Top Artists on Spotify in 2022

How big are your favorite artists? Check our list of the top artists on Spotify in 2022 to know their worth on a global music scale. This can also be a measure of how odd or mainstream your music preference is.
There are several ranking factors experts consider when declaring the best artists globally, and Spotify stream count is one. We will be referring to a couple of Spotify terms throughout the course of this article, and it’s best we define them beforehand for easier assimilation for those who may not be conversant with the terminologies.

Spotify monthly listeners

Spoiler alert! One thing you’ll quickly notice when going through our top 20 most streamed artists in the absence of artists like Michael Jackson, that enjoyed great success on streaming platforms in the past. The omission of these legends can be traced to the window period used in calculating the number of Spotify monthly listeners. For instance, even though Michael Jackson has surpassed 8 billion streams on Spotify since 2021 and Bad racked up over 1.5 billion streams, his immense success does not guarantee his spot on the list, as his monthly listeners are not as high as those of artists like Eminem or Justin Bieber.

The term Spotify monthly listeners refer to the number of unique listeners listening to a singer for more than 30 seconds during a rolling window of 28 days. Artists can witness a boost in the number of Spotify monthly listeners when they make a release or trend online.

The Spotify monthly listeners are not the same as the number of streams garnered by the artist. However, the number of followers an artist has on Spotify can greatly influence these stats as Spotify tends to show artists’ songs more to users who already follow them. Also, playlist placement has a great impact on artists, even the ones who have relatively lower followers count.

Spotify Popularity Score

As we’ve mentioned earlier, play listing is a crucial factor that affects the Spotify monthly listeners of each artist. The dependent factor, Spotify popularity score, is a great determinant of how famous a singer is on Spotify and it directly influences the algorithmic and editorial playlists these artists can get featured on.

The Spotify popularity score is influenced by the number of streams, replay value, save rate and many more. I discussed the concept of the Spotify popularity score more extensively in my locally famous article on Loudlab titled, “Spotify Popularity Index: A Little Secret to Help You Leverage the Algorithm “a. You can check this number for yourself using Songstats, Chartmetrics, and Musicstax.

Top 10 Artists on Spotify in 2022

We are still in the first quarter of 2022; hence this list is bound to change. Below is the list of the top artists on Spotify in 2022.

Ed Sheeran: most-streamed artist

The Shape of you crooner is the most streamed musician on Spotify in March 2022. His dominance of Spotify charts comes as no surprise as this vocalist has over 94.28 million followers. He’s leading Ariana Grande; the second most followed Spotify singer globally, with roughly 17 million followers.
Although the pop star does not release albums as often as artists like NBA Youngboy or Lil Durk, he’s always at the top of the list of most-streamed artists. Ed Sheeran holds the record for the most-streamed artists for 2018 and 2020. Most of his songs have Spotify popularity of over 70% for instance, his song, Bad Habits, has a Spotify popularity score of 96% while visiting hours has 74%. He has some of the top songs on Spotify. When it comes to Spotify streaming numbers, we live on the Ed Sheeran planet.

Justin Bieber

The second vocalist in our list is Justin Bieber. The Canadian singer owes his early fame to his debut Ep titled My World. He nurtures a cult fan base dubbed Beliebers. Like Ed Sheeran, Bieber is no stranger to Spotify charts. While Bieber is 36 million followers shy of Ed Sheeran, the “Purpose” crooner is the closest to Sheraan in terms of monthly listeners. JB has roughly 78.14 million monthly listeners.
January 2022 saw the Grammy award winner break the all-time record for the highest monthly listeners in the history of Spotify. He garnered over 94.68 million monthly listeners in January alone.

The Weeknd

The next artist in line on our list is The Weeknd. The Weeknd has 78.08 million monthly listeners, thanks to his recent album titled Dawn FM. As we’ve mentioned earlier, artists witness a rise in the number of monthly listeners when they release new songs and albums. With 42.93 million followers on the Spotify app, The Weeknd is the 12th singer on the list of Spotify artists with the most followers, but he’s third on this list.
While the critical reception for Dawn FM was superb, the album was outsold by Gunna’s DS4Ever. Assuming the album sold like his third studio album, Starboy, The Weeknd might be headlining our list of the top singers on Spotify in 2022. Starboy was one of the most streamed albums globally when it dropped in 2016.

Dua Lipa

For March 2022, Dua Lipa is the first female singer with the most monthly listeners on Spotify. She has 68 million monthly Spotify listeners. However, the English singer and songwriter are not on the list of the top 20 most followed artists on Spotify.

Imagine Dragons

Imagine Dragons is the first pop band on this list. The four-person band has 57.79 million monthly listeners and 38.91 million followers. Their new album, which doubles as their sixth studio album, is widely anticipated by fans while they tour globally.

Coldplay

The second band with the most monthly listeners is Coldplay. The British Rock band is 90,000 streams lower than Imagine Dragons. Speaking of Spotify followers, Coldplay is nowhere near Imagine Dragons. In 2022, they released another version of their song, “Let Somebody Go” and a cover of Kid Cudi’s 13 years old song titled “Day ‘n’ Nite.”

Doja Cat

Doja Cat, the best selling female rapper of 2021, is back for the crown in 2022. She has 56.05 million listeners who enjoy her variety of rap and pop songs on Spotify. The well-known American rapper is nominated for eight awards at the 6th annual Grammy Awards, which is scheduled to hold on April 3, 2022.

Taylor Swift

Photo Credit: IMDB.com

Despite her “countless” rifts with Spotify over the low pay of artists, Taylor Swift still maintains her spot at the top. The “You Belong with Me” singer currently has 55.30 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and it is one of the top artists songs on Spotify. Watching the brilliant singer and songwriter grow from a teenage country musician to a globally-recognised popstar is priceless.

With Fearless (Taylor’s version), Taylor Swift broke the record for the first re-recorded album to peak at Billboard’s top 100, as she is the most streamed female artist in the world.
Olivia Rodrigo’s album Sour was the first album to dethrone Taylor Swift’s album remake. The album also dethroned Morgan Wallens Dangerous: The Double Album as the only album to gain over 100,000 units for five weeks consecutively.

Eminem

Eminem has over 54.01 million monthly listeners on the Spotify site. The rap legend is no stranger to this list, and he is not slowing down anytime soon.

Ariana Grande

This list will not be complete without the inclusion of Ariana Grande, the most followed female vocalist on Spotify. She also has 54.01 million monthly listeners. Her single, “Positions,” is one of the most-streamed songs globally.

Final Thoughts: Broader List of the most streamed artists

Did any of your favorite artists make our list of the top artists on the Spotify site in 2022? If not, there is no cause for alarm. With your undying support, nothing is unattainable. Remember that this index might change as time goes by. The broader list, which accommodates the first 20 artists, is graced by Lil Nas X, Juice Wrld, Olivia Rodrigo, Bad Bunny, Kid Laroi, Drake, etc. Olivia Rodrigo’s future nostalgia generated over 130 million streams, making her the female singer with the highest weekly streaming total.

In addition, “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo topped the charts for eight consecutive weeks. In a contrasting fashion, some sleeper hits may not top the charts consecutively but amass more than a billion streams for instance heat waves by glass animals.
While we did not cover the most popular podcasts globally like Joe Rogan Experience call her daddy podcast, daily npr news podcast, and crime junkie podcasts in this article, you can bank on us, at Inquirers, for more news on Spotify podcasts soon. We also update our subscribers with celebrity news regularly.