Taylor Swift and Harry Styles lead Spotify UK's biggest artists and songs

Virgin Radio

30 Nov 2022, 19:40

Taylor Swift and Harry Styles lead Spotify UK's biggest artists and songs

Credit: Rex

Taylor Swift and Harry Styles will be punching the air to find out they are top of Spotify's class of 2022. The UK's most listened to artist has been revealed as Swift, while Styles has racked up the most listened to song.

Taylor's new album Midnights, released in October, already has 805m streams in the UK and the album became the platform’s most streamed album in a day.

Ed Sheeran's equals is the second most listened to album, ahead of Lin Manuel-Miranda's Encanto and Olivia Rodrigo's SOUR.

Harry's hit As It Was is the most listened to song of the year with 97m streams in the UK in 2022 since its release in April, with the track bagging Spotify’s biggest global track of 2022 with 1.6bn streams.

British band Glass Animals racked up the second biggest song in the UK and globally with Heat Waves (1.1bn streams), while Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny made three tracks in the top 10 and is the most-streamed artist globally, with more than 18 billion streams in 2022.

Surprise success came for Kate Bush, whose 1985 hit classic Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) became the tenth most streamed song, after featuring in Stranger Things.

Safiya Lambie-Knight, Head of Music UK & Ireland at Spotify: “It’s been a massive year for UK artists – the rest of the world has long loved British music and it’s a huge trend we’re seeing this year as homegrown artists achieve huge success overseas.

"We have such a rich music heritage in the UK and we’re delighted to see some names from the past like Kate Bush and Elton John feature so highly alongside the new generation of global megastars like Harry Styles and Dua Lipa. UK listeners are real trend setters too as Heat Waves by Glass Animals featured in the UK’s most streamed songs of 2021, and it’s our love for the track that has helped it spread globally in 2022!”