Spotify, a music streaming website started in Sweden in 2008, made its way to Canada this year, and to say it has been a success would be an understatement. The service gives users on-demand access to over 30 million tracks, and makes sure to pass royalties on to the artists. There has been controversy over how much the artist actually makes per stream, but the fact is, especially for new artists, getting your name out there is the real challenge.
Earlier this year, mega-star, Taylor Swift pulled her entire catalog of music from Spotify, and her newest, and most popular album, 1989, was never available for streaming. That made way for other artists, like Ed Sheeran, to have a chance at the top spot.
Spotify released their Year in Music report this week, and it revealed the top artists according to 50 million listeners who streamed over 7 billion hours of music in 2014. Ed Sheeran was crowned the most streamed artist of this year, and he also holds the title for the most streamed album for x, which had over 430 million streams. In Canada, Ariana Grande took the most streamed artist spot. Globally, Katy Perry was the most streamed female artist, and Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” was the most streamed track, with over 260 million plays.
Rounding out the top five global artists, along with Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran, were Coldplay, Eminem, and Calvin Harris (whose track “Blame” was Canada’s most streamed track).
New artist, Hozier, spent 47 weeks on Spotify’s Viral charts with his track “Take Me To Church” which was popular on Spotify long before being picked up by radio stations. He said, “Thank you so much to my fans for listening to the music and sharing it with people. Spotify was a big part of getting the music across the world as quickly as it did and as a new artist, that’s invaluable. So thank you for listening and thank you for sharing with your friends.”
Visit spotify.com/2014 to create your own personal Year of Music 2014 card which you can share on social media. If you have a Spotify account, you will be able to see how many minutes of music you listened to this year, which genre you listened to the most, your favourite artists by season, and your most musical day of the week.
Now Spotify is in the perfect position to be the leading source of music streaming for people all over the world going into 2015. Their focus on sharing through social media, and giving artists the compensation they deserve, strikes the perfect balance between people’s need to have their music wherever they are, and the music industry’s ultimate goal of making money. New artists can become a sensation overnight, and all it takes is a (few million) clicks of the Play button.
