As it stands, artists receive a mere 16 per cent of the revenue share that record labels take from streaming platforms such as Spotify. Contents 1 Most monthly listeners 2 Timeline of peak monthly listeners 2. Since 2013, Spotify has published a yearly list of its most-streamed artists, which has been topped by Drake a record three times (2015, 20).

His study follows the news of MPs challenging labels and streaming services to award musicians their “fair share” of streaming revenue. Drake is the most-streamed male artist of all time, and Taylor Swift is the most-streamed female artist of all time. Ingham concludes that the so-called “passion economy” is not sustainable for 99.2 per cent of Spotify creators. “This all reveals a painful truth: Even among the elite 0.8 per cent “Gold Club” of artists on Spotify, there is a vast disparity between successful and unsuccessful, with the majority of artists firmly in the latter category”, he adds. However, “even if this figure was somehow spread equally amongst them”, Ingham says, “it would still only equate to $34,404 per artist per year.” Naturally, artists in this bracket who are streamed the most will earn the most. So what about the remaining 43,600 artists in Spotify’s “Gold Club”? Ingham reports that the platform awards a pot of $1.5 billion to share among them.

The statistics show that this minority within the minority generated a minimum of $2.2 billion on Spotify in 2020, although it’s likely that the actual figure sits above $3 billion.

Who are the top spotify artists