Most streamed artists on Spotify
Who are the most streamed artists of all-time on Spotify? Where does my favorite artist rank? Check this daily updated ranking and find out.
Most streamed artists on Spotify
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A few words about this ranking
Most listened to artists vs monthly listeners
A lot of publications, including popular ones like the Guinness World Records, confuse the artist with the most monthly listeners at a given point as the most streamed or popular one on Spotify.
The most streamed artists, as the general public understands it, reflects artists with the most total streams in the platform.
The confusion is due to the absence of this statistic among Spotify’s own indicators. They communicate on the artist with the most unique monthly listeners, and base their global ranking on it. Ironically, the monthly listeners statistics is largely flawed due to several technical reasons.
Internally, Spotify use a 0-to-100 popularity index based on streams, but only recent ones are considered.
It took until we created this page back in 2020 that the general public started to get a proper view of artists who really amassed the most streams on the platform. This list is still going, getting better and better, with a comprehensive top 1,000 updating every day.
A little bit of history
Not too long ago, in late 2015, EDM star Kygo made headlines by hitting 1 billion streams in a year from his debut, a record at the time. Everything got so much bigger, and now a trio of artists are racing to become the first ever to break 100 billion plays.
For very long, the overall leader was Drake. His streams history reveal that he was the first artist at 30 billion in April 2020, at 40 billion in August 2021, 50 billion by September 2022, 60 billion by June 2023, and 70 billion by December 2023.
These numbers refer to lead streams only, which is also how artists are ranked below. If featurings are considered, Drake passed 50 billion in January 2021 and 75 billion in February 2023.
While the Canadian hip-hop star felt alone in his world for quite some time, he lost his crown on February 23, 2024. The most streamed artist of all-time is now no other than Taylor Swift. She has been flying for years. The day her folklore came out in July 2020, she was up to 11.9 billion streams, a 20+ billion deficit over Drake at 32.1 billion.
In May 9, 2024, she became the first artist ever to hit 80 billion, and then cleared 90 billion by September 15, 2024. It’s hard to believe that she was still trailing behind US pop diva Ariana Grande among the most streamed female artists not too long ago.
The overall top 3 is completed by Bad Bunny who leads among Latin acts. Highlighting how strong these two artists are, Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny have been replacing each other as the top daily artist according to the popularity index since February 16, 2022, a stretch of over 900 days.
The most listened to group belongs to South Korean heroes BTS. Among legacy artists, rock legends Queen are kings.
If we look at averages rather than totals, Harry Styles is unbeatable. From his debut album to Harry’s House he issued only 36 distinct songs, all of which topped 100 million streams with ease, putting him in the all-time top 40.
Most played artists…. on all platforms?
Many relevant on-demand audio streaming platforms famously hide playcounts data, including Apple Music and Amazon Music.
Thanks to our extensive experience, that led us to thinly estimate Spotify’s market share in over 120 countries, and study every platform with more than 100,000 monthly active users, we’ve set up algorithms who precisely estimate comprehensive on-demand audio streams from all artists based on their personal profile and results.
A unique solution, our empirical approach led our scripts to get near perfect results through countless of cases when compared to certified amounts. Just hit the button below and enjoy this highly valuable data!
Frequently Asked Questions
This ranking presents the top Spotify artists based on streams from tracks available inside their personal page’s sections Albums, Singles and Compilations. They are combined together and defined as “Lead streams”.
The number of tracks available and over several milestones are based on lead songs only.
Streams achieved thanks to songs listed below the Appears on section on Spotify do not impact the overall ranking and these milestones statistics. They appear in the “Featured streams” column.
The most streamed artist of all-time is American icon Taylor Swift. She leads ahead of Canadian rapper Drake and Latin star Bad Bunny.
The most streamed solo female artist of all-time is Taylor Swift. Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish complete the podium, while Rihanna and Dua Lipa claim the fourth and fifth spot, respectively.
The most streamed group of all-time is BTS. South Korean best selling band leads over Coldplay and Imagine Dragons.
The most played rapper of all-time is the Canadian rapper Drake. The top 5 most listened to rappers is completed in order by Eminem, Kanye West, Travis Scott and Juice WRLD.
The most listened to rock artist of all-time is Queen. The top 5 is completed in order by Linkin Park, Arctic Monkeys, The Beatles, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The most streamed Asian artist of all-time is South Korean group BTS. A couple of Indian superstars complete the top 3, Arijit Singh and Pritam.
The most streamed Latin artist of all-time is Bad Bunny, ahead of J Balvin and Ozuna.
The most streamed album of all-time is Bad Bunny‘s Un Verano Sin Ti. Go through the top 5,000 right now.
The most streamed song (all versions) and the most streamed track (with no side version) are both Blinding Lights by The Weeknd, taking the lead over Shape of You by Ed Sheeran.
As the Spotify database is tricky, we can’t guarantee you there won’t be occasional data glitches, even if we developed several controls to grant data consistency. If an issue appears in spite of these controls, we perform manual fixes.
If the issue persists, reach out to us to tell us about it.
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