Spotify Wrapped crowns Taylor Swift biggest artist of 2024

Women dominated the year in music, Spotify has confirmed, as it unveils the most-streamed artists, songs and albums of the past 12 months.

As the streaming platform launched its annual Wrapped event, in which subscribers can see a personalised roundup of their listening habits, it also named the artists who racked up the biggest numbers.

Unsurprisingly, Taylor Swift claimed the title of both Global and UK top artist for the second year running, achieving more than 26.6 billion streams thanks to the release of her Grammy-nominated album, The Tortured Poets Department.

Released in April, the US pop star’s record-breaking 11th studio album featured several different editions, including an “anthology” of 31 tracks, most of which have surpassed 100 million streams each.

Swift has also made headlines throughout 2024 with her Eras tour, a career-spanning series of shows that has seen her perform to millions of fans around the world.

Meanwhile Sabrina Carpenter, who released her breakthrough sixth album Short ‘n Sweet this year, topped the global songs chart with her catchy single “Espresso”.

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All five of the biggest-streamed albums were by women, including Swift’s and Carpenter’s records at number one and three, respectively. Billie Eilish’s third album Hit Me Hard and Soft was the second biggest album of the year on Spotify, with Colombian singer Karol G’s Mañana Será Bonito fourth and Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine fifth.

In the UK, too, Swift was the most-streamed artist of the year. Canadian hip-hop star Drake easily nabbed the number two spot despite his controversial legal action against Spotify and Universal Music Group, in which he accuses UMG of campaigning to artificially inflate streams of his rival Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us”. UMG has branded the allegations “offensive and untrue”.

Following Swift and Drake in the top five were Kanye West, Billie Eilish and The Weeknd. However, when it came to the most popular songs in the UK, music fans evidently had a taste for male singer-songwriters: folk artist Noah Kahan triumphed at number one with his breakthrough single “Stick Season”, joined by Benson Boon’s “Beautiful Things at number three, Hozier’s “Too Sweet” at number four and Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control”, with Carpenter as the only woman in the top five thanks to “Espresso”.

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When it came to podcasts, the controversial Joe Rogan Experience – which in 2022 prompted Neil Young to quit the streaming service as he accused Rogan of spreading disinformation about the Covid vaccine – took the number one spot on the global chart for the fifth consecutive year. Rogan’s podcast was followed by Call Her Daddy at number two, Huberman Lab at number three, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von at number four, and The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett at number five.

Spotify has also begun collating data for the biggest authors and audiobooks on the platform, along with its most-streamed podcasts. This year, A Court of Thorns and Roses fantasy author Sara J Maas topped the list, followed by Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien and horror master Stephen King.

UK Most-Streamed Artists

UK Most-Streamed Songs

UK Most-Streamed Albums

UK Top Podcasts

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UK Top Audiobooks

Spotify’s top 10 global artists of 2024

Most-Streamed Artists Globally

Most-Streamed Songs Globally

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Most-Streamed Albums Globally

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Spotify users can now access their personalised 2024 Wrapped Experience via the Spotify mobile app (iOS and Android), provided it has been updated to the latest version. New features include the “Longest Listening Streak”, where fans can see the artist they enjoyed for the longest period, as well as learning if they landed in the coveted “one per cent” of an artist or band’s top listeners.