Ireland’s most-streamed artist on Spotify turned out to be the late rapper Juice WRLD. Other popular artists like Drake, Ariana Grande Dubliner Dermot Kennedy, and Taylor Swift followed him in the list.
The Weekend’s ‘Blinding Lights’ became the most streamed track of the year in Ireland on Spotify. According to Spotify, the top-five list is occupied by ‘Roses (Imanbek Remix)’ Imanbek and SAINt JHN, ‘Rockstar’ by DaBaby and Roddy Ricch, ‘Before You Go’ by Lewis Capaldi and ‘Head & Heart’ by Joel Corry featuring MNEK.
The most-streamed album of this year on Spotify Ireland is Dermot Kennedy’s Without Fear. Lewis Capaldi’s Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent, Harry Styles’s Fine Line, Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, and The Weeknd’s After Hours followed after it.
In Ireland, only Spotify has over 6000,000 paid subscribers and 1.3 million free subscribers who use the ad-funded service. Spotify has widened its spectrum mainly focusing on the podcasting where the Irish talent flourished. In podcasting, the 2 Johnnies topped the chart followed by Joe Rogan Experience, The Laughs of the Your Life with Doireann Garrihy, the Blindboy Podcast, and The David McWilliams Podcast.
In the global Spotify list of most-streamed artist, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny topped the chart with 8.3 billion plays with artists like Juice WRLD, Drake, The Weeknd, and J Balvin following close. He also bagged the most-streamed album of the year with his album YHLQMDLG, followed by Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, Hollywood’s Bleeding by Post Malone, After Hours by The Weeknd, Fine Line by Harry Styles.
Globally the most streamed tracks of 2020 are ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd, ‘Roses (Imanbek Remix)’ by Imanbek and SAINt JHN, ‘Dance Monkey’ by Tones and I, ‘The Box by Roddy Ricch’, and ‘Don’t Start Now’ by Dua Lipa.
The most popular podcast internationally are Joe Rogan Experience, The Daily from the New York Times, TED Talks Daily, The Michelle Obama Podcast, and Call Her Daddy by Alex Cooper and the Daddy Gang.
The world’s most popular music streaming platform Spotify has been facing backlash for allegedly paying inadequate royalty to the streamers and favoring the established and popular musicians compared to the ones that are struggling to survive.
Manchester band Elbow’s Guy Garvey said for the musicians to survive, the audience must pay more than the current subscription charge of €9.99.
U2’s previous manager Paul McGuinness said in 2012 that Spotify can only be the most popular streaming platform if the artists experience a financial benefit in it.
Younger artists offer a different view on the matter. Dermot Kennedy in 2018 emailed Spotify’s CEO, Daniel Ek, thanking him for the company’s support.
In response to these backlashes, Ek has said indicating those who complained, ‘It’s quite interesting that while the overall [revenue] pie is growing, and more and more people can partake in that pie, we tend to focus on a very limited set of artists.’
Juice WELD, whose real name is Jarad Anthony Higgins not only top but also a new entry in Ireland Spotify’s top five this year. The 21-year-old rapper from Chicago died after an accidental overdose of codeine and oxycodone in December last year. A posthumous album named Legends Never Die was released in the summer. It became the number one hit in Ireland and all over the globe.
Spotify has witnessed a surge of listeners and streamers due to the COVID-19 lockdown. According to marketing group Core, 38% of the 1000 adults in Ireland had tried at least one streaming service for the first time in the pandemic.