Can’t imagine a wedding without uh-oh-uh-oh-ing to “Crazy In Love” or wailing “Don’t Stop Believin’” on top of your lungs at the end of the night? Neither can the rest of the country, according to Spotify.
Spotify’s Insights blog provided data to The Washington Post on all the wedding playlists its users have made since it was launched in 2008.
From this huge amount of information, Spotify found that the top 10 wedding songs in the United States are, starting with the most popular: “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran, “Marry You” by Bruno Mars (we mean, duh), “All Of Me” by John Legend, “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson (featuring Bruno Mars), “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” by Whitney Houston, “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey, “Crazy In Love” by Beyoncé (featuring Jay-Z), “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri, “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz, and “Hey Ya!” by OutKast. Yep, we’ve been shaking it like Polaroid pictures since 2003.
We have to give a special shoutout to Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me),” which ranks as the number-five most popular song, but the number-one if you count only those released before this decade. I got married in August and at least 10 people requested we play it — the dance floor was mobbed when it came on. (I also got married in D.C., and The Post notes that it’s the most popular wedding song added to Spotify lists in the District.)
A lot of the regional differences in the data are pretty expected: New Jersey is really into Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” now and forever. California knows how to party to “California Love” by 2Pac. West Virginia DJ Doc Vincent told The Post that “99.9 percent” of the weddings he does end with John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” “It’s the unofficial theme song of West Virginia,” he said. “The same thing happens: Last song of the night, the bride and groom go to the middle, everyone gathers around them, and they sing ‘Country Roads.’”
Earlier this year, FiveThirtyEight investigated the least popular wedding songs — those that make the most peoples’ “do not play” lists — and there’s a lot of correlation between these and what we heard during our elementary-school dances. Sorry, “Chicken Dance,” “Macarena,” and “YMCA.”
By: Natalie Gontcharova