Francesco Yates, Sheepdogs, W. Darling make Spotify’s list of breakout Canadians

By The Canadian Press

TORONTO – Toronto pop singer Francesco Yates, Montreal electro-pop duo Milk & Bone and Saskatoon rockers the Sheepdogs are among the Canadian artists singled out by Spotify on a list of artists “poised to hit it big.”

Yukon Blonde of Kelowna, B.C., Montreal’s Coeur de Pirate and Toronto rapper Jazz Cartier also made the “Spotlight” list, which a spokesman for the streaming service said was derived from demographic breakdowns of its data.

Yates, for instance, was disproportionately popular among young women, while Cartier and Toronto jazz trio BadBadNotGood excelled with young males.

Spotify’s Nathan Wiszniak said the company also looked at viral charts, which track how often users share songs as opposed to simply streaming them.

That’s where Alessia Cara of Brampton, Ont., and pop singer/songwriter W. Darling excelled.

The list wasn’t only based on Canadian streaming data.

Wiszniak noted that BadBadNotGood received roughly 50 per cent of their overall listens from the U.S., while Vancouver’s Dear Rouge drew 40 per cent of their streams from south of the border.

Rounding out the list were: Coleman Hell, Keys N Krates, Once a Tree and Young Empires from Toronto; Vancouver rapper SonReal; and Cold Creek County from Brighton, Ont.

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