English, Korean, Spanish songs popular in Türkiye

ISTANBUL

An online language learning platform has conducted research on the foreign music listening trends in Türkiye by analyzing data from the online music platform Spotify.

According to the research, which examined 1,899 foreign songs according to language and genre, English songs are the most listened to after Turkish ones. They are followed by Korean and Spanish songs.

The Research on Foreign Music Listening Habits in Türkiye was conducted by eliminating the Turkish songs among more than 5,000 songs and using the remaining 1,899 songs. The research showed that nine out of 10 foreign songs listened to by Turkish listeners are in English.

Speaking about the research, Preply Europe Regional Manager Director Mustafa Ali Sivişoğlu said, “The music contents published by various platforms at the end of the year shed light on popular songs in Türkiye, but they do not offer a comprehensive insight into foreign-language songs. The research shows that 92 percent of the most listened-to songs in a foreign language are in English. Despite this dominance of English, it is not surprising that Korean takes second place. Popular Korean TV series and the K-pop movement, which has become a trend all over the world lately, make Korean a popular language through the most listened to K-pop groups with strong fan bases such as BTS.”

Sivişoğlu stated that among the nearly 2,000 foreign songs examined in the research, languages such as Spanish, French, Hindi, Albanian, Arabic and Dutch also entered the list.

“We believe that dances performed with different songs on short video platforms may be behind the popularity of these languages. The fact that songs in languages such as Albanian and Hindi attract attention from all over the world helps these songs to be among the most listened-to songs on other platforms. We see that Türkiye's most listened to foreign songs are produced in a total of 13 languages, which shows that Turkish listeners are willing to listen to universal notes even if they do not know their meaning,” he said.

Stating that they also studied the most popular foreign singers in Türkiye to enrich the research, Sivişoğlu said, “On the list of the most popular foreign songs, we listed the artists with the most songs. Among the singers who appear on these lists with more than 15 songs, The Weeknd was the winner of the list with 55 songs. The Weeknd was followed by Ariana Grande. South Korea's BTS became the third most popular foreign artist in Türkiye with 47 songs. When we look at worldwide data, we can say that Turkish listeners follow global trends closely with their interest in names such as The Weeknd and Ariana Grande.”