The Spotify Popularity Index is a hidden score from 0 to 100 that Spotify assigns to every artist and track on the platform.
How it works
- 0-100 Scale: A score of 0 means the track has no attention. Top global hits (like Taylor Swift or The Weeknd) sit near 100.
- Logarithmic: It is much harder to go from 70 to 80 than it is to go from 10 to 20.
- Recency Matters: The score is not just all-time streams. It weighs recent streams heavily. A new song with 10,000 streams today might have a higher index than an old song with 1,000,000 streams that no one plays anymore.
Why you should care
While you cannot see this score in the app (only via API or third-party tools), it acts as a gatekeeper. Many algorithmic playlists and search results sort content by this index. If your score is too low, you may be technically eligible for a "Mood" playlist but effectively invisible because 500 other tracks rank higher.
The only way to raise it is consistent, high-velocity streaming from real listeners.
