Singapore acts like Gentle Bones and The Sam Willows gaining Asian and global popularity on Spotify

Homegrown pop-rock band The Sam Willows at a press conference on Oct 22 2015. ST PHOTO: YEO KAI WEN

SINGAPORE - Singapore acts such as Gentle Bones and The Sam Willows are catching on with users of music streaming service Spotify.

Spotify told The Straits Times that popular band The Sam Willows was the first South-east Asian act to break into its global viral 50 chart. It is a playlist updated weekly with the most shared, trending tracks across the world.

The Sam Willows' music, including single For Love, was streamed by listeners from countries such as the US, UK, Mexico, Germany and Sweden. The top tracks and artists in Spotify's rankings though, are still international acts.

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Two tracks by homegrown singer-songwriter Gentle Bones (real name Joel Tan) were among the top five viral tracks among Spotify users in Singapore. These are songs with the most number of shares.

His 2013 single Until We Die was in fourth place, and Settle Down in fifth place.

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JJ Lin was among the top Asian artists streamed in Singapore. The Singaporean popstar was third, coming in after Taiwanese singer Jay Chou and South Korea's BigBang, in local popularity rankings released by the music service.

"We've definitely been seeing more Singaporean acts getting traction not only within Asia, but globally," added Spotify.

Among Spotify users in Singapore, Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud was the most streamed song here. Ellie Goulding's Love Me Like You Do was second and Maroon 5's Sugar third.

Globally, the most streamed song was Lean On (Major Lazer & DJ Snake featuring MO) - Spotify users listened to it over 540 million times.

Meanwhile, Drake is Spotify's most streamed artist of 2015 with 1.8 billion streams.

Some popular artists with recent releases are not available on the music service, including Adele and Taylor Swift.

Spotify has 75 million users and 20 million subscribers globally. User figures were not available for Singapore, the company said.

Watch Gentle Bones' performance for ST Sessions Season One

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ST Sessions is a new music video series produced by The Straits Times. Meet one-man show Gentle Bones from Singapore and enter a contest to win a B&O headphone. http://str.sg/4cY

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