I made this visualization as part of a project asking which of the UK’s ten largest Functional Urban Areas have the greatest global Spotify reach from selected bands relative to population.
**Data sources:**
frozen Spotify artist-page monthly-listener counts captured on 18 July 2026; 2024 Functional Urban Area populations from the OECD Data Explorer; and reviewed band-formation evidence from MusicBrainz, English Wikipedia and artist or music-reference sources.
**Tools:**
Python, pandas, Matplotlib and Jupyter.
Each area has the same catalogue size: ten selected bands. The circles show rank by raw monthly-listener total, the blue diamonds show the primary population-normalized rank, and the gold squares show the result after removing each area’s largest selected band.
Sheffield ranks first after population normalization and remains first when Arctic Monkeys are removed. Liverpool is second in the primary ranking but moves to third without The Beatles; Manchester moves from third to second without Oasis.
This is a comparison of a manually curated catalogue, not a census or a claim about historical importance or local listening. Spotify listeners are global, and one listener can appear in several bands’ totals.
I have nothing to add on the data front, but the post being about music and your URL confused me for a minute. Did you know there was an American punk band called Dan Padilla? Fun near coincidence!
Crazy that The Cure alone puts Crawley in the top 10 of total listeners
Led Zeppelin as a London band is contentious. As a Black Country fella I’m claiming Plant and Bonham as our own (but can see how you got there)
Can you take it beyond just bands?
Edit: It would be great to see everything but not sure that’s possible
Cool! Just FYI some dots are named after the whole county as opposed to a town, even if a town is also marked out. Not sure if it’s intentional so thought I’d mention it if not.
![[OC] UK music-city ranks by selected bands' Spotify reach: raw, population-normalized, and with each area's largest band removed](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/1788389421.png)
6 comments
I made this visualization as part of a project asking which of the UK’s ten largest Functional Urban Areas have the greatest global Spotify reach from selected bands relative to population.
**Data sources:**
frozen Spotify artist-page monthly-listener counts captured on 18 July 2026; 2024 Functional Urban Area populations from the OECD Data Explorer; and reviewed band-formation evidence from MusicBrainz, English Wikipedia and artist or music-reference sources.
**Tools:**
Python, pandas, Matplotlib and Jupyter.
Each area has the same catalogue size: ten selected bands. The circles show rank by raw monthly-listener total, the blue diamonds show the primary population-normalized rank, and the gold squares show the result after removing each area’s largest selected band.
Sheffield ranks first after population normalization and remains first when Arctic Monkeys are removed. Liverpool is second in the primary ranking but moves to third without The Beatles; Manchester moves from third to second without Oasis.
This is a comparison of a manually curated catalogue, not a census or a claim about historical importance or local listening. Spotify listeners are global, and one listener can appear in several bands’ totals.
Interactive explorer using a larger 1,000-band catalogue:
https://www.danielpradilla.info/uk-music-cities/
Code, data, methodology and notebooks:
https://github.com/danielpradilla/uk-music-cities
I have nothing to add on the data front, but the post being about music and your URL confused me for a minute. Did you know there was an American punk band called Dan Padilla? Fun near coincidence!
Crazy that The Cure alone puts Crawley in the top 10 of total listeners
Led Zeppelin as a London band is contentious. As a Black Country fella I’m claiming Plant and Bonham as our own (but can see how you got there)
Can you take it beyond just bands?
Edit: It would be great to see everything but not sure that’s possible
Cool! Just FYI some dots are named after the whole county as opposed to a town, even if a town is also marked out. Not sure if it’s intentional so thought I’d mention it if not.
Comments are closed.