About & methodology

How Swaraveena ranks songs

Swaraveena (സ്വരവീണ) is an Unofficial popularity index of Malayalam film songs. It ranks songs by public YouTube views on a fixed list of Malayalam film-music channels. It is not an industry chart. It does not count streams, sales or radio plays.

Song and film names and the grouping of videos into songs are compiled by Swaraveena, not provided by YouTube. View counts, video titles, channel names and thumbnails come from public YouTube data.

The three boards

Trending ranks songs by one plain number: YouTube view gain. That is how many views a song's videos added over a short window of days. The board shows the exact dates (IST) and the time the view counts were read. A window is never longer than 30 days. While history is short, the window is a few days; once a full week of history exists, it is 7 days. Until then, songs can have different windows. The board says so, and each song shows its own dates. Songs with the biggest gain come first. If two songs are level, the one with more total views comes first. While windows differ, songs measured over a longer window are listed above songs with a shorter one.

Recent films only. Only songs from films of a recent year or later are included.
A minimum gain. A song's view gain must be at least a minimum share of its total YouTube views. This keeps big old hits with a small daily rise from crowding out songs that are moving now. This rule only decides which songs can appear. It does not change the order. The minimum comes from each day's data, so it can change without a site update.
Provisional label. Until there is a full 7 days of view history, Trending uses the best shorter window and is marked Provisional. Once 7 days of history is ready, the label goes away. The board then moves to the 7-day window and its minimum on its own.
If fewer than 20 songs qualify, the board shows fewer rows. We don't pad the list.

Year to date hits

Songs whose YouTube video went up this calendar year (India Standard Time), ranked by one plain number: total YouTube views. This can include songs from last year's films, if their video was published this year. When a video's publish date is not known, the film's year is used instead.

✨ New Releases

This board lists Malayalam film songs first published on an allowlisted YouTube channel in the last 30 days (IST), newest first. The "On YouTube since" date is the earliest YouTube upload among a song's linked videos. It is not the film's or the song's official release date, and the song may have come out elsewhere earlier. When two songs went up at the same time, the one with more YouTube views comes first. Songs without a known YouTube publish date aren't listed. Each row also shows the song's total YouTube views across its linked videos. The board shows at most 20 songs and updates daily with the other boards.

Where the numbers come from

A fixed channel list. We follow an allowlist of film-only Malayalam film-music channels. Mappila, independent and album channels are not on it. So coverage is incomplete: a song that lives mostly on a channel outside the list will be missing or undercounted. Older classics are hit the hardest.
One song, several videos. A song can have more than one video, such as a lyric video and a video song. Each video counts toward one song only. A song's number is the Total YouTube views across N linked videos. Tap a song on a board to see each video with its own YouTube title, channel and view count.
Plain numbers only. Totals are YouTube view counts added together. A gain is the difference between two readings of the same count. Nothing else is mixed in: no radio, streaming or editorial input.
Updated daily. The boards refresh once a day. Every board shows when it was last updated, in IST (UTC+05:30). If the data is more than 48 hours old, the site tells you. We keep stored YouTube statistics for 30 days or less.

View counts and thumbnails come from public YouTube data. Videos and artwork belong to their respective owners.

What this is not

It is an Unofficial popularity index. Not affiliated with YouTube or any label. Neither YouTube nor any label endorses or sponsors it.
No audio is hosted or played here. Every song links out to its video on YouTube.
We rank songs, not channels or labels.

Feedback

Missing a song? Spotted a wrong match, or a film name that needs fixing? Email us at [email protected].