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Pop music reigns in Canada, new download data shows

Here are the top 10 most downloaded songs in Canada in the last several years, according to new data from McMaster University's Digital Music Lab.

Macklemore, Pink and Bruno Mars top the list

Adam Carter · CBC News ·
Macklemore scored the most downloaded song in Canada in the last several years with "Thrift Shop," new data out of McMaster University shows. (The Associated Press)

Canadian music fans have been downloading pop music in droves, new data from McMaster University's Digital Music Lab shows.

Researchers in the lab have spent months poring over data from more than a billion songs downloaded through the music service MixRadio in the last few years.

CBC News asked the lab for the top ten songs downloaded by Canadians from 2011 to 2014. Here's the list:

  1. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis — Thrift Shop
  2. P!NK — Just Give Me a Reason
  3. Bruno Mars — When I Was Your Man
  4. Imagine Dragons — Radioactive
  5. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis — Can't Hold Us (feat. Ray Dalton)
  6. Awolnation — Sail
  7. Jay-Z — Holy Grail
  8. The Lumineers — Ho Hey
  9. Robin Thicke — Blurred Lines
  10. Miley Cyrus — Wrecking Ball

That list shows that pop music still has a firm grasp on Canadians, with a couple of exceptions. Jay-Z is representing the hip-hop sphere, and Macklemore straddles the line between pop and hip-hop.

Imagine Dragons and The Lumineers have indie rock leanings, too – but they're still pop bands at heart.

For those of you looking at this list and thinking, "Where is _________?" (and yes, we know you mean Drake) remember that this research doesn't include streaming data and is from a cross section of several years.

It's also confined to the MixRadio database, so it doesn't include downloads from major services such as iTunes. But with that said, the project includes well over a billion downloads, which makes it an effective snapshot of a period of time in the music industry.

And for those of you wondering how Canadian artists are doing outside of Canada, here's a list of the ten most popular Canadian acts download in other countries from 2011 to 2014:

  1. Justin Bieber
  2. Avril Lavigne
  3. Bryan Adams  
  4. Celine Dion 
  5. Michael Buble
  6. Nickelback   
  7. Nelly Furtado
  8. Shania Twain 
  9. Neil Young   
  10. Rush

Apparently there's no keeping Bieber down.

adam.carter@cbc.ca

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