It was all about Drake and Rihanna on Spotify for 2016.
The music streaming service revealed its most popular songs, artists, albums, and trends on Wednesday.
Drake was the world’s most-streamed artist for the second straight year with 4.7 billion streams, which was up from 1.8 billion streams last year. Rihanna — who dated Drake this year — was the most-streamed female artist with more than 2.5 billion streams in 2016.
Drake also had the most-streamed song, One Dance, which garnered nearly 970 million streams, as well as the top-streamed album with Views. BBC pegged Drake’s royalties from One Dance alone at nearly $5 million.
Drake has more than 8.7 billion total streams on Spotify, the most of any artist. He also happens to be a big promoter of Spotify rival Apple Music; Drake introduced Apple Music at an Apple press event last year. He also released his album Views exclusively on Apple Music for nearly two weeks in May before releasing it on Spotify.
Here’s a new ad featuring Drake himself for Apple’s streaming service that just posted this month:
Spotify has 40 million paying subscribers, up from 30 million in March; Apple Music has 17 million.
Here are some more of the top artists and songs on Spotify for 2016. Check out the full rankings for 2016 here.
Top five artists for 2016:
- Drake
- Justin Bieber
- Rihanna
- Twenty One Pilots
- Kanye West
Most Streamed Female Artists
- Rihanna
- Ariana Grande
- Sia
- Adele
- Fifth Harmony
Most Streamed Male Artists
- Drake
- Justin Bieber
- Twenty One Pilots
- Kanye West
- Coldplay
Most Streamed Tracks
- One Dance (feat. WizKid and Kyla) – Drake
- I Took A Pill in Ibiza – Seeb Remix – Mike Posner
- Don’t Let Me Down (feat. Daya) – The Chainsmokers
- Work (feat. Drake) – Rihanna
- Cheap Thrills – Sia
