What Do We Listen to in the Bathroom?

We've had a penchant for singing in the shower for decades, but new research suggests we've started belting out ballads in the bath and on the toilet too.

J. Cole’s 'Middle Child' has been joining people in the shower. Sam Smith seems to be supplementing bathtimes, while Foster the People have been providing their 'Pumped Up Kicks' to toilet trips. At least that’s what our analysis of Spotify’s playlists suggests.

Research revealed over 1000 public playlists each for shower, bath, and toilet listening respectively. We even found playlists for shaving and steamier activities! So which artists rule the roost and which tracks are dominating our sing-song showers, relaxing baths, and laborious toilet trips? We examined the top 100 of each to find out.

The soundtrack to our showers

Billie Eilish is currently in at number one here, with her hit 'bad guy' the most popular power-shower ballad. The song made a splash in the UK charts too, peaking at number two and being streamed over 645 million times on Spotify. Impressively, American singer-songwriter Khalid can boast the most appearances in the shower top 100, with a whopping seven songs. The soulful R&B singer clearly has a penchant for steamy, shower-friendly numbers.

The top 10 shower tunes also come with an average UK chart position of #8, with only a handful of songs failing to break into the UK top 10. The average tempo? A cool 121 bpm. This makes shower playlist songs slightly more upbeat than the average pop song tempo of 116 bpm.

The bassline of our bathtubs

Taking a bath has traditionally been seen as a soothing, sensual activity; so it comes as no surprise that 'Senorita' by Shawn Mendes tops the list here. The song appears 112 times in the top 1000 bath playlists. It’s pint-sized powerhouse Ariana Grande with the most bathtime-suited songs. She can bathe in the glory of having 8 of her tracks in the top 100.

Bathtub listeners tend to be a bit more particular about the chart power of their hits, with the top 10 bath playlist songs all UK top 10 singles. The most unexpected stat though is that the average tempo of bath playlist songs stands at a pacey 124 bpm, even higher than that of those energising shower tunes. This seems to clash with the assumption that the bathtub is solely for unwinding, with many bathers clearly enjoying a lively, chart-topping scrub.

The timbre of our toilet trips

We were, frankly, astounded to find over a thousand public playlists specifically tailored for toilet trips. While newspapers were a common accompaniment in the past, it seems they've now been replaced by Spotify-ready gadgets. Do people really enjoy music in the lav? Or are we using music to make our visits more "discreet"? Regardless, we’re certain that Post Malone will be thrilled to find out that he is people’s choice for number one and number two (of the toilet top 10). The songs, heartfelt ballad 'Sunflower' and bitter breakup anthem 'Better Now' , reveal listeners’ needs for something sensitive when sitting on the porcelain throne.

Interestingly, the average UK chart position of the toilet top 10 is 26, with singles’ positions ranging wildly between positions 2 to 90. This leads us to believe that toilet listeners have more varied taste than the chart centric bunch who listen in the shower or the tub.

Influenced by all of the toilet-centric playlists we tried, we created this one to truly work wonders in the WC: