According to Genius data, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, BTS and Juice WRLD have been dominating 2022 in terms of lyrics search.
Who’s going to be the Queen & King of Pop in 2023?
Which music genres are on an uptrend? Which ones are losing ground?
That’s what we want to explore in this piece.
We’re going to use Google Trends, Genius, Spotify and a few other sources of data to make some predictions and share some good music.
Let’s get started!
Pop Music 📉
Pop Music as a search term is on a downtrend. It doesn’t mean that people aren’t listening to Pop Music anymore but, as a genre, it’s not something that listeners are actively looking for.
We get a similar downtrending curve for “Rock Music” as a search term.
The peak of web searches for the popular Italian rockband Måneskin (trending on our site with their uber-catchy single The Loneliest) dates back to their victory at the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 but they’re definitely one of the acts to watch in 2023.
Taylor Swift beats all records single after single, album after album and there’s no reason to think that she won’t be among the chart toppers in 2023.
She’s the current Queen Of Pop, whereas Ed Sheeran can be crowned as King of Pop on the other side of the Pond.
Lady Gaga is back at the top of the Shazam and Youtube charts with a strong remix by Dan Heale of her mega hit Bloody Mary (11M views in 12 days on Youtube!).
Escapism by Raye and 070 Shake is making a strong entry into the charts, in the top 3 of global Shazam requests. Definitely two acts to watch in 2023.
With 600+ million streams on Spotify by the end of 2022 and 90M+ views on Youtube after 2 months on the platform, Unholy by Sam Smith and Kim Petras will stick in our innocent ears for another few weeks in early 2023. Sam Smith’s album Gloria is out on January 27. Watch the very burlesque official video below.
After her mega hit Sweetest Pie with Megan Thee Stallion in early 2022, we can expect some new chart topping release(s) from the excellent diva Dua Lipa in 2023. What about a new hit in collaboration with Calvin Harris?
Hip Hop – Rap 📉
Compared to pop & rock, it’s pretty much the same trend for Hip Hop, also gradually losing steam in Google SERP.
Same downtrend for “rap” as a search term.
As displayed on the graph below, the absolute peak of Drake‘s fame dates back to 2018.
As far as Kanye West is concerned, he has enjoyed some renewed attention over the last 12 months but not really for musical reasons. His antisemitic statements largely explain his recent peaks on the Google Trends curve.
Kendrick Lamar is still at the best of his shape after the release of his latest single Count Me Out, trending on all platforms.
In France and Belgium, the new song by rapper Damso, Coeur de Pirate is definitely trending. It will stay among the chart toppers in early 2023.
K POP 📈
K Pop is rising – less explosively than in 2012 when it was emerging in the West – but still on a solid uptrend. Bands like Blackpink or BTS are definitely contributing to this trend.
👉 On the animation / movie front, “anime” follows a similar pattern. Asian pop culture has experienced a solid global growth over the last 10 years.
EDM 📉
As for most other music genres (except K Pop), listeners aren’t increasingly searching for EDM / Electronic Dance Music but some acts are killing it on the streaming front and, overall, the trend curve is more stable than the pop, rock, hip hop and rap ones (see above).
The King of EDM is currently David Guetta, the #1 French artist in 2022.
Here’s his recent smash hit feat. Bebe Rexha (whom we had already seen performing with Martin Garrix (In The Name Of Love)), I’m Good (Blue).
The track is based on the 1998 Eurodance Italian hit by Eifel 65, Blue (Da Ba Dee). As you can see on the curve below, Guetta is consistently trending in Google searches for most of his releases.
Her track with US country act Florida Georgia Line (Meant To Be), released in October 2017, has exceeded 1 billion views on Youtube.
