Drake and Ariana Grande conquered Spotify's 2018 streaming charts
With 8.2 billion streams in 2018, Drake is Spotify's top artist of all time.
After being Spotify's top-streamed artist in 2015 and 2016, Drake had an off-year in 2017, but he's back in force this year. He was the top-streamed artist with the top-streamed album (Scorpion) and song (God's Plan) in 2018. With 8.2 billion streams this year alone, Drake also became Spotify's most-played artist of all time. Rounding out the the top five were Post Malone, XXXTenacion, J Balvin and Ed Sheeran, who took the streaming crown in 2017.
Ariana Grande was Spotify's top-streamed female artist in 2018, thanks to a consistent output of albums (Sweetener) and hits, including her latest thank u, next, with 220 million streams. In total, Grande was streamed more than 3 billion times around the world in 2018. The top streamed female artists in 2018 were Grande, Dua Lipa, Cardi B, Taylor Swift and Camila Cabella.
Other interesting tidbits from Spotify's list includes the fact that while hip-hop was 2018's most popular genre, Latin music continued to grow rapidly. Artists J Balvin and Bad Bunny (both featured on Cardi B's I Like It), along with Ozuna, made the top-ten most streamed artists list. Last year, only one artist (Daddy Yankee) made the top ten.
The top-streamed tracks of the year were God's Plan by Drake, SAD! from XXXTENTACION, Post Malone's rockstar (feat. 21 Savage) and Psycho (feat. Ty Dolla $ign) and In My Feelings by Drake. The top albums were Scorpion (Drake), beerbongs & bentleys (Post Malone) ? (XXXTENTACION), Dua Lipa (Dua Lipa), ÷ (Ed Sheeran). Check out Spotify's blog post for the rest of the best.
