For a second year in a row, New Zealand showed it loved homegrown talent best - with Six60 the most streamed artist on Spotify (again).
The music streaming platform released its most popular lists for 2021 today. In New Zealand, Six60 beat out some of the world’s biggest artists, ranking above Taylor Swift at two, and Justin Bieber at three as the country’s most streamed artist on Spotify.
Six60 were also first in the most streamed albums of the year, with their 2019 album Six60 (not to be confused with their previous two albums also called Six60).
American pop artist Olivia Rodrigo’s album ‘SOUR’ was New Zealand’s second most streamed album, and Ed Sheeran’s ‘=’ was third.
Looking only at the Kiwi artists New Zealand vibed with most this year, unsurprisingly Six60 was still number one, followed by reggae supergroup L.A.B., Stan Walker, Drax Project, and Sons of Zion.
Even though Six60 dominated in total streams, L.A.B. actually took the top three spots of the most popular New Zealand artist songs, with ‘Why Oh Why’ at the top, followed by ‘In the Air’, and ‘Controller’. Six60 songs ‘All She Wrote’ and ‘Sundown’ were fourth and fifth.
Sadly, no Kiwi music cracked New Zealand’s most streamed songs, which were:
- “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo
- “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals
- “Kiss Me More (feat. SZA)” by Doja Cat
- “good 4 u” by Olivia Rodrigo
- “Levitating (feat. DaBaby)” by Dua Lipa
Spotify is the world’s biggest music streaming platform, with 381 million users worldwide, and a third of the market share.
This year, the most streamed artist in the world on the platform was Puerto Rican reggaeton rap artist Bad Bunny, with a whopping 9.1 billion streams.
The most streamed song this year went to American pop artist Olivia Rodrigo with her song ‘drivers license’ - which was streamed globally 1.1 billion times.
For podcasts, ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ was the most streamed of 2021. Hosted by comedian and UFC commentator Joe Rogan, the podcast is interviews with Rogan and some of the world’s most influential people. He also shares his opinion on modern issues, which this year included a controversial stance against young, healthy people getting the Covid-19 vaccination.
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