Kanye West: People really, really, really want to learn how to play one of Yeezy's biggest classics
It’s a no-brainer Kanye West has classics for days - maybe even weeks - in the world of music. But finding out his unforgettable ‘Runaway’ single is a Top 20 contender for songs Americans want to learn how to play the most in the piano world? Holy smokes.
Kanye West’s ‘Runaway’ is a Top 10 in the piano culture
While rap icon Dr. Dre’s ‘Still D.R.E.’ has the easy edge, Ye isn’t too far behind with his ‘Runaway’ being a legendary tune piano heads want to perfect.
‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ is the song Americans want to learn how to play the most, a new study reveals.
The study, conducted by ukulele enthusiasts at Ukulele World, analyzed over 1,000 songs based on searches for how to play them on guitar, piano, ukulele, violin and cello to discover which song is the most searched in the United States overall and for each instrument.
‘Over the Rainbow’, written by Harold Arlen and made famous by Judy Garland, comes top of the list with a total of 48,960.8 average monthly searches. The majority of the song’s searches are for how to play it on the ukulele, with 39,296 monthly searches, likely influenced by Hawaiian singer and songwriter Israel ‘IZ’ Kamakawiwoʻole, whose version is entitled "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and is played entirely on the instrument.
Second on the list is ‘Riptide’ by Vance Joy with 45,200.8 average monthly searches. Once again searches for how to play the song with the ukulele are the highest at 32,085.8, followed by the guitar at 11,519.2.
Traditional holiday song ‘Jingle Bells’ comes in third with 44,753.3 average monthly searches in the US. Americans are most likely to want to learn the piano version of the song, with 28,330 average monthly searches.
Further down on the list, ‘Hallelujah’ is fourth with a total of 32,199.2 average monthly searches. Originally by Leonard Cohen but reprised and popularized among younger generations by Jeff Buckley, the classic ballad is popular on all instruments, with the piano on top with 13,505.8 searches, followed by the guitar with 10,541.7 average searches and by the ukulele with 6,025.
The top five closes with Beethoven’s ‘Fur Elise’, among the most classic piano pieces, one that many are eager to learn despite the difficulty of some of its parts. The piece receives 30,470 average monthly searches in the US, mostly for how to play it on the piano.
In 13th place there's 'Runaway' by Kanye West, which got 18,835 average monthly searches, 18,315 of which are for piano, as the song is highly famous for the parts played with a piano.
A spokesperson for Ukulele World commented on the findings: “It's always inspiring to see people keen to learn how to play a song on an instrument and it’s fascinating to discover which songs they want to start with or are just curious to check out. Songs like ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Fur Elise’ are considered classics that it’s very common to start from, mostly for their popularity rather than their level of difficulty.
“It’s also very interesting to see a modern and fairly new song such as ‘Riptide’ by Vance Joy in the top three, this is probably because the song is almost entirely played on an ukulele, and for anyone keen to play the instrument one it must a great fun to learn”.
