The data in this piece was collected through a Daily social media campaign and received 229 responses: 52 from freshmen, 87 from sophomores, 55 from juniors, 31 from seniors and four from fifth-years.
Walking around campus, it’s easy to spot the headphones that students won’t leave home without. Speakers are a fixture in many dorm rooms and apartments, and Instagram stories are decorated with students’ top artists during the holidays. But, despite a shared love of music, students enjoy a variety of tunes, albums and artists, according to The Daily’s data collection on students’ listening habits in December.
The age-old battle between Apple Music and Spotify has a clear winner on Northwestern’s campus across all years, our data found. Spotify is the most popular platform by far, followed by Apple Music, with a few students streaming on Amazon and YouTube Music.
As for genres, of which students could choose three favorites in the survey, indie or alternative music led the pack with 165 votes, followed by pop with 137.
These genres were reflected in students’ favorite artists. Taylor Swift received the most votes by far, coming in at 35 in this open-response question. The pop superstar was featured in each grade’s top three artists. Noah Kahan received 15 votes, making him the only other artist who received more than 10 votes overall. Kahan was also in the top three artists for all years.
Swift and Kahan led in favorite album rankings too, with 12 votes each for “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” and “Stick Season” respectively. However, Olivia Rodrigo’s “GUTS” beat both albums with 13 votes.
The class years differed slightly in their favorite albums. “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” and “Stick Season” were tied among freshmen, and “Stick Season” was a favorite among seniors. Hozier’s “Unreal Unearth” earned the most votes for sophomores, however, and “GUTS” for juniors.
Below are the four tiers of overall rankings: albums with more than 10 votes; albums with four to 10 votes; albums with two or three votes; and albums with one vote.
The student body has so many favorite songs that only 12 out of 196 songs received more than one vote, and only four received more than two. Rodrigo’s “ballad of a homeschooled girl” had three votes, Kahan’s “Northern Attitude (with Hozier)” received four, Swift’s “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)” received seven, and Troye Sivan’s “One of Your Girls” notched eight votes.
If you want to see all 196 songs students voted on, search the database below.
And if you ever find yourself wanting to hear all those headphones and speakers around all at once, just press play on this Spotify playlist of students’ favorite songs:
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