Over the last few months, more and more cases of Covid-19 (a.k.a. the coronavirus) have been cropping up worldwide. At this point, the virus has been responsible for a few thousand deaths, and people are (rightfully) freaked out.
Most musicians wade into politics these days (even when we wish some of them wouldn’t, *cough* Morrissey) but it’s harder for big names to find studio and production time on short notice. That’s where streaming sites come in: smaller artists are perfectly capable of recording and editing songs on their own computers, then uploading them rapidly to places like YouTube, Apple Music, and Spotify. According to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, artists upload nearly 40,000 songs to Spotify each day—meaning roughly 14.6 million songs are added to the platform every year.
As reported by Quartz, as of today, there are already more than sixty-five songs on Spotify that include “coronavirus” in the title. Another seven include “covid19” or “covid-19.” These tunes are primarily low production tracks (such as one from a Singaporean metal group called Dozethrone) without a lot of plays. But maybe they’ll catch on. Insert virus pun here.
The most popular coronavirus song at the moment appears to be “La Cumbia Del Coronavirus” by Mister Cumbia, which almost 100,000 users have streamed. The song encourages listeners to wash their hands, the primary tip health officials have provided to halt the virus’ spread.
Edit 3/5: MGMT’s Andrew VanWynGarden jumped into the fray and wrote a song about coronavirus too. It’s called “Oh No Corona” and you can hear a teaser below.
