Bad Bunny is the world’s most streamed artist in 2020, with the Weeknd’s Blinding Lights the most streamed song.
Bad Bunny, AKA 26-year-old Benito Ocasio, earned more than 8.3bn streams of his material, including songs from February release YHLQMDLG, which was the year’s most streamed album. Last week he released new album El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo, whose lead single Dakiti is currently the most streamed song in the world.
The Puerto Rican rapper, singer and fashion icon jumped to the top from fifth place in the list last year, and has earned substantial critical acclaim as well as commercial success – he won the Latin Grammy for best reggaeton performance last month, and is nominated for two awards at the 2021 Grammys. But he hasn’t replicated his success in the Americas and elsewhere in the UK, where his albums have never appeared in the Top 100. He did score a Top 10 single in 2018, for his guest appearance on Cardi B’s I Like It.
Runners-up in the all-male most-streamed artists list are Drake, J Balvin, Juice WRLD and the Weeknd, whose album After Hours – controversially overlooked by the Grammys last week – was the second-most streamed. Other top album streams came from 2019’s most-streamed artist Post Malone, plus two British artists: Harry Styles and Dua Lipa.
Following the Weeknd in the most streamed songs list are Tones & I with Dance Monkey, Roddy Ricch with The Box, Saint Jhn with Roses (Imanbek remix), and Dua Lipa with Don’t Start Now.
The most streamed female artists are Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa and Halsey.
The most popular podcast on the streaming service was The Joe Rogan Podcast, marking a successful first year with Spotify for the US presenter, who exclusively joined the company in May. Terms of the deal were undisclosed, but Rogan is rumoured to now be the world’s highest-paid broadcaster.
Spotify’s audience continues to grow, from 124m paying subscribers at the start of the year to 144m now, against a total of 320m users overall.
But it remains under scrutiny for the amount of money it pays in royalties to the artists who underpin its business. Last week the UK government convened a select committee to examine the impact of streaming, featuring testimony from bands including Radiohead and Elbow.
Speaking to the Guardian yesterday in the wake of his select committee appearance, Elbow frontman Guy Garvey argued that Spotify’s premium subscription rate should increase. “£10 a month for access to all music is too little,” he said. “It’s not sustainable and the emergency is we’re losing artists because they’re demoralised and they can’t afford to live.”