Here's what Spotify's 500 million+ users listened to in 2023
In 2023, a global music atmosphere gave rise to powerful genres, with Afrobeats (originally from West Africa, particularly Nigeria and Ghana) becoming one of the fastest-growing genres globally attracting new audiences in Mexico and India.
The Afrobeats genre has grown 550% in music streams globally since 2017 and was played for more than 200 million hours, with over 7.1 billion streams on Spotify in 2023. Interestingly, Nigerian music star Rema’s Calm Down became the first Afrobeats artist-led track to hit a billion streams on Spotify, crowing the remix with Selena Gomez as the 8th most streamed song globally on the platform.
Emmanuel Oyedeji
Moving away from African music, the year 2023 also marked a significant surge in Latin America. Colombia emerged as the fifth-largest consumer of Mexican music in 2023, showcasing an 85% increase in its consumption over the year.
In Asia, the consumption of Indian classical instrumental music continued to grow on the music platform. For instance, India’s classical music consumption grew by close to 500% on Spotify in the last 24 months, with over 45% of Indian classical music listeners under the age of 25.
But which artists and songs thrilled fans globally in 2023?
With more than 26.1 billion music streams globally on Spotify in 2023, American female pop music star, Taylor Swift emerged as the year's top artist. Taking second place was reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny, and rounding up the top five were The Weeknd, Drake, and Peso Pluma.
For the top song of the year, Miley Cyrus’s record-breaking Flowers had incredible momentum from the day of its debut through the summer months and now counts more than 1.6 billion streams globally.
In the second and third spots are Kill Bill by SZA and As It Was by Harry Styles. The fourth and fifth spots come from Jung Kook with Seven featuring Latto, and Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma with Ella Baila Sola.
Each year, Spotify's Wrapped campaign reflects music trends, showcasing how the music streaming platform's over 574 million users around the world listen to music and podcasts.
Source: [Spotify: For the Record]
