Bathroom Beats
Taking a bath or shower is often the only time we have to ourselves in this busy modern world, making the bathroom our own little sanctuary where we can spend time however we choose, accompanied by our own personally curated soundtrack. Whether it's belting out the latest chart hits in the shower or relaxing to soothing piano ballads in the bath after a long day, the bathroom is the perfect place to kick back to your favourite tunes.
But which songs, artists, and genres are the most popular to play in the bathroom? We've scoured Spotify's bathroom-themed playlists to find out and help you put together the ultimate bathroom playlist.
The most popular songs
Spending time in the bathroom can often be improved by a great soundtrack. That's why we've uncovered the most popular songs people listen to whilst getting ready in the shower or unwinding in the bath.
Blinding Lights - The Weeknd
Taking the top spot as the most listened-to song appearing on bathroom playlists is The Weeknd's multi-award-winning Blinding Lights with 3.5 billion listens since its release in 2020. With its catchy synth hook and an uptempo rhythm, the synth-pop anthem is the perfect song to help energise you for the day ahead during your morning shower.
Shape of You - Ed Sheeran
Taking second place as one of the most popular bathroom songs is Ed Sheeran's Shape of You with 3.4 billion plays on Spotify. The lead single from his third studio album, Shape of You took the world by storm in 2017, reaching number one in 34 countries. The song is one of the most popular songs to appear on bathroom playlists thanks to its catchy lyrics and dancehall and R&B-inspired melody making it ideal for a morning shower sing-along.
Someone You Loved - Lewis Capaldi
Up next is Lewis Capaldi's Someone You Loved, reaching third place for the most popular song on bathroom-themed playlists. Capaldi's first number-one single, the song spent seven consecutive weeks at the top of the charts and was the UK's best-selling single of 2019. Those looking to run themselves a hot bath and relax after a long day typically find this song provides the perfect soundtrack to unwind!
The most popular artists
If you're looking for a more consistent soundtrack to your time in the bathroom than the variety offered by playlists, we've got you covered. Here are the most popular artists with the highest number of listens across bathroom-themed playlists.
Ed Sheeran
Plays: 14.6 billion
Ed Sheeran can be crowned the most popular artist to accompany us in the bathroom, clocking in a combined total of 14.6 billion plays for his most popular songs that appear on bathroom playlists. Like other artists on this list, Sheeran's output is incredibly varied from the soft-rock of Thinking out Loud to dance floor fillers like Bad Habits and Shape of You. So it's no surprise he takes the top spot!
The Weeknd
Plays: 12.9 billion
The Weeknd takes second place, with 12.9 billion plays for the nine most popular songs that appear on bathroom themed playlists, including the hits Blinding Lights, The Hills and Starboy. Like Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd constantly changes and innovates his sound, creating a diverse output to suit any mood, whether it's relaxing in the bath or getting motivated for the day during a morning shower.
Harry Styles
Plays: 9.3 billion
Taking third place is Harry Styles, racking up 9.3 billion plays for the eight songs that appear as some of the most popular tracks on bathroom playlists. With his catchy pop tracks featuring heavy doses of both rock and synth pop and lyrics on the universal topics of love, loss and introspection, Styles has achieved both commercial and critical success, so it's no surprise he's one of the most popular artists.
The most popular genres
Sometimes it's a certain sound you need when you're spending time in the bathroom. So we looked into the most popular music genres of the songs that appeared on our list to find out which ones are bathtime favourites.
Pop
213 songs in playlists
With catchy melodies perfect for singing along to in the shower, pop is the most popular genre on the list with artists The Weeknd and Ed Sheeran being the most popular pop artists on the list. More than half of the songs on the playlists we looked at are categorised as pop, or sub genres like electro-pop and folk-pop.
Rock
92 songs in playlists
Up next is rock, with just under a quarter of the tracks on the list falling into this genre. With face-melting guitar solos and pulse-raising rhythms, rock is one of the best genres to amp you up during a shower in the morning. Songs from big-name artists like Imagine Dragons, Hozier and Olivia Rodrigo are high up on the great list of songs featured in the playlists we looked at.
R&B
86 songs in playlists
Taking third place is R&B, with 86 of the 398 songs on our list under this genre. The genre grew out of the music created by black artists in the 1940s and has since evolved and adapted to suit audiences throughout the decades with its most contemporary iteration incorporating elements of hip-hop and EDM. Notable artists on the list of R&B artists include John Legend, Ariana Grande and James Arthur.
Methodology
We used Playlist Miner to find playlists on Spotify related to bathing and showering. Using this tool we found the 100 most popular songs for each keyword in the playlists found. The keywords used to find these songs were: "shower", "shower songs", "morning shower", "bath", "bath songs", "bathroom", "bathroom songs", "relax" and "unwind".
We then collected the total number of streams for each song according to Spotify. We found the most popular artists by combining the total number of listens for each artists' songs that appear on these playlists.
We found the most popular genres by looking at how many different songs under each genre re-occurred within the most popular songs on the playlists featuring the keywords we searched for.
All data was collected on 20/03/2022.