Spotify: Tunes with a side of weather

 Spotify has teamed up with weather information media firm AccuWeather in a move to give its users local playlists based on weather moods in their city.

The two firms have launched a new site, Climatune, to give music fans insights into how the weather around them affects the music they listen to everyday, providing the perfect musical score for any weather.

Together, the companies undertook a year-long study comparing 85 billion anonymised streams on Spotify in over 900 cities, analysing the impact weather has on the music people listen to.

The study found sunny days typically encouraged listening to happier and higher-energy music, while rainy days brought lower-energy, sadder-sounding music with more acoustic versus electronic sounds. Snowy days encouraged more instrumental music.

However, there were variations in weather/listening behaviour based on location. For example, in the United States:

• New York City and Philadelphia listeners are the most affected by bad weather; with residents of these cities substantially changing their listening when it rains.
• Chicagoans get excited by the rain and stream happier music.
• Miami and Seattle listeners buck the trend and listen to more energetic music on cloudy days.
• San Franciscans, on the other hand, seem saddest on cloudy days.
• Houston responds the most strongly to rain, with acoustic listening increasing by 121% when it rains.

 "There is a clear connection between what's in the skies and what's on users' play queues," says Spotify data researcher, Ian Anderson.

"For almost all of the major cities around the world that we studied, sunny days translate to higher streams of happier-sounding music," he says.

"Sunny weather has an even bigger impact in Europe."

"AccuWeather is pleased to partner with Spotify, combining the power of AccuWeather's comprehensive global weather data and music," adds Steven Smith, president of Digital Media at AccuWeather.

"Climatune is another innovative, engaging way that AccuWeather personalises the weather so people can improve their lives."

The Climatune site is available here.