Music streaming service SoundCloud is used by some of the biggest acts in the world to share tracks. For many users, however, the site isn’t as accessible and easily navigable as the likes of Spotify or Apple Music.
Thankfully, the introduction of charts to the service makes it a lot easier to discover the most popular new music and audio files, including audiobooks and podcasts.
SoundCloud’s charts are split between music and spoken word files; the former is also further broken down by genre. At present, the “All music genres” top-50 chart is dominated by hip-hop and pop acts, with Kanye West at the top position. Additional music charts include, pop, rock, classical, techno, and world music, encompassing 30 genres in total.
The audio category also includes its own sub-genres, like the aforementioned audiobooks and podcasts, which are organized by subject matter such as news, business, technology, entertainment, learning, and many more.
Charts, which replaces the Explore feature on the home page, also come with some additional information for each track and audio file, including play counts for the week and all-time, respectively. Strangely, the top played track as of now – Kanye West’s No More Parties in L.A. – doesn’t state the amount of times it’s been played. The track at number two on the chart, Travis Scott’s Wonderful, has been played five million times this week alone, and 23.9 million times since it was uploaded.
Additionally, a “new and hot” category acts as a tool to discover what’s trending on the music streaming service.
The new charts feature should make it easier for new users to browse the site, and find and follow artists. If you still feel intimidated by SoundCloud’s desktop experience, a new third-party client, Soundnode, can also make the service easier to navigate.
Although SoundCloud shut its official app, Soundnode transforms the music streaming service into something more akin to Spotify. You can access Soundnode via your browser, relegating the need to download an app.
