Last month witnessed the long-awaited return of BTS with the release of their new album ‘Arirang’. While the comeback effort broke streaming records globally, lead single “Swim”, somewhat surprisingly, did not follow earlier hits such as“Dynamite”, “Butter” and “Permission To Dance” to the No.1 spot in India. The album, meanwhile, debuted at No.2 on Spotify’s chart for the country. For any other international release, that would be a remarkable achievement but given BTS’s chart history, it feels like the LP has underperformed here. How far is this true? And what are the reasons for it? On this special episode, we’re joined by our friends, the hosts of the ‘K-Pop in India’ podcast, Shreya Khaladkar and Soham Sengupta, to help us answer these questions.

Pre-pandemic, India’s handful of multi-genre music festivals focused on independent musicians in the traditional sense of the term. In the recent past, as the lines between indie and mainstream have blurred, there’s a lot more pop on festival bills, and it seems like programmers are closely watching the charts. On this week’s episode, we talk about why this is happening and the pros and cons of the trend.

While we constantly hear about the potential of Indian music to cross over into the rest of the world, what’s relatively less spoken about is how the rest of the world is increasingly trying to cross over into India. From foreign delegations scoping out the scene at conferences to international artists touring at a higher rate than ever before, we discuss where and how this is happening, and most importantly, why. As always, we look at key movements on the Spotify Weekly Top Songs India chart, this time for the survey dated February 5, 2025.

As is now tradition, our first episode of the New Year is about the trends we’re expecting to see over the next 12 months. We’re predicting that the supposedly distinct segments of Bollywood and independent music will integrate more than ever before, that intra-national collaborations will be more common than international crossovers, and that live tours will increasingly help drive chart success. As always, we look at key movements on the Spotify Weekly Top Songs India chart, this time for the survey published on January 9, 2025.

If it’s December, then there will be a special episode in which we look at the Top 50 songs of the year and discuss the genres, artists, languages and labels that dominated the music charts. We talk about how deep catalogue tracks had a stronger presence than ever before, why it was a relatively better year for female artists, and what the key differences were between Spotify and Apple Music’s list of their most-streamed tunes of 2025.

Singer-songwriter Talwiinder has been among the fastest-rising Punjabi pop artists for the past few years, but he’s never had a big solo chart hit – until now. Over the past few months, his social media following has exploded and his streams have risen higher than ever before, with his 2025 single ‘Haseen’ reaching a new peak of No.2. In this week’s episode, we discuss why this is happening, and the takeaways for other artists from how he has modelled and marketed his career. As always, we look at the key movements on the Spotify Weekly Top Songs India chart, this time for the survey dated November 14, 2025.

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If you like this show, you will also like the Evolution of the South Asian Music https://linktr.ee/SouthAsianMusicPod

Over the last five years, there have been several instances of Indian independent artists scoring viral hits. However, rare are the cases in which those acts are able to convert that audience into ticket-buying fans. In this episode, we speak to a singer who has done just that, Paresh Pahuja whose 2022 single ‘Dooron Dooron’ went viral at the start of the year, and is now climbing the charts. He tells us how he went about it, and the advice he has for fellow artists who might find themselves in the same situation as him. As always, we look at the key movements on the Spotify Weekly Top Songs India chart, this time for the survey published on October 23, 2025.

Welcome to the Indian music charts podcast, a show where we breakdown the hits and allays the trends in the Indian music industry. Taylor Swift’s latest album ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ is out and it has….mixed reviews. Hardcore fans and some music publications claim she hits the marks with it while on the other hand short format platforms are filled with reels about how the album doesn’t cut it compared to previous works with some claiming ‘she is too happy’ to produce the kind of music she has historically been known for.

Whatever side of the argument you fall on, you can’t deny that Taylor Swift really knows how to capture the public's imagination. So we couldn’t think of a better time to revisit this episode from 2024 where we discuss how Taylor Swift managed to crack the Indian charts, a market that is notoriously domestic first. Enjoy the episode and we will be back very soon!

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PS: Excuse the nasal voice in the intro, I have the worst cold - Akhila