Stereo width of 3,054 Billboard hits across 30 frequency bands. Every thin line is one song. #1 hits mix narrower than everything else — especially in the high end. Phase correlation backs it up with a separate story: they also fold down to mono cleaner.
Gold line = average #1 hit. White line = average of everything else. Shaded region = the gap between them. Hit songs pull narrower mostly in the high end — presence, brilliance, and air — where stereo width has the biggest perceptual impact on a mix.
Same per-band data, drawn symmetrically around a center axis. Low frequencies at the bottom, highs at the top — the width of the shape mimics how stereo actually sounds: tight in the bass, blooming open toward the top end.
Stereo width is the side-to-mid ratio: RMS(L − R) / RMS(L + R).
The chart is symmetric — each band's width value is shown mirrored on both sides for visual effect. Hover the chart for exact numbers at any frequency.
Each shape is the average stereo width of the mix across frequency, drawn symmetrically around a center axis. Narrow bands mean mono, wide bands mean more side content. Hit mixes pull tighter — especially in the highs, where stereo is most audible.
The primary claim: #1 hits mix narrower. Their average stereo width is 7% lower than the rest (0.269 vs 0.290), and the gap is biggest from 500 Hz to 2 kHz — the vocal's core — where #1s are about 12% narrower. Below 200 Hz and above 12 kHz the two groups are the same. This is the metric the spaghetti and shape charts visualize directly.
A related but separate finding: #1 hits also fold down to mono cleaner. Phase correlation is 0.814 vs 0.798 for everything else. Width tells you how wide a mix sounds. Phase correlation tells you whether that width survives mono playback. Both hold for hit songs, but they're answering different questions.
Narrow high-end mixes translate better to phones, earbuds, car speakers, and any mono playback. A mix that's wide in the presence and brilliance bands can feel smeared or distant on smaller systems. Keeping the top tight is the modern pop signature.
Stereo width per band = RMS(side) / RMS(mid) of the band-limited signal. 0 means pure mono, 1+ means more side content than mid. Phase correlation is the Pearson correlation of L and R across the entire 90-second segment. They're mathematically related but answer different questions — width is about what you hear, phase correlation is about what survives mono fold-down.
Want your next mix to translate like a #1? Vocal Magic bakes in the mono-compatible settings chart-toppers are using.
Width here is the side-to-mid ratio averaged across the 30 bands in the chart above, per song, then averaged per genre. 0 is mono. Phase correlation is the median across the genre, where 1.0 is mono-identical and 0 is fully decorrelated.
| Genre | Songs | Average width | Phase correlation | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hip-hop | 299 | 0.18 | 0.96 | Nearly mono. The beat and the vocal both sit in the center. |
| R&B | 409 | 0.23 | 0.89 | Narrow and mono-safe, with the width in the harmonies. |
| Country | 416 | 0.27 | 0.82 | On the average. Guitars carry the width. |
| Pop | 238 | 0.28 | 0.83 | Average width, slightly tighter phase than country. |
| Latin | 407 | 0.28 | 0.82 | Same shape as pop. |
| Alternative | 270 | 0.32 | 0.75 | Wide guitars, looser phase. |
| Electronic | 415 | 0.34 | 0.80 | Wide but phase-controlled: the width is designed, not accidental. |
| Rock | 311 | 0.35 | 0.73 | Double-tracked guitars hard left and right. |
| Christian / gospel | 245 | 0.36 | 0.69 | The widest and least mono-compatible genre in the set. |
| All hits | 3,054 | 0.29 | 0.80 | #1 hits: 0.27 and 0.81. |
The genre spread is twice the size of the #1 effect. If you want to know how wide your mix should be, the answer starts with what you are making: a rap record at rock width sounds wrong before anyone can say why.
| Decade | Songs | Average width | Phase correlation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990s | 819 | 0.26 | 0.84 |
| 2000s | 611 | 0.26 | 0.85 |
| 2010s | 907 | 0.32 | 0.79 |
| 2020s | 713 | 0.30 | 0.81 |
Mixes got about 20% wider in the 2010s and phase correlation dropped with them, then the 2020s pulled both back a little. The streaming era's shift to phone speakers and earbuds shows up right there: width that doesn't survive mono stopped being worth it.
Band by band, the #1 hits are about 12% narrower than other hits from 500 Hz to 2 kHz, 8 to 10% narrower from 2.5 to 10 kHz, and identical below 200 Hz and above 12 kHz. The bass is mono in every hit, so there is no room to be narrower there. The difference lives in the vocal's core. A #1 mix keeps the lead vocal and everything sharing its range locked to the center, and lets the width come from what sits above and around it.