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Here is the up to date list of the most streamed studio albums on Spotify!
Since streaming took a monster share of the music industry, the most streamed albums are mechanically among the most successful albums of the year.
On the other hand, it’s difficult to complete our CSPC rankings as studying deeply discographies of major artists takes a lot of time. It’s even more complicated to get updated lists for new releases since the data evolves so fast.
We can’t keep our CSPC articles updated constantly, but we can set up scripts to scan the new releases and see how they perform in streaming. So that’s what we did!
Top Spotify albums on Spotify
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Most streamed albums records
While at first it felt that streaming was confirming the trend set by downloads to put the music industry focus back on singles rather than albums, history proved this perception is wrong.
The first ever LP to be reported by the streaming platform as the annual leader was the star studded Nothing but the Beat by David Guetta in 2012, with The Heist by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis topping the 2013 list. Both were heavily supported by big hits, but soon albums consumed in full exploded.
Random Access Memories by Daft Punk or Beyoncé's eponymous album were some early examples. We review annual leaders below.
- 2012: Nothing but the Beat by David Guetta
- 2013: The Heist by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
- 2014: X by Ed Sheeran
- 2015: Beauty Behind the Madness by The Weeknd
- 2016: Views by Drake
- 2017: Divide by Ed Sheeran
- 2018: Scorpion by Drake
- 2019: When We All Fall Asleep... by Billie Eilish
- 2020: YHLQMDLG by Bad Bunny
- 2021: Sour by Olivia Rodrigo
- 2022: Un Verano Sin Ti by Bad Bunny
- 2023: Un Verano Sin Ti by Bad Bunny
By 2016, X by Ed Sheeran was firmly the most streamed album of all-time. During the summer of 2017, Purpose by Justin Bieber moved to the top. Soon afterwards, Divide by Ed Sheeran which already shattered daily, weekly and yearly records, climbed to the all-time top, also claiming the biggest song ever with Shape of You.
Divide separated itself from the pack so much that for many years it felt unbeatable, becoming the first to reach every milestone from 6 billion to 13 billion. Ultimately, the shocker came from Puerto Rico's Bad Bunny, who recorded an insane run with 2022's Un Verano Sin Ti.
The Latin juggernaut scored 618,159,971 streams on its first week, beating the top debut held by Drake's Scorpion at that point, and never slowed down. After a mere 15 months, it caught Divide and then became the first album ever to reach 15 billion streams.
Frequently Asked Questions
Want to better understand how this top works? This FAQ will most likely address your doubts.
The global ranking (g#) is the comprehensive ranking for albums over the 500 million mark. Below this number, albums listed are top recent albums or top streamers from local markets, for them the global ranking is meaningless.
The column EAS stands for Equivalent Album Sales reflects the worth of these audio streams on par with album units. This data extrapolates remaining streaming platforms.
In case several versions of the same album exist, the one with the highest total of streams is displayed as long as it doesn't include bonus tracks from other albums.
Yes, their streams are included in full as the album total is effectively the sum of release to date streams of all its tracks.
The most played female album of all-time is the eponymous debut of Dua Lipa. Her own Future Nostalgia is runner up, while the 3rd spot belongs to Billie Eilish' WWAFAWDWG.
Midnights by Taylor Swift is the record holder, with 776,481,256 streams on its debut week. Head to the top 100 biggest debut albums of all-time right now.
The Eminem Show by Eminem is the most played album from the 2000s. The Fame Monster by Lady Gaga and Graduation by Kanye West complete the top 3.
Nevermind by Nirvana is the most listened to album of the 90s, and of all pre-2000 albums in general. 2001 by Dr. Dre and Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers occupy positions 2 and 3 for the decade.
Appetite For Destruction by the Guns N' Roses leads among the albums with the most streams from the 1980s. Thriller by Michael Jackson is runner up, followed by Back In Black by AC/DC.
Rumours by Fleetwood Mac is the most streamed 1970s album. It leads over A Night at the Opera by Queen and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.
The Beatles own the top 2 most streamed albums from the 60s with Abbey Road and The Beatles. Next up is Willy and the Poor Boys by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Simply use the "Year" filter and enter the first 3 digits representing the decade. For example, to display 1980s albums, type "198".
The most streamed artist of all-time is Drake, ahead of Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny. Head to the Top 1,000 right now.
The most streamed song (all versions) of all-time is Shape of You by Ed Sheeran. The most streamed track (with no side version) is Blinding Lights by The Weeknd.
We have more for you
Hi guys!
Just wondering, is the breakdown block in these lists really usefull, or does it overweight the pages unnecessarily?
Hi Edoardo98!
I'm still not too sure why, but some albums fail to save correctly some days, it mostly happens to Pop Smoke blockbuster and Em's Music to be Murdered By. Most of the time we notice it and re-save so that they are there, here as we were working on remaining years this was missed. In these cases the album reappear the following day. As you pointed it out and new Spotify daily streams aren't updated to today I've now added back yesterday's numbers to it.
You could just do the most streamed albums of all time list and it would be easier, even for you, and just write release year next to it
Hi mtkl!
The top all-time list is getting prepared, hopefully out today. It isn't a replacement to annual lists though, that would be a top 50/100 at most, while annual lists cover 500+ albums so far and more ultimately. Also it's better to compare albums to their contemporary, it gives a better perspective of how big they are for their era!
could you eventually add Love Yourself: Answer by BTS in 2018? They put it in the Compilation section a while ago for some reason but it's very much an Album, comparable to I guess deluxe editions? btw I love these yearly lists thank you so much!
Hi, could you add Charlotte Lawrence's 'Charlotte' and ZAYN's 'Nobody is Listening' in 2021?
Hi twt!
The issue with Answer is that it merges songs from 2 albums (on top of adding new ones). It includes 3 lead singles, so it's natural that it is considered a compilation really. The Weeknd's Trilogy for example is excluded for the same reason, so are reissues which include a second disc with hits from the previous era (quite a few albums have this situation).
Hi Logo!
Zayn has been added to the database, he will appear on tonight's update. For Charlotte though, the album remains too low so far, we only list contenders for the year end top 100 chart.
can you include DSAM expanded
https://open.spotify.com/album/5YCdlD3eREt72lTZxNL7id
Hey,
Since the All-Time list will be either:
50 albums - every album is after 2010
100 albums - ~97 albums after 2010, 3 albums before 2010.
The All Time list will be the same as a decade list of the 10s + 20s (as albums start racking numbers).
It would be cool if you added decade lists next to the years. These lists (same as the all time one) wouldn't need breakdowns by songs because you have them in the yearly ones. That would be a better way to compare albums that aren't from the same year, but are from the same era.
Regarding your question about breakdowns, to me they are not neccesarry, but people will be asking all the time as to what songs are counted/why isn't this song counted ...
If you asked this regarding pages being too big (aesthetically), you can simply put this whole breakdown section in a spolier, kinda like the FAQ is on the streaming tool.
But if you meant there is too much data to laod, then this wouldn't solve anything since the data would need to be loaded regardless if it is in a spoiler or not.
Hi MJD! That's great!
I've done this few months ago: https://datastudio.google.com/reporting/2d7dcc04-8294-4796-848e-94c401ccc050/page/C7fNB
Great to see something automatic and less manual 🙂
Hi Strongerq!
Very good remarks. The removal of breakdowns had more to do with time to print the data which slows down the page of the list is extended. Removing it for decades lists / all-time works pretty well.
I've now added both of them, decades lists and all-time list. The latter is a top 200 so that it features a decent share of older albums
Next I'll add more 60s-80s albums as there are not many over 1b, but for now I need some rest 🙂
Map of the Soul 7 also has songs from Map of the soul: persona. I don't see a reason to exclude Ly: answer, since It has many new songs. It has songs from previous albums because It's part of an era
Reissue : a complete album reissued with some new songs (or not)
Compilation : a package merging songs from several previously released albums with some new songs (or not)
7 and Answer are of completely different nature. At best the debatable part is the inclusion of Persona, we had it early in our files even before the release of 7 but in truth it shouldn't be there as soon as we consider 7 its reissue.
If you would like to be consistent and to see Answer included, then it would mean you consider it the reissue of the LY era (and not just of one of the two albums) and that both Her and Tear should be removed.
