Recent Comet Landing Results in Huge Streaming Spike for Aerosmith and "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing"

If you enjoy stats and music, there's perhaps no better job to have than working for Echo Nest, the listening analysis company owned by Spotify, or Spotify's own Insights blog, which frequently offers interesting looks in the world of music streaming and the trends therein. A few weeks ago the site received a Twitter shout-out curious if the recent media attention given to the landing of a manmade device on Comet 67P resulted in higher listening rates for Aerosmith's "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing." The answer, it turns out, is an astounding "yes."

Numbers indicate that "Don't Want To Miss A Thing" listens spiked on November 13, the day after the landing was confirmed. Although Spotify didn't provide actual numbers, you can check out the graphic demonstrating how rapidly the song rose in popularity following the event.

"I Don't Want To Miss A Thing," in case you're confused about the space/Aerosmith connection, was the original single released with the 1998 film Armageddon, which featured a team of cosmonauts led by Bruce Willis landing on an asteroid and blowing it up in order to prevent it from colliding with Earth.

Spotify points out that there were other forces at work behind the peak on November 13. It was a Thursday and, sadly, "throwback Thursday" playlists are a huge thing on the streaming service. "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" is, despite being only 16 years old, the no. 47 most popular song in said playlists.

There's no doubt that the comet played a role in exaggerating the song's popularity however. Spotify went back and looked at other big media event surrounding chunks of space rock—The "close shave" asteroid of 2013 and the Valentine's Day asteroid from earlier in 2014—and sure enough, "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" peaks on the days following those reports.

Just an idea SyFy: A movie where Aerosmith summons swarms of meteors in a wacky plan to get royalty payments.

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