Global music discoveries reveal cultural shifts during the war in Ukraine

Abstract

Collective engagement with culture including music and the arts can trace societal changes associated with acute disruptions, such as pandemics, political movements, and wars. Can the daily shared experiences of culture reveal deep and long lasting societal impacts of disturbances? We collected longitudinal data of 12.8 million music discoveries via Shazam across 1,423 cities and 53 countries, relating them to the onset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Among post-Soviet countries, results revealed cascades of societal disintegration that rapidly escalated during the invasion. Initially similar music discoveries across countries broke down into distinct clusters that persisted over months. Cultural shifts were asymmetric: Ukraine saw a stark rise in the discovery of local, patriotic music, while Russia experienced a moderate decrease in their local music. At the city-level, socio-cultural values predicted subnational changes in music discovery inflicted by the war, bringing to surface latent variations within Ukraine and Russia. Interestingly, in Belarus, despite their political alliance with Russia, discoveries of Russian music decreased while Ukrainian music increased, suggesting undercurrents and resistance. Our work provides insights into the interactions between culture and society, revealing the pathways through which societal disruptions imprint the evolution of culture.