Spotify launched ten years ago in October 2008 and is celebrating a Decade of Discovery with a Decade of Discovery playlist which features the most-streamed songs over the past 10 years, including favourites like Avicii’s Wake Me Up, Hozier’s Take Me To Church, Kendrick Lamar’s HUMBLE, Rihanna’s Work, Sia’s Chandelier, Major Lazer’s Lean On, the star-studded Despacito Remix, and more.
Over the past ten years Spotify has introduced discovery features such as the Discover Weekly and Release Radar playlists and now has 180 million monthly active listeners across 65 countries. Since its launch it has paid over 10 billion euros to rights holders. Music fans on Spotify can a music library of over 40 million songs and podcasts, and 3 billion+ user-created playlists. There are currently 2,000 genres on Spotify including such gems as Wonky (electronic music characterized by synths with unusual time signatures), Shimmer Pop (a Swedish cousin of indie pop and indietronica), and British Blues (the blues … with a British flavour).
Since Spotify’s launch, it has found that ‘listening diversity,’ or the number of artists the average user streams per month on Spotify, has risen over the past 10 years at an average of about 8% per year. In the past three years alone, listening diversity increased about 40% percent on the strength of new personalized and editorial playlists – meaning people are listening to an increased number of artists on a regular basis.
Spotify Statistics
Most-streamed song each year since Spotify launch
2008: The Killers – “Human”
2009: The Black Eyed Peas – “I Gotta Feeling”
2010: Eminem, Rihanna – “Love The Way You Lie”
2011: Don Omar, Lucenzo – “Danza Kuduro”
2012: Gotye, Kimbra – “Somebody That I Used To Know”
2013: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – “Can’t Hold Us” (feat. Ray Dalton)
2014: Pharrell Williams – “Happy” – from Despicable Me 2
2015: Major Lazer, MØ, DJ Snake – “Lean On”
2016: Drake – “One Dance”
2017: Ed Sheeran – “Shape of You”
Top-streamed artists of all time
1. Drake
2. Ed Sheeran
3. Eminem
4. The Weeknd
5. Rihanna
6. Kanye West
7. Coldplay
8. Justin Bieber
9. Calvin Harris
10. Ariana Grande
Most-streamed songs of all time
1. Ed Sheeran – “Shape Of You’”
2. Drake – “One Dance”
3. The Chainsmokers, Halsey – “Closer”
4. Post Malone – “rockstar” (feat. 21 Savage)
5. Ed Sheeran – “Thinking Out Loud”
6. Major Lazer, MØ, DJ Snake – “Lean On”
7. Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, Justin Bieber – “Despacito – Remix’”
8. Justin Bieber – “Love Yourself”
9. Justin Bieber – “Sorry”
10. The Chainsmokers – “Don’t Let Me Down”
First 10 artists to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify
1. Rihanna (2013)
2. David Guetta (2013)
3. Eminem (2013)
4. Kanye West (2014)
5. Avicii (2014)
6. Coldplay (2014)
7. JAY Z (2014)
8. Katy Perry (2014)
9. Drake (2014)
10. Pitbull (2014)
Most-streamed albums globally
1. Ed Sheeran – ÷
2. Justin Bieber – Purpose
3. Drake – Views
4. Ed Sheeran – x
5. Post Malone – beerbongs & bentleys
6. The Weeknd – Starboy
7. Drake – Scorpion
8. The Weeknd – Beauty Behind The Madness
9. Post Malone – Stoney
10. Kendrick Lamar – DAMN.
Most-streamed female artists globally
1. Rihanna
2. Ariana Grande
3. Sia
4. Beyoncé
5. Nicki Minaj
6. Adele
7. Taylor Swift
8. Selena Gomez
9. Katy Perry
10. Shakira
October 2008 Flashback – top global track, artist, and album
Most-streamed track: Coldplay – “Viva La Vida”
Most-streamed artist: Lady Gaga
Most-streamed album: Coldplay – Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
Recent articles of interest
Upload your music in Spotify for Artists beta
Spotify raises download limit
Spotify upgrades Premium deal for US students
Who is winning the Spotify v Apple Music wars?
Desert Island Discs and other BBC podcasts now on Spotify
