Music is a powerful tool. It conjures emotion, helps relieve stress, and improves our concentration. In fact, according to a recent study in the Harvard Business Review, music can be used to boost our productivity while we work.
As such, it’s not surprising to learn that most employees listen to music while they work, whether that’s music played in their workplace or on their own personal devices.
Almost 80% of employees say that music increases their productivity at work. With this in mind, TollFreeForwarding.com analyzed nearly 4,000 public work-related Spotify playlists and over a million songs to find the most popular tracks that people listen to while they work.
The song “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)” by American pop rock band Train is the most popular song in the workplace, according to this study.
The top songs for workplace productivity are as follows:
Top Ten Songs for Workplace Productivity
- Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me) – Train
- Dreams – Fleetwood Mac
- Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey
- Blinding Lights – The Weeknd
- Watermelon Sugar – Harry Styles
- As It Was – Harry Styles
- I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) – Whitney Houston
- Closer – The Chainsmokers
- Circles – Post Malone
- Flowers – Miley Cyrus
In addition to the top songs for productivity, TollFreeForwarding.com also looked at the most popular artists to listen to in the workplace. The study found that Harry Styles is the only artist to have two songs appear in the top ten, with “Watermelon Sugar” and “As It Was” coming in at five and six. However, Eminem had the most songs included on work playlists, with five of his tracks being heavily featured.
Top Ten Most Popular Artists for the Workplace
- Eminem – 5 songs
- Ed Sheeran – 4 songs
- Hans Zimmer – 4 songs
- Harry Styles – 4 songs
- Coldplay – 3 songs
- Post Malone – 3 songs
- Red Hot Chili Peppers – 3 songs
- AC/DC – 2 songs
- Billie Eilish – 2 songs
- Bruno Mars – 2 songs
Why Do Certain Songs Boost Productivity?
While we were keen to figure out what songs and artists people like to listen to while they work, we also wanted to learn more about what makes these songs so great for productivity in the workplace.
Tempo
The tempo of music can affect the mood of the listener. While downbeat and slow songs tend to make a person relax, upbeat tempos can be energy boosts.
Lyric Content
The lyrical content of a song can help to improve listeners’ moods and create a comforting ambiance in the workplace.
Repetitive Structures
There’s comfort in repetition, especially in music! This can aid concentration as the listeners’ mind doesn’t need to predict what comes next.
For more on the top songs for workplace productivity and why some songs are better for motivation than others, visit TollFree’s blog.
Methodology
We used the digital tool The Playlist Miner to analyze 3,960 public Spotify playlists that include the terms “work playlist,” “office,” “office playlist,” “work from home,” and “work focus.” This analyzed 1,057,908 songs to find the ones that appeared most frequently within these playlists. We combined the songs that appeared most across our search criteria to find the top 150 songs.
