Epidemic Sound’s Sound of the Internet Report 2022 Reveals The Top Music Trends Among Content Creators

Stockholm, Sweden – Epidemic Sound, the market-leading platform for restriction-free music, today released the findings of its Sound of the Internet Report 2022. For its inaugural report, Epidemic Sound analyzed YouTube metadata for videos including soundtracks from the company’s catalog of 35,000+ music tracks to understand how global storytellers on YouTube used music in their videos this year. The report is part of Epidemic Sound’s goal to provide content creators with an ever-expanding catalog of world-class music and sound effects they need to elevate their content and better engage with their audiences.

Classical Music Strikes a Chord with Modern Creators

Choosing the right genre, tempo, instrument, and track length is crucial to making content that is engaging and memorable. According to Epidemic Sound’s study, the use of classical music has risen by over 90% worldwide on YouTube and by 64% on the Epidemic Sound platform, making it the fastest-growing genre used by content creators in 2022. Classical music also saw the most year-over-year growth across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and the U.S., indicating that it is well on its way to being a global creator-led movement.

This extends to Epidemic Sound’s platform, too, where classical was the fifth most downloaded genre in 2022 and saw the largest year-over-year increase (64%) when comparing 2021 to 2022. In 2022 alone, Epidemic Sound’s classical music titles were collectively streamed more than 200 million times across music streaming platforms. "Classical music is certainly timeless, but our research shows this genre is particularly relevant right now," said Epidemic Sound CEO Oscar Höglund. "Perhaps it’s that sense of comfort and escapism that people are looking for, but we do know that the genre has this unique ability to move people on an emotional level – and storytellers are catching on to that. I expect there will be an even larger movement towards storytellers using classical music in their content, which also creates an opportunity for classical music artists to continue to modernize the genre and appeal to new audiences."

The rising interest in classical music can be pinpointed to the genre's versatility. Classical music is capable of showcasing a dynamic range of emotions, lending itself to a wide range of interpretation and making it a highly-sought after choice for creators across all content categories. For example, Epidemic Sound’s data shows classical music is the fastest- growing music genre on YouTube in categories such as Comedy, Education, Entertainment, Gaming, How To & Style, News & Politics, and Science & Technology. “The right song is vital in setting the scene. Classical music provides a great range of emotions. It can be both melancholic and joyful depending on the footage, so the genre fits really well with the feeling I want to evoke in my videos,” said content creator Cecilia Blomdahl, whose cinematic YouTube videos document her daily life in Svalbard, the Northernmost town in the world. “I found myself choosing classical music a lot more this year than I did in 2021,” she added. “Trends move incredibly fast, and sometimes they only stay for as short as a week. But I foresee classical music being here to stay for a while.”

Electronic Music Is First-Choice with Content Creators

While classical music is quickly gaining popularity among storytellers on YouTube, mainstream genres like electronic continue to be top-of-mind for content creators.

According to Epidemic Sound’s findings, Swedish electronic house music artist Ooyy, whose electronic house bangers have soundtracked more than 485,000 YouTube videos in 2022, was the most popular artist of 2022. Meanwhile, artists Mai Ligne and Dream Cave rose through the ranks to clinch the second and third spots, with Dylan Stitts and Experia rounding out the top five.

Taking a look at how these trends break down regionally, the three most popular genres in the United States this year were Electronic, Hip-Hop/Rap and Pop. When it comes to top tracks, pop duo Flux Vortex’s dance floor anthem, ‘Not Afraid To Love,’ was the most popular song of 2022. Meanwhile, storytellers on YouTube across Latin America, the Middle East and Africa gravitated toward the suspenseful, rhythmic instrumental tracks of Eye of the Newscaster by Out to the World.

How Epidemic Sound Is Soundtracking the Internet

Music is one of the most important elements of video creation, and each year, millions of the internet’s storytellers, tastemakers, and influencers use Epidemic Sound tracks to take their content to the next level.

In 2022 alone, Epidemic Sound’s music was used in more than 14 million videos and heard 1.5 billion times per day on YouTube – that’s more than half a trillion times this year. According to this year’s report, Epidemic Sound’s 100 most popular tracks of 2022 racked up more than 20 billion video views in over 2.5 million creator-made YouTube videos this year. Beyond YouTube, Epidemic Sound tracks were heard 11.5 billion times a month on TikTok.

To see all the insights from Epidemic Sound’s Sound of the Internet Report 2022 visit www.epidemicsound.com/blog/sound-of-the-internet-2022/

Methodology

Epidemic Sound’s Sound of the Internet Report 2022 is based on an analysis of metadata and YouTube user generated content with music from Epidemic Sound’s catalog of 35,000+ tracks. The data analyzed was from YouTube video uploads between January 1, 2022 and October 31, 2022. To measure popularity, Epidemic Sound identified the artists, tracks, moods, songs and genres with the highest quantity of inclusions in YouTube videos during that time frame. To determine the most downloaded genres, Epidemic Sound looked at genres that had at least 50,000 downloads from the Epidemic Sound player. The fastest growing artists and genres were determined from the music with the largest year-over-year percentage increase in YouTube videos from January 1, 2022 to October 31, 2022 compared with the same period in 2021.