The Google Big Picture group (part of the Google Research group) have just released an awesome new page called Music Timeline. It uses aggregated data from Google Play Music to visualise the popularity of different music genres over the years since the 1950s.
You can intuitively drill into specific genres to see the sub-genres within, and even down to the individual albums. With search functionality included, it’s easy to find how popular an individual artist is and their discography that drives it.
The ease of use is another great feature of this data visualisation; allowing users of various skill levels to effortlessly explore the data. This is often something overlooked with data visualisations, making the insights inaccessible to the reader, but this is definitely not the case here.
For example, Engelbert Humperdinck peaked in popularity in the early 1970s with his greatest hits album, but is still on peoples music radar to the present day. As I’ve already analysed the most pressing question you had on this data, go and see what else you can find using Music Timeline.
