Exam season brings a hoard of familiar student experiences with it: forgotten deadlines, long library sessions, too much coffee… the list goes on. It can be hard to knuckle down and get your studying done with all the distractions available.
To combat this, student study trends have become an important method to help stay on track. Thousands of students follow study influencers to help them focus. Take Yehya Mougharbel, who has 3.9 million views and 475,000 followers on his TikTok account, where you can watch and study along with him to help focus and stop the temptation to scroll endlessly.
Others find plugging into crafted study playlists the best way to focus. But what should you listen to when you’re settling down to cram some revision or finally write that dissertation?
Thankfully we’ve done the research for you. We’ve mined the most popular study playlists on Spotify to produce the ultimate study concentration playlist for any assignment, guaranteed to get you in the mood for studying.
The best study music for concentration and focus
We gathered a list of more than 40 of the most popular study playlists on Spotify to find out which artists and songs appeared most frequently to create an ultimate top ten playlist:
Artist |
Plays |
|
Perfect |
Ed Sheeran |
2,049,158,459 |
good 4 u |
Olivia Rodrigo |
1,419,384,019 |
Youngblood |
5 Seconds of Summer |
1,361,109,619 |
Yellow |
Coldplay |
1,156, 064, 772 |
Passionfruit |
Drake |
1,076,669,689 |
Positions |
Ariana Grande |
959,209,098 |
Easy On Me |
Adele |
867,315,566 |
Night Changes |
One Direction |
638,355,561 |
Happier Than Ever |
Billie Eilish |
613,714,431 |
All Too Well (10 |Minute Version) |
Taylor Swift |
287,848,354 |
Blending chilled out love songs and motivational pop anthems, the playlist caters to all the highs and lows of any student study session.
It’s no surprise that familiar pop favourites are cropping up the most on students’ favourite study playlists. That being said, across the playlists we looked at, lofi study music and calm study music also proved very popular, topping the genre list along with pop:
Genre |
Number of tracks across playlists |
Chillhop/lo-fi beats |
702 |
Pop |
471 |
Meditation |
286 |
Dance Pop |
285 |
Boy Band |
159 |
Background Music |
128 |
Contemporary country |
113 |
Ambient |
107 |
British Soul |
64 |
Art Pop |
63 |
Some golden oldies also kept cropping up, giving an alternative flavour to the popular Gen Z hits, the most popular being:
Song |
Artist |
Plays |
Africa |
TOTO |
1,190,190,147 |
Sweet Child O’ Mine |
Guns N’ Roses |
1,164,011,396 |
Billie Jean |
Michael Jackson |
1,108,306,475 |
Take on Me |
a-ha |
1,101,914,334 |
Highway to Hell |
AC/DC |
969,431,704 |
Dreams |
Fleetwood Mac |
968,305,134 |
I Want It That Way |
Backstreet Boys |
941,120,163 |
Under the Bridge |
Red Hot Chilli Peppers |
932,438,540 |
Thunderstruck |
AC/DC |
919,900,063 |
Sweet Home Alabama |
Lynyrd Skynyrd |
916,809,517 |
Dark academia, light academia
Recent study trends on TikTok have jumped on various academia aesthetics, ranging from the gothic allure of ‘dark academia’ to the messy, punky ‘chaotic academia’ trend.
These student aesthetic obsessions have also passed into study playlists, with dark, light, chaotic and romantic academia significantly influencing Spotify study trends.
Dark academia is the most popular aesthetic trend on TikTok, with 240.1 million views on videos tagged #darkacademia. The most popular songs in dark academia playlists reflect the moody, atmospheric world of an old library:
Song |
Artist |
Plays |
Gymnopedie No. 1 |
Erik Satie |
83,491,710 |
Clair de lune |
Claude Debussy |
76,390,193 |
Nocturne No. 20 in C-Sharp Minor |
Frederic Chopin |
44,6-03,300 |
Swan Lake, Op.20, Act II: No. 10 |
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky |
61,684,580 |
The French Library |
Franz Gordon |
8,221,031 |
By contrast, light academia playlists favour a brighter, more playful variation on a similar theme, with the most popular songs being:
Song |
Artist |
Plays |
Laurie and Jo on the Hill |
Alexandre Desplat |
7,045,423 |
Clair de Lune |
Claude Debussy |
76,390,193 |
So This is Love |
Emile Pandolfi |
9,228,968 |
Dawn |
Jean-Yves Thibaudet |
57,505,383 |
Hedwig's Theme |
John Williams |
54,730,480 |
Other popular sub-genres of the academia aesthetic trend include #chaoticacademia with 809,000 TikTok views, and #romaticacademia with 225,000.
Does music help you study?
There’s little doubt that study playlists have become an essential resource for students worldwide, but do they work?
Several factors count in favour of using music as a study aid. Listening to your favourite music can help motivate you, lift your spirits and increase focus. It can also help get into a steady rhythm with work, perhaps explaining why the gentle and repetitive drums of lofi beats have become such a popular option for study playlists.
Music can also be a distraction for many students, particularly when it’s noisy and involves lots of lyrics. In moments of intense concentration, music can make you lose your train of thought; maybe a track suddenly changes, or shuffle takes you somewhere weird, and that’s all it takes to lose focus.
The reality is that whether music is helpful for studying is dependent on how you use it. If you listen to music that will draw your attention away from what you’re trying to focus on, it’s unlikely that listening to music will help. On the other hand, putting on some calm study music could clear your mind and help you focus without external distractions.
Find the perfect study setting today
Whether you’re more of a dark academia reviser or a chaotic crammer, finding the fitting room to study in is just as important as putting on the best study tunes. To find your student home today, browse Fresh’s student accommodation listings and get in contact to find out more.