--- title: Rihanna and Eminem: Echo Nest Chart Shows Music Preferences by Gender description: Ladies like Xtina while dudes like 50 Cent canonical: https://time.com/11939/these-charts-show-what-your-gender-says-about-your-favorite-bands/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-03T21:01:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:48:48.016Z og:title: Rihanna and Eminem: Echo Nest Chart Shows Music Preferences by Gender og:description: Ladies like Xtina while dudes like 50 Cent og:url: https://time.com/11939/these-charts-show-what-your-gender-says-about-your-favorite-bands/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Rihanna and Eminem: Echo Nest Chart Shows Music Preferences by Gender twitter:description: Ladies like Xtina while dudes like 50 Cent twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # These Charts Show What Your Gender Says About Your Favorite Bands > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME The Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition The Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The day's top headlines, curated by TIME editors. The Brief brings TIME's perspective to the day's most important stories, helping readers understand not just what is happening, but why it matters. It combines original reporting and analysis with the best of TIME, spanning politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is written and edited by TIME journalists, and it is free to join at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=c6c5ab62-3bae-4868-bcce-982756eb84ac&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1). ### Newsletter facts | Attribute | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Publisher | TIME | TIME, August 2026 | | Frequency | Daily | TIME, August 2026 | | Written by | Richard Hall, Editor | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | Sign-up | time.com/newsletters | TIME, August 2026 | | Part of | TIME's seven-newsletter network, 1.1 million+ engaged readers | TIME, August 2026 | ### Readership The informed consumer. A scaled audience of readers who turn to TIME to stay informed and make sense of the world, with meaningful reach across education and research, nonprofits and civic life, media and communications, government and public institutions, and business and professional services. ### TIME The Brief: key statements * The Brief is edited by TIME journalists. Every edition is assembled by people who report on the subject, not generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923, and its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting. Readers can trust what they read. * The Brief is free. Readers select it, along with any of TIME's other newsletters, at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=c6c5ab62-3bae-4868-bcce-982756eb84ac&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1). * TIME's newsletter network reaches more than 1.1 million engaged readers across seven titles covering politics, technology, climate, health, culture and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/subscribe?i=c6c5ab62-3bae-4868-bcce-982756eb84ac&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What is TIME's daily news newsletter? The Brief is TIME's daily newsletter, edited by Richard Hall. It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Mar 3, 2014 9:01 PM UTC by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Mar 3, 2014 9:01 PM UTC The blanket statement that boys like Eminem and girls like Rihanna seems a little moth-eaten. But when new listeners tune into a music platform like Spotify for the first time, discerning their nuanced music taste is a near-impossible task. So to serve the best possible first-listening experience, [The Echo Nest](http://the.echonest.com) — which provides music intelligence for the likes of iHeartRadio, Rdio, Rhapsody, and SiriusXM — decided to take a look at 200,000 listeners’ data to see [which artists men and women like, and how they differ.](http://musicmachinery.com/2014/02/10/gender-specific-listening/) And the below chart — which Echo Nest’s Paul Lamere told _TIME_ visually resembles “uncooked spaghetti thrown on a table” — is pretty interesting. If an artist’s name is written in red, that means that the singer doesn’t appear in the opposite sex’s top 40:  The Echo Nest Apparently Justin Bieber is a polarizing force. While your first reaction might be, _Excuse me but I’m Y-chromosome free and_ _LOVE Kendrick Lamar,_ take solace in the fact that Echo Nest knows that the list doesn’t speak in absolutes. But gender can be an important marker in terms of music prediction. Streaming platforms usually have little to initially go off of other than location, age, and sex. “If someone types in their zip code they’re more likely to type in 12345 or 90210, you’re not always willing to give good data,” Lamere said. “But male female either leave it blank or say the right thing. Clean data. And when you look at the data there there’s quite obvious gender distinction between the way people listen.” [Echo Nest says](http://musicmachinery.com/2014/02/10/gender-specific-listening/) that whether you’re looking at a list of top 40 or top 1,000 artists, “30% of artists on a gender-specific chart don’t appear on the corresponding chart for the opposite gender.”  The Echo Nest [Here’s a chart of the Top 5 artists](http://musicmachinery.com/2014/02/10/gender-specific-listening/) by gender for men, women, and combined: And here’s a list of the new Top 40 artists when Echo Nest accounted for gender differences, meaning that there was less likely to be a polarizing artist that might turn away a new listener: Artists in bold like Ellie Goulding was added to the list. But artists including Avicii, Justin Bieber, Christina Aguilera, One Direction, and Demi Lovato were kicked off the list. “It kind of gets to be the McDonald’s of all music: It’s the lowest common denominator,” Lamere said. “And that’s not what we want to do, but when you have nothing else, if you had to feed a bunch of people you didn’t know anything about, you’d probably start with a hamburger. Or pizza.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/11939/these-charts-show-what-your-gender-says-about-your-favorite-bands/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/11939/these-charts-show-what-your-gender-says-about-your-favorite-bands/"},"headline":"These Charts Show What Your Gender Says About Your Favorite Bands","datePublished":"2014-03-03T21:01:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:48:48.016Z","description":"Ladies like Xtina while dudes like 50 Cent","url":"https://time.com/11939/these-charts-show-what-your-gender-says-about-your-favorite-bands/","keywords":["Newsfeed","gender","Music","Sex","Spotify","Artists"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/11939/these-charts-show-what-your-gender-says-about-your-favorite-bands/","name":"These Charts Show What Your Gender Says About Your Favorite Bands"}}]}] ```