Despite numerous complaints on social media about the lack of a classic summer hit, Spotify recently published playlists featuring the most listened to songs of summer 2025. As every year, each country has a different playlist, and when compared, they reveal some interesting data about Europeans’ musical tastes. At Finking, we focused on the language of the songs that dominated the charts in each country.
Let’s start with the Italian playlist, which consists of 78% songs in Italian, while the remaining 22% is divided between songs in Spanish and English. In France, 47% of the most listened to songs were in French, while 38% were in English. Interestingly, Germany listened to songs in German in only 16% of cases, with 70% of songs in English. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Spanish playlist, which is 100% Spanish songs. Looking at this data, we can see that the percentage of English songs increases, at the expense of songs in the native language, in countries where knowledge of English is more widespread. However, the Swedish playlist does not seem to fit this pattern, with 43% of songs in Swedish and 54% in English, despite being one of the European countries where most people speak English, clearly ahead of Germany, which nevertheless shows a significant preference for songs in English. This inconsistency could suggest that understanding a foreign language is not the only factor influencing musical choices, but these are probably due to a certain level of openness to other cultures, the number of contacts with foreign countries and the presence of foreign content in the media. However, greater openness does not necessarily mean abandoning one’s own culture: Sweden is a striking example of a balance between openness and cultural preservation.
