealand, Greece, Mexico, etc. In the world music uniqueness score, India ranked 6th, indicating that it has significantly distinct folk and traditional music.

Ed Sheeran top played

The artistes whose music is streamed the most come from the US, followed by the UK, Canada, South Korea, France and Germany. British singer Ed Sheeran is the most played musician on streaming services globally, followed by Billie Eilish and Post Malone, the survey found.

The study was conducted by analysing music streaming data across multiple platforms — Spotify, YouTube and iTunes/Apple Music — to identify the most popular artistes from around the world and where they were born. This was then narrowed down to the top 30 countries worldwide. Each artist’s global influence was determined through a scoring system that measured their popularity outside their country, language, and cultural group of origin.

To understand how each county has supported the development of a local music ecosystem, the study also looked at the existing infrastructure — ranging from the number of music schools and major labels to the percentage of people working in the music industry. The US scored the highest in the Top Music Schools score (100). It also topped the chart in all categories, except in the world music uniqueness index — which was ruled by Brazil.