October 2018 marks 10 years since Spotify officially launched its music streaming platform to fans.
To celebrate this milestone, Spotify is taking a decade-long look at some of the biggest discoveries in music, as told through the lens of Spotify, via artists and fan insights. From the most globally streamed artist of the decade, to the annual top 10 songs over the past 10 years, and the first artists to hit a billion streams it’s all available on Spotify.
Since October 2008, fans all over the world have enjoyed a decade of music discovery, finding new artists and tracks to fall in love with, and rediscovering old favourites. Playlists such as Discover Weekly and Release Radar make finding a new song or hearing a new band as easy as opening the Spotify app and pressing play.
Spotify now sits at 180-million monthly active listeners across 65 countries. These Spotify fans can enjoy a music library of over 40-million songs and podcasts, and over 3-billion-plus user-created playlists. As of August 31, 2018, Spotify has also paid over 10-billion euros to rights holders since launch.
To date, over 2 000 genres of music have been identified on Spotify, among them 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).
Spotify has also done an assessment of “listening diversity” – the number of artists the average user streams per month – which has risen on Spotify over the past 10 years, at an average of about 8% per year. In the past three years alone, listening diversity increased about 40% on the strength of new personalised and editorial playlists – meaning people are listening to an increased number of artists on a regular basis.
There is an official Decade of Discovery playlist, which features the most-streamed songs over the past decade on Spotify, 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”, “Despacito Remix” and more.
Most streamed on Spotify over the past decade
Most Globally Streamed Artist:
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 Globally Streamed Album
1. Ed Sheeran – ÷
2. Justin Bieber – Purpose
3. Drake – Views
4. Ed Sheeran – x
5. Post Malone – beerbongs & bentleys
6. The Weeknd – Starboy
7. Scorpion – Drake
8. The Weeknd – Beauty Behind The Madness
9. Post Malone – Stoney
10. Kendrick Lamar – DAMN.
Most Globally Streamed Female Artist
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
Top Globally Streamed Song by Year
• 2008: The Killers – Human
• 2009: The Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling
• 2010: Eminem, Rihanna – Love The Way You Lie
• 2011: Don Omar – Danza Kuduro
• 2012: Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know (feat. Kimbra)
• 2013: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Can’t Hold Us (feat. Ray Dalton)
• 2014: Pharrell Williams – Happy (From Despicable Me 2)
• 2015: Major Lazer – Lean On (feat. MØ & DJ Snake)
• 2016: Drake – One Dance
• 2017: Ed Sheeran – Shape of You
First 10 Artists to Reach 1 Billion Streams
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)