We all have different night-time rituals: some can’t sleep without a hot mug of tea, others religiously read a chapter of a book every night. However, some of us choose to distract ourselves with the power of music.
Music is a powerful thing. It can stir up emotions, encourage us to dance and remind us of points in our lives. So, it’s no wonder why music is a common part of night-time routines.
Realising this, we at Mattressman wanted to figure out which songs are the most popular at bed time. If you’re looking at putting together the ultimate good night’s mixtape, keep reading to find out what we learned.
Some songs featured more often than others across all the playlists we analysed. In order of popularity, here are the top 10 bedtime songs according to Spotify playlists:
- HOME – BTS
- changes – XXXTENTACION
- IDK You Yet – Alexander 23
- Forever – ilyTOMMY
- All I Want – Olivia Rodrigo
- you were good to me – Jeremy Zucker
- Broken – Anson Seabra
- Heather – Conan Gray
- when the party’s over – Billie Eilish
- happier – Olivia Rodrigo
Alongside their meteoric rise of popularity in the music industry, BTS claimed the number one spot after their K-Pop anthem ‘HOME’ found an impressive 30 times across all the playlists we reviewed.
Hot on their heels is late rapper XXXTENTACION with his calming piano-driven track ‘changes’.
Both of which beat out the likes of Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish and Conan Gray.
The most popular albums on these playlists were:
- ? – XXXTENTACION
- SOUR – Olivia Rodrigo
- Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent – Lewis Capaldi
- WHEN WE FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? – Billie Eilish
- Fine Line – Harry Styles
- brent – Jeremy Zucker
- folklore (deluxe version) – Taylor Swift
- Back from the Edge – James Arthur
- 17 – XXXTENTACION
- Kid Krow – Conan Gray
XXXTENTACION makes another return to our list with songs from his album ‘?’ featured 26 times. Olivia Rodrigo is also here with her debut album ‘SOUR’ found 24 times, and 2019 sensation Lewis Capaldi claims the third spot with his debut album.
Ironically, Billie Eilish is also here, with her appropriately named album ‘WHEN WE FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?’ appearing 18 times.
And finally, in order of popularity, here are the top 10 musicians for bed time music.
- Billie Eilish
- BTS
- XXXTENTACION
- Taylor Swift
- Lewis Capaldi
- Olivia Rodrigo
- Tate McRae
- Adele
- Harry Styles
- James Arthur
Coming in joint first for the most featured artists is Billie Eilish and BTS, who were found 67 times each in these playlists. At no surprise, XXXTENTACION claims second with 51 appearances, followed by pop star Taylor Swift with 49.
If we take a closer look at this data, some interesting themes become quickly apparent:
If we look at the average beats per minute (BPM) for all of the most popular songs, it comes out to around 102.5. The slowest song on the list is ‘changes’ by XXXTENTACION at 65 bpm, and the fastest is ‘happier’ by Olivia Rodrigo at 169 bpm.
When we compare this to the average bpm of a typical pop song (116 bpm), we see these songs are around 12% slower on average.
We can delve even further into the speed of these songs by looking at time signatures. Half of the songs on this list are in a standard time signature of 4/4, three of them are in 3/4, with the remaining two being in 5/4 and 1/4.
4/4 and 3/4 are the most common time signatures in music, so it’s no surprise to see their dominance on this list. Anything other than this begins to feel irregular and verges more towards jazzy genres with seemingly nonsensical note placements and rhythms.
Changing the key or pitch of a song can drastically affect its feel and mood. Major keys are more commonly associated with happy emotions, whereas minor keys are typically the polar opposite.
Three of the songs in this list are in minor keys, with the remaining seven sitting in major territory. So, while these songs may be slower than the average, their musical notation is still on the positive side.
It is quite hard to quantify genres as this is subjective. However, after consulting various review websites, throughout the top 10 most popular songs, we see two listed in the alternative category, two ballads, four pop songs, one rap song and a classic soul song.
To gather this information, we reviewed 50 popular Spotify user playlists with the word ‘Sleep’, ‘sleepy’, or ‘sleeping’ in the title. After adding them all into one giant playlist, we then reviewed which songs, artists and albums appeared the most often.
If something feels missing from your bedtime routine, it could be time to try and mix in some sleep-promoting music. Just be sure to not include anything too up-tempo or energetic, as you’ll be more likely to dance than fall asleep.
For your convenience, we’ve created a playlist of all of these songs. Try it out for yourself and see if your sleep improves.
