Diving into the numbers behind Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, and more winners from this year’s Spotify Wrapped data.
Spotify’s end-of-year “Wrapped” feature has long been a fun, interactive way for music lovers to learn about themselves and share with others. In a lighthearted way, it’s become a cultural phenomenon that many look forward to as the year comes to an end.
In 2022, the music streaming giant unveiled the top Spotify listeners’ playlists — from top artists, songs, playlists, albums, podcasts, and trends. Spotify defined 2022 as a chance to redefine how people find joy, specifically after “a few years of uncertainty [which] has led each of us to create a new normal in our relationships to culture — and to each other.”
Let’s take a gander at Spotify’s top artists of the year.
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Bad Bunny: Everything
For the third consecutive year, the Puerto Rican hip-hip artist was the year’s most-streamed artist in the world on Spotify. It’s the first-ever three-peat in the category.
- “Un Verano Sin Ti” was the most-streamed album globally, breaking the all-time record for most first month streams for an album in Spotify history (2 billion).
- “Tití Me Preguntó” was the fifth-most streamed song globally and garnered four nominations at the Latin Grammys, Billboard Latin Music Awards, and MTV.
Beyond Spotify, 2022 was Bad Bunny’s year. The World’s Hottest Tour U.S. leg reportedly grossed $232.5 million across 21 shows and sold a total of 944,000 tickets. These numbers average a whopping $11.1 million a night and 45,000 tickets per show.
Taylor Swift: Midnights
Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” album didn’t disappoint in 2022. Despite releasing the album in late October, Swift was the second-most-streamed artist of the year globally.
- She finished as the most viral artist globally with the second-most streams — the top artist in Australia, the U.K., Ireland, Malaysia, the Philippines, New Zealand, Qatar, Slovenia, and Singapore.
- The top-10 of the Billboard albums chart features “Midnights” for four nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 — the equivalent of 177,000 album sales in the U.S. — 156 million streams and 57,000 copies sold.
In addition, the 32-year-old is set up to dominate 2023 — her “Eras” Tour sold-out so quickly that there might be a case for the Department of Justice to launch an antitrust probe into Ticketmaster.
Harry Styles: As It Was
Harry Styles has the honor of owning the most-streamed song around the globe with his hit “As It Was.” The song racked up 16,103,849 streams in its first 24 hours on Spotify, according to a press release from… Guinness World Records.
- “As It Was” was the quickest song ever to reach 600 million streams on Spotify.
- After Bad Bunny, “Harry’s House” was the second-most-streamed album globally.
- “Harry’s House” hit 3.8 billion Spotify streams (as of this writing).
It’s a good year to be Harry. He’s been nominated for six Grammys for “Harry’s House” and “As It Was,” while his “Love on Tour” grossed $95 million in 2021 alone.
Throwbacks
- Marshall Mathers LP has sold 25 million copies, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.
- Hounds of Love by Kate Bush saw a major uptick after it was featured in season 4 of Stranger Things.
- Parachutes by Coldplay is one of those timeless albums with “Yellow” generating 699 million streams on Spotify.
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