The Indian Music Charts Podcast

Pre-pandemic, India’s handful of multi-genre music festivals focused on independent musicians in the traditional sense of the term. In the recent past, as the lines between indie and mainstream have blurred, there’s a lot more pop on festival bills, and it seems like programmers are closely watching the charts. On this week’s episode, we talk about why this is happening and the pros and cons of the trend.

While we constantly hear about the potential of Indian music to cross over into the rest of the world, what’s relatively less spoken about is how the rest of the world is increasingly trying to cross over into India. From foreign delegations scoping out the scene at conferences to international artists touring at a higher rate than ever before, we discuss where and how this is happening, and most importantly, why. As always, we look at key movements on the Spotify Weekly Top Songs India chart, this time for the survey dated February 5, 2025.

As is now tradition, our first episode of the New Year is about the trends we’re expecting to see over the next 12 months. We’re predicting that the supposedly distinct segments of Bollywood and independent music will integrate more than ever before, that intra-national collaborations will be more common than international crossovers, and that live tours will increasingly help drive chart success. As always, we look at key movements on the Spotify Weekly Top Songs India chart, this time for the survey published on January 9, 2025.

If it’s December, then there will be a special episode in which we look at the Top 50 songs of the year and discuss the genres, artists, languages and labels that dominated the music charts. We talk about how deep catalogue tracks had a stronger presence than ever before, why it was a relatively better year for female artists, and what the key differences were between Spotify and Apple Music’s list of their most-streamed tunes of 2025.

Singer-songwriter Talwiinder has been among the fastest-rising Punjabi pop artists for the past few years, but he’s never had a big solo chart hit – until now. Over the past few months, his social media following has exploded and his streams have risen higher than ever before, with his 2025 single ‘Haseen’ reaching a new peak of No.2. In this week’s episode, we discuss why this is happening, and the takeaways for other artists from how he has modelled and marketed his career. As always, we look at the key movements on the Spotify Weekly Top Songs India chart, this time for the survey dated November 14, 2025.
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If you like this show, you will also like the Evolution of the South Asian Music https://linktr.ee/SouthAsianMusicPod