As the year comes to a close, music junkies and casual listeners alike wait in anticipation to see their Spotify Wrapped results: the culmination of the music you’ve been listening to all year long. Who was my top artist? What was my most played song? But more interestingly, I love to see the trends on a global scale. The stakes rise: who was the most streamed artist in the WORLD? In this article, I’m going to discuss the mechanics behind Spotify Wrapped, my predictions for the 2025 Spotify Wrapped Global Top Artist, as well as comparing them to last year. Will they be similar? Will the Global Top Artist be kicked off their throne? Read to find out!
So, What Is Spotify Wrapped?
Officially implemented in 2016, Spotify Wrapped is the streaming platform’s annual review of listening trends, typically released in early December. Last year’s results were dropped as late as December 4, while in 2023 it was as early as November 29. When released, listeners will be able to view the most streamed global and regional artists, top albums, songs, and podcasts, and their own Wrapped statistics for 2025, alongside a fun graphic to post your results on Instagram.
Let’s Break It Down.
So what exactly goes into calculating the winners of these categories? Let’s break it down. Spotify Wrapped is a culmination of data based on the songs any given individual has listened to throughout the year. Data culmination starts from January 1, and ends at an unspecified date “a few weeks prior to launch”. Spotify aims to leave this cutoff date as late as possible to ensure the data is representative of the year. A rule says in order to count a song as a stream, it must be listened to for at least 30 seconds. The main (and most anticipated) categories–top artist, top song, and top artist–are based on the aggregate stream counts.
The Situation…
Spotify’s Global Top Artist is a coveted spot. Last year, Taylor Swift took the cake, totaling 26.6 billion global streams. Spotify even added a special badge on her profile to celebrate this achievement. She had a monumental year, with the Eras Tour attracting more than 10 million fans in attendance worldwide in 2024. Additionally, she released her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, which was the most streamed album in its first week on Spotify, and the first album to surpass 1 billion streams in a single week. It also broke the record for the most single-day streams in Spotify history, with over 300 million streams on its release day.
But Swift isn’t guaranteed to continue her reign. The Puerto Rican Global Top Artist of 2020, 2021, and 2022 has been giving her a run for her money. Bad Bunny has an incredibly large fanbase across Latin America and Europe that threatens Swift. His album Un Verano Sin Ti has become the most-streamed album in Spotify history, surpassing over 20 billion streams. He has consistently ranked beside Swift in recent years, placing #3 globally in 2024. He’s also been selected as the 2026 Superbowl Halftime Show headliner, increasing his reach across the U.S. and accumulating even more Spotify streams.
Other top artists, such as The Weekend, Ariana Grande, and Drake, still top charts, but don’t come close to getting in Swift’s and BB’s way for #1.
Who Will Win?
Different sources online have conflicting conclusions on which artist has more streams, making it very difficult to make a definitive declaration for the title. Overall, I think Bad Bunny will take the title as the Global Top Artist for 2025. His global reach is impressive, and currently more sources are in support of him winning over Taylor Swift. But these sources come to a mutual agreement that the numbers are still very close.
I can’t wait to see who comes out on top. It’s so interesting to see the list of top artists, albums, and songs globally. But I am way more excited to see my personal list of these categories! My music taste changes vastly over the months, so it will be compelling to see my list and how it lines up to other listeners globally and nationally. Happy listening!