Drake was the world’s most streamed artist on Spotify this year, picking up over 1.8 billion streams from 46 million listeners.
The streaming service unveiled a year’s worth of stats this morning, revealing that Ed Sheeran was both the most streamed artist in the UK and, looking back on Spotify’s overall listening history, has also become the most streamed artist of all time, racking up more than 3 billion streams to date. All that while partying harder than DJ Khaled.
The top five most streamed artists of 2015 were all male, with The Weeknd, Maroon 5 (they still exist?!) and Kanye West slotting behind Drake and Ed. Rihanna topped the list of female artists, followed by Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj, Beyoncé and Ellie Goulding, with Taylor Swift being the obvious exception since removing her back catalogue from Spotify.
The most streamed track of the year was Major Lazer’s ‘Lean On’, followed by Omi’s remixed hit ‘Cheerleader’. The rest were rubbish are well so we won’t bother typing them out.
The UK’s results mirrored the global figures pretty closely, with Sam Smith and Sia sneaking into the top five artists.
Last month Spotify unveiled a new set of tools to help artists track their biggest fans, and it recently got into the radio game with its own original programming, In Residence.