Coronavirus: How music streaming services entertain those in isolation

From dedicated playlists to hand-washing graphics of your chosen song, Anghami and Deezer are doing their best to keep listeners fully entertained, whether they’re social distancing or in full lockdown.

Recent reports point to a drop in music streaming during the coronavirus pandemic, but perhaps that could change. According to a recent Quartz analysis, in Italy, music streaming of the 200 most popular songs in the country dropped by more than 20 per cent from the previous month — from 18.3 million in February down to 14.4 million since the beginning of the national quarantine on March 9.

In addition, America, the UK, Spain and France have all seen a drop in top 200 streams.

So, what are streaming services now introducing to keep their listeners company while they’re at home?

DEEZER

Deezer commissioned the British Academy of Sound Therapy to study 7,500 people across the world to determine the amount of music it takes to improve their mood, and found that just five minutes of joyful music could make people feel happier.

“What we’re seeing around the world is unprecedented. Everybody’s doing their part and it looks like we’re all going to be locked down for a while. We want to help music fans around the world weather the storm,” said Tarek Mounir, CEO, Deezer, MENAT.

Now, they’re introducing a new channel called ‘Stay at home’ that holds various playlists to keep listeners in a positive mindspace. These playlists, both in English and Arabic, are split into these three categories:

‘The great indoors’: Playlists to help your home routine, whether that’s working, studying, cooking, cleaning or excessing.

‘Your music therapy’: Feel-good playlists to help you relax, stay calm and keep positive.

‘Keep the kids upbeat’: Got to keep the young ones happy? These playlists are for you.

ANGHAMI

Anghami has launched three initiatives for their listeners who are hunkered down for the foreseeable future:

‘Anghami House Sessions’: Watch live-streamed home concerts on their Instagram page during the evenings; previous artists include Danny Aridi, Natasha and Faycal Mignon. Through Instagram’s chat features, fans can send in questions and requests in real-time.

’When at Home’: Dedicated playlists for various activities — whether you’re playing with your children, cooking up a storm, studying diligently, flexing your muscles or even studying. In addition, you can head to their podcasts section for all kinds of audio programs, from fiction to sports, business and entertainment.

‘Wash it while you sing it’: Anghami has launched a fun, interactive webpage where you can enter your favourite song into a search bar and it will produce a digital poster that breaks the song down into an 11-step hand-washing routine with the lyrics. Warning: this is pretty addictive.