Spotify most streamed artists of 2023

Numbers reveal that Taylor Swift stole the show on Spotify in 2023, way ahead of main challengers Bad Bunny, The Weeknd and Drake, despite historical numbers from all of them.

The American superstar records 29.10 billion streams for the year, the highest tally ever recorded. In doing so, she tops Bad Bunny‘s record of 19.2 billion from 2022, but also his 3-years leading streak.

The present pages lists all artists who registered 5 billion streams or more during the year 2023. Unlike Spotify Wrapped data which stopped counts on November 28, our ranking is based on the entire year, from January 1 to December 31.

Just below 5 billion are significant artists like Rauw Alejandro, Juice WRLD, Dua Lipa, Kendrick Lamar, Imagine Dragons, Olivia Rodrigo and Bruno Mars, among many others. It goes on to show how difficult it is to get so high, although 28 artists managed to pass this mark.

Most streamed artists of 2023 on Spotify

28 – Miley Cyrus – 5.07 billion

Despite kicking 2023 as a 30 years old woman, it felt that the controversial singer was already past her peak. We have to remember that Miley Cyrus debuted as a 14 years old singer through her Hannah Montana character. Her top seller to date is Bangerz, which has been released a decade ago.

This context highlights how successful the year has been for the diva. Flowers was an out-of-the-blue smash, topping charts all around the world. It’s far and away the most streamed song from 2023, with over 1.67 billion streams for the year.

She closes 2023 with 5.07 billion streams, pushing her career total from 10.44 billion to 15.51 billion. This is a significant increase from her 2022 year that saw her register 1.96 billion streams.

27 – Harry Styles – 5.11 billion

Harry Styles climbs from 15.06 billion streams to 20.17 billion streams. While his 5.11 billion score is down from the 6.74 billion streams he claimed in 2022, his hold is impressive with a blank year in terms of releases. As It Was remained his top track. It’s the most streamed song from 2022, days away from becoming the 6th of all-time.

Up to 3 albums only, and a mere 36 distinct tracks recorded with no feature at all, his discography results are near perfect. The entirely of his catalog is over 150 million streams. Among the top 50 most streamed artists ever, where he ranks 34, he has far and away the smallest discography as nobody else is below 68 tracks.

26 – David Guetta – 5.17 billion

Now 56, David Guetta continues to score significant hits year after year. The most streamed EDM artist of 2023, 26th overall with 5.17 billion streams, the French DJ climbs to 25.73 billion career streams. He outdoes his previous year of 4.13 billion streams.

Unstoppable from mid-00s to mid-10s, his recent years weren’t as strong despite plenty of top 10 hits in countries like France and the UK still. 2022’s I’m Good (Blue) shoot him back to the top of charts all around the world. The track continued its great run well into 2023, being currently the 8th most streamed track issued last year.

25 – Shakira – 5.39 billion

Speaking about artists who have been around for very long, Shakira is more than 3 decades into her career. She continues to make headlines yet scoring a trio of chart topping Latin hits in 2023. Bzrp Music 53, TQG and Acróstico revealed how strong she still is. These songs help her to hit 5.39 billion streams for the year, up from 2.05 billion in 2022. Her career total is now 17.91 billion.

She is the 8th most streamed female artist in 2023, 2nd among Latin ones topped only by Karol G who shared the hit TQG with her. The Colombian star hasn’t released a proper studio album since 2017. If her 8 stand-alone releases from 2022/2023 were to be added into a new album, they would make it an instant hit as they combine for over 3.2 billion streams.

24 – Coldplay – 5.58 billion

While they arguably lost their crown as the biggest group in the world that they claimed in late 00s and early 10s, Coldplay enjoy an amazing catalog. They got 5.58 billion streams in 2023, mostly thanks to their top 12 songs, which get streamed more than 500,000 times per day each. That’s more than their 2022 tally of 4.86 billion.

Several of them went viral lately, with both Yellow (2000) and Viva La Vida (2008) charting inside the top 100 global chart, on top of the perennial holiday hit Christmas Lights. With 29.30 billion career streams, they are the 2nd most streamed band ever, only beaten by BTS.

23 – Post Malone – 5.83 billion

Post Malone has been so big at the end of the 2010s that his 5.83 billion streams in 2023 with 2 new albums over the last 18 months don’t feel that good. He just put the standard too high. His Rockstar, Sunflower or Circles days seem long gone, as none of his 5 singles for the year managed to reach the Hot 100 top 10.

Still, nearly 6 billion remains a large number. To put things into perspective, he was the most streamed of the world in 2019 with 6.5 billion streams over a 11-months period. This number comes mostly from his back catalog, as his 2023 LP Austin closed the year just over 1 billion. This made it the 44th top album from the year.

22 – Justin Bieber – 5.89 billion

Despite no lead release for the year, Justin Bieber is always around, this year at 22 with 5.89 billion streams. It’s the 3rd year in a row at 5 billion or more. His career total is now on 40.08 billion streams, making him the 7th top artist ever. He was best ranked on annual rankings in 2016, when he was runner up to Drake.

It’s worth noting that these numbers do not include features, where the Canadian singer excels at. He has over 12.4 billion featured streams in his career, a record among non-hip hop artists.

With a catalog made of so many hits, he is poised to get viral tracks every year too. Both Ghost and Stay are steady inside the global top 200 chart. They get more than a million streams per day, just like Beauty and a Beat in recent weeks.

21 – BTS – 5.93 billion

Mostly on a hiatus due to the military duties of their 7 members and their first solo releases too, South Korean stars BTS still recorded 5.93 billion streams by themselves for the year. They climb to 36.63 billion streams in total, a record among groups.

The year was marked by the member Jung Kook‘s Seven single, which became the fastest track ever to hit a billion streams, in 108 days.

While this looks like a very good news on surface, its run showed many traces of inorganic performances, undermining the perception of their success. The farming nature of a part of their streams is now hurting them too. As they move to play on repeat to songs of the solo members, the band went from averaging over 20 million streams per day at the start of 2023 to 13 million by the end of it.

20 – Rihanna – 5.95 billion

We enter the yearly top 20 with Barbadian legend Rihanna. Her Super Bowl performance in February put her back into the spotlight, sky rocketting her catalog. While her half time show brought her more than 30 million streams per day in the following week, this was only the visible part of the iceberg.

In fact, she was averaging barely 11 million streams previously at the start of the year. It was the same in 2022, when she amassed 3.90 billion streams. The big story from that Super Bowl exposure, is that 10 months later she is still enjoying 16 million streams day in day out.

As a result, her yearly total is more than 2 billion higher than last year at 5.95 billion, despite no new release. Her career total is now 28.00 billion, the 5th biggest total among female singers.

19 – Billie Eilish – 6.01 billion

The #2 artist from 2019 has never been able to make the top 5 again. If Billie Eilish isn’t the super dominant artist that she seemed likely to become back then, she established herself and her catalog as some of the most valuable items in the industry.

In 2023, she raised her career total to 31.17 billion streams, with 6.01 billion added for the year. With only one single released in the last 2 years – Barbie’s What Was I Made For? – the US singer songwriter is up from her 5.12 billion score last year. She has cracked 5 billion streams every year since 2019.

18 – Morgan Wallen – 6.14 billion

With Dangerous: The Double Album becoming the longest running Top 10 artist album ever in the US, it seemed impossible for Morgan Wallen to improve his results. Someway, he did just that.

One Thing at a Time led the US album chart for 16 weeks, while Last Night dominated the Hot 100 for just as long, longest run ever at the top for a non-collaboration single. The former is now over 5 million SPS units in the US, more than 2 million ahead of anyone else, despite the madness surrounding Taylor Swift lately.

Despite a success being mostly limited to North America, this insane success concluded on 6.14 billion streams on Spotify, effectively doubling his career total from 6.15 billion to 12.29 billion.

16 – Ariana Grande – 6.23 billion

Ariana Grande made headlines more often due to controversial news than with music releases in 2023, she still did wonders. After issuing 6 albums in 7 years, she has been on a break since 2020. Her only 2023 output has been a feature for The Weeknd‘s Die for You remix.

That was enough to push her yearly activity from 5.23 billion in 2022 to 6.23 billion in 2023. Just like Billie Eilish, she peaked in 2019 (3rd artist of the year), and just like her, she never dropped below 5 billion in a year since. She started years earlier though, which bring her up to an impressive total of 40.22 billion streams. She is the 6th most streamed artist ever, second among female stars.

15 – Arijit Singh – 6.35 billion

One of the most unexpected entries, India’s most loved voice Arijit Singh enters the list as the 16th most streamed artist in 2023 with 6.35 billion streams on Spotify, increasing his total to 13.08 billion.

This result is truly incredible because YouTube is way bigger than audio streaming platforms in India, and among these, Spotify faces stiff competition from local tech giants like JioSaavn and Gaana.

With the user base growing faster there than anywhere else in the world, his results are booming too. He started 2023 with daily averages around 10 million streams, and closed it with about 22 million per day. He is a serious contender for 2024’s top 10.

14 – Ed Sheeran – 6.35 billion

While 6.35 billion streams in a year is an enormous result in absolute terms, the year hasn’t been the one expected for UK top male singer Ed Sheeran. The most followed artist on Spotify, and one of the all-time big 5 along with Drake, Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and The Weeknd, he came nowhere near to them this year. And that’s with 2 new albums released!

The Perfect and Shape of You singer ranked as the #1 most streamed artist on Spotify in 2014, 2nd in 2015, 1st in 2017, 5th in 2018, 4th in 2019 and still landed 2021’s = into the top 5 albums two years in a row at 4. This album is now over 5.3 billion streams.

His 2023 outputs did way less. The first, – (subtract), stands at 620 million streams. The second, Autumn Variations, has been an absolute disaster, registering 116 million streams to date and is down to less than half a million per day. It’s a tiny fraction of his discography total of 46.27 billion streams. While he will need to turn things around in the future to avoid becoming a relic of the past, his catalog still brings him more than 15 million streams per day.

13 – Junior H – 6.38 billion

The Mexican music scene went from an interesting growing movement to unstoppable streaming juggernauts in no time. One of these examples is 23 years old Junior H, who catapults from a career total of 2.95 billion to 9.33 billion over the course of 2023.

He has been very busy since his 2019 debut, dropping 9 albums and 186 distinct tracks on Spotify. No less than 28 of them are past 100 million. Regional Mexican music is so big that none of his albums rank among the genre’s all-time top 10, with his collaborative effort Corridos Tumbados being the highest at 12. His last album Sad Boyz 4 Life II ranks 8th among most streamed Mexican albums from 2023.

12 – Metro Boomin – 6.53 billion

Metro Boomin is one of the most critically acclaimed producers right now, and he managed to convert it into stunning commercial results under his own name. He started by producing efforts by Drake, Future, Kanye West, 21 Savage, Gucci Mane or Big Sean, among many others.

Responsible for 3 collaborative albums, the last of which Savage Mode II topped US charts, but also 2 solo albums and the Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Soundtrack this year, he became inevitable.

While his 2018 debut was already a chart topper, late 2022 effort Heroes & Villains increased his status. The album is now closing in 4 billion streams, with Creepin’ single cracking the billion mark. At 6.53 billion streams for the year, he almost doubles his career total to 15.05 billion.

11 – Eminem – 6.86 billion

The only artist to debut more than 20 years ago inside the top 20, Eminem can’t miss. His catalog is so strong that he is a surefire top performer every year, even if he releases only a couple of verses as he did in 2023. The rap god hasn’t been among the top 5 artists of the year since he was runner up in 2014. He is never too far away from the top yet.

At 6.86 billion, his streams in 2023 were once again truly big, slightly up from his 6.27 billion plays in 2022. No less than 5 of his tracks feature frequently inside the global 200 chart, Without Me, Mockingbird, The Real Slim Shady, Godzilla and Lose Yourself.

Now 51, Eminem hasn’t released a new album in nearly 4 years. His large fan base eagerly awaits his comeback, that should see him enjoy significant success, once again. That would push him over 40 billion easily, as he is now on 39.54 billion.

9 – Kanye West – 6.94 billion (27.25 to 34.19)

If the cancel culture was a real thing, Kanye West would be gone from the Earth for many years. His music is just too powerful to ignore though as the US rapper amasses 6.94 billion streams in 2023.

While this year has been his first without a US Hot 100 entry since 2002, breaking a 20-years streak, his catalog continues to impress. Heartless (2008) is bigger than ever, currently sitting inside the global top 100 chart. 2007’s Flashing Lights and I Wonder, 2010’s Runaway and All Of The Lights, 2016’s Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1, they all managed to chart inside the top 200 during 2023.

The strenght of his legacy is nothing new, as he already scored 6.28 billion streams in 2022. At 46, he is one of the oldest artists among the all-time top 50, currently sitting at 11 with 34.19 billion streams.

It’s worth noting that Kanye West was absent from Spotify’s own top 10 for the year. It’s due to the error on Travis Scott previously mentioned, while he is ahead of Lana Del Rey by a mere 1,539,532 streams, topping her in the final day of the year.

8 – SZA – 7.10 billion

American R&B singer SZA smashed hard in the US with her late 2022 record SOS, which is now past 4 million units stateside. Singles Kill Bill and Snooze were big throughout 2023, providing her 7.10 billion streams for the year and an unexpected top 10 ranked globally.

Over a year after its release, SOS continues to amass 10 million streams per day. Now over 6.5 billion, it’s the 3rd top LP from 2022, only topped by blockbuster albums Midnights by Taylor Swift and Harry’s House by Harry Styles. It’s still on pace to challenge the latter in the long run. Her predecessor is big as well. Released in 2017, Ctrl still receives 3 million streams per day.

2023 was a record year for SZA, up 141% over her previous best of 2.94 billion streams recorded in 2022. Career-wise, she now sits on 15.84 billion.

6 – Feid – 7.90 billion

We previously mentioned that Karol G wasn’t the top performer born in the Colombian city of Medellín. This prize goes to reggaeton new star Feid. The 31 years old singer has been issuing music for nearly a decade, but he suddenly exploded in late 2022 with his album Feliz Cumpleaños Ferxxo Te Pirateamos el Álbum.

He had been buzzing since the start of the decade, hitting his first billion streams in February 2021, and up to almost 3 billion when the aforementioned album came out. It was an out-of-the-blue success that increased his league straight away. The album is now past 2.7 billion streams, days away from becoming the 2nd biggest Latin album from 2022, only behind Bad Bunny‘s Un Verano Sin Ti.

All of his 7 2020s albums, mixtapes or extended plays are over half a billion streams. His career total tripled for the year, up to 12.60 billion. This phenomenal success is only good for the 3rd spot among the top Latin artists, as this genre crushed charts during the entire year.

5 – Peso Pluma – 10.54 billion

Many artists topped 5 billion streams during the year while being in semi-retirement, with no album released in years. That’s because a healthy catalog is even more important than new hits. In fact, no new album from 2023 made it to 5 billion, not even with previously released singles included.

This goes on to show how utterly massive the rise to fame of Mexican singer Peso Pluma has been. Kicking the year with roughly 300 million career streams to date, he went on to record 10.54 billion streams for the year. It means that he averaged almost 10% of his former career total every day, all year long!

He first dented the US Hot Latin Songs on the chart dated April 30, 2022, charting at the last position, #50, with El Belicon. He ends 2023 with 40 charted songs, including 16 top 10s. The monster smash Ella Baila Sola is now over 1 billion streams, La Bebe will soon get there, while he owns 34 songs with 100 million streams or more.

His album GÉNESIS ended to culminate his unreal results. It’s up to almost 3.3 billion streams, being the 4th most streamed album released this year. No need to say that he destroyed Mexican Spotify charts, where he topped daily lists for 125 days, and amassed 673 days in the top 10.

He is one of the 5 artists to ever reach 10 billion streams in a year, the remaining 4 being the next 4 in this list.

4 – Drake – 14.03 billion

From 2015 to date, nobody has been as consistent as Drake. He ranked 8 times out of 9 inside Spotify’s annual top 5, leading the way 3 times in 2015, 2016, and 2018. He only missed that top 5 in 2019 due to a stacked list and a lack of releases from him.

2023 was a pivotal year for the Canadian hip hop superstar. 2022’s Honestly, Nevermind was his first flop album, only a few months after the arrival of Certified Lover Boy which failed to create the hype of its predecessors. Late last year, the collaboration album with 21 Savage Her Loss already started to turn things around, and his new For All the Dogs confirmed he wasn’t going anywhere yet.

The last two albums are up to 2.7 billion streams and 1.6 billion streams, respectively, with the latter still posting over 10 million a day. His extensive catalog, which contains a record breaking 178 lead tracks with over 100 million streams, making him virtually unstoppable.

Now up to an all-time record of 70.17 billion streams, he got 14.03 billion of them in 2023 alone, up from just below 10 billion last year, and just over 8 billion in 2021.

53.74 to 70.18 gained 2.3 from features moving to lead

3 – The Weeknd – 14.14 billion

Another Canadian superstar does wonders, as The Weeknd ties his career best ranking in 2023. The 3rd most streamed artist for the year, he does as well as in both 2015 and 2017. His new 2022 album was heavily anticipated after the historical success of Blinding Lights, the most streamed track ever on Spotify.

Ironically, Dawn FM hasn’t done as well as expected, although the long standing power of The Weeknd‘s albums brought it to 3.9 billion streams already. The real shocker instead came from his back catalog, especially 2016’s Starboy.

With 4.35 billion streams this year, it was the 4th most streamed album in 2023. This unbelievable comeback made it climb from outside of the top 10 to the 3rd spot among the most streamed albums ever. As it wasn’t enough, 2020’s After Hours added over 2.5 billion streams to its tally, the 13th top performer of the year overall.

These amazing statistics concluding on his top result streams-wise, with a stunning 14.14 billion plays for the year, bringing his career total to 51.68 billion.

2 – Bad Bunny – 16.37 billion

The history making run of Puerto Rican icon Bad Bunny came to an end in 2023, despite magnificent performances by himself. He led the streaming rankings for 3 years in a row, topping the all-time record for most streams in a year each time from 2020 to 2022. That latter year, he was the first ever to crack 10 billion, setting the bar at an insane 19.2 billion. Just when we though this record was out of touch for quite some time, it was destroyed straight away.

The reggaeton master closes 2023 with an additional 16.37 billion streams, adding up to 67.00 billion overall. This is less than 15% down from last year, despite the new album not doing as much as anticipated. Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va A Pasar Mañana is just below 2.5 billion, a solid number but very far away from the near 9.5 billion registered by Un Verano Sin Ti last year.

It goes on to show how difficult it is to reproduce monster numbers several times, as these artists’ golden catalogs reduces the available space for new releases. In fact, Un Verano Sin Ti itself has been listed by Spotify as the most streamed album once again this year.

In truth, it ended as 2023’s 2nd most streamed album with 4.82 billion plays. It was on top when Spotify published their annual breakdown on November 29, and remained on top until December 9. From December 10 though, Midnights by Taylor Swift had taken over the 1st spot.

1 – Taylor Swift – 29.10 billion

29.10 billion streams in a year. An average of 79.73 million streams per day, or 55,365 streams every minute, all year long. Spotify averaged 550 million users for the year, assuming 4 minutes per song, it means every user listened to Taylor Swift an average of 12,698 seconds in 2023. All these numbers are absolutely ridiculous.

Of course, this insane total, which see her climb to 68.04 billion career streams, within striking distance to Drake all-time record, comes with plenty of records. She more than doubles her near 14 billion streams from last year, at least moving ahead of Bad Bunny after being his runner up in both 2021 and 2022. It’s even more impressive when we know that Spotify is much less favorable to her streams, and that she also sells tons of pure copies of her albums.

Speaking about them, as previously mentioned, Midnights has been the most streamed album of the year at 4.86 billion streams, although the official rewards went to Un Verano Sin Ti. Lover is 6th at 3.60 billion, Folklore 11th at 2.80 billion, 1989 (original) 12th at 2.79 billion, and reputation is 17th at 2.44 billion. Newly released 1989 (Taylor’s Version) recorded 1.99 billion streams during the year too.

All these numbers put Taylor Swift in a league of her own among contemporary artists. On all-time lists, few are still resisting, as she is now looking to pass both Celine Dion, already a given for 2024, and then Madonna to become the best selling female artist ever.

Bonus: Most streamed albums

Streams listed in billions, rounded to the closest 10 million, from January 1 2023 to December 31 2023.

1. 4.86b – Midnights by Taylor Swift
2. 4.82b – Un Verano Sin Ti by Bad Bunny
3. 4.76b – SOS by SZA
4. 4.35b – Starboy by The Weeknd
5. 3.70b – Mañana Será Bonito by Karol G
6. 3.60b – Lover by Taylor Swift
7. 3.50b – One Thing at a Time by Morgan Wallen
8. 3.32b – Heroes & Villains by Metro Boomin
9. 3.25b – Génesis by Peso Pluma
10. 2.87b – Harry’s House by Harry Styles
11. 2.80b – Folklore by Taylor Swift
12. 2.79b – 1989 by Taylor Swift
13. 2.54b – After Hours by The Weeknd
14. 2.52b – Sour by Olivia Rodrigo
15. 2.49b – AM by Arctic Monkeys
16. 2.49b – Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va A Pasar Mañana by Bad Bunny
17. 2.44b – Reputation by Taylor Swift
18. 2.37b – Endless Summer Vacation by Miley Cyrus
19. 2.37b – Utopia by Travis Scott
20. 2.33b – El Comienzo by Grupo Frontera

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