Taylor Swift and Harry Styles lead Spotify’s biggest artists and songs in the UK

Spotify has revealed its biggest artists and songs in the UK for 2022 – with Taylor Swift and Harry Styles leading the charge.

Pop icon Swift is the most listened to artist for 2022, helped in part by the release of her latest album Midnights in October. It accelerated her to over 805m streams in the UK, while the album became the streaming platform’s most streamed album in a day.

Styles, meanwhile, bagged the year’s biggest UK song with ‘As It Was’, which notched up close to 97m streams in the UK since its release in April. That success spread to the rest of the world, too, with the track also sitting pretty as Spotify’s biggest global track of 2022 with 1.6bn streams.

The track is the lead single from Styles’ third album Harry’s House, which also became the UK’s biggest album of the year on Spotify.

Similar British success stories came in the form of Glass Animals, who secured the second biggest song both in the UK and globally with ‘Heat Waves’, which secured a staggering 1.1bn streams across the globe.

But there was room for older artists too. One of the year’s most unlikely streaming success stories came in the form of Kate Bush, whose 1985 hit  ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ became the tenth most streamed song, after it played a pivotal role in the latest season of 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!”

You can see a full breakdown of the UK and world’s listening habits below.

Top Artists in the UK:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Drake
3. Ed Sheeran
4. Harry Styles
5. Kanye West
6. The Weeknd
7. Dave
8. Eminem
9. Arctic Monkeys
10. D-Block Europe

Top Songs in the UK:

1. ‘As It Was’ – Harry Styles
2. ‘Heat Waves’ – Glass Animals
3. ‘Starlight’ – Dave
4. ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ – Kate Bush
5. ‘Seventeen Going Under’ – Sam Fender
6. ‘Where Are You Now’ – Lost Frequencies
7. ‘Afraid to Feel’ – LF System
8. ‘Shivers’ – Ed Sheeran
9. ‘Bad Habits’ – Ed Sheeran
10. ‘Baby (feat. Ashanti)’ – Aitch

Top Albums in the UK:

1. Harry’s House – Harry Styles
2. = – Ed Sheeran
3. Encanto – Lin Manuel-Miranda
4. SOUR – Olivia Rodrigo
5. Midnights – Taylor Swift

Top Artists Globally:

1. Bad Bunny
2. Taylor Swift
3. Drake
4. The Weeknd
5. BTS
6. Ed Sheeran
7. Harry Styles
8. Justin Bieber
9. Kanye West
10. Eminem

Top UK Artists Globally:

1. Ed Sheeran
2. Harry Styles
3. Dua Lipa
4. Coldplay
5. Adele
6. Arctic Monkeys
7. Queen
8. One Direction
9. Calvin Harris
10. Elton John

Top Tracks Globally:

1. ‘As It Was’ – Harry Styles
2. ‘Heat Waves’ – Glass Animals
3. ‘Stay’(with Justin Bieber) – The Kid LAROI
4. ‘Me Porto Bonito’ – Bad Bunny
5. ‘Tití Me Preguntó’ – Bad Bunny
6. ‘Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)’ – Elton John and Dua Lipa
7. ‘Quevedo: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 52’ – Bizarrap
8. ‘Enemy (with JID)’ – Imagine Dragons
9. ‘Ojitos Lindos’ – Bad Bunny
10. ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ – Kate Bush

Top Albums Globally:

1. Un Verano Sin Ti – Bad Bunny
2. Harry’s House – Harry Styles
3. SOUR – Olivia Rodrigo
4. = – Ed Sheeran
5. Planet Her – Doja Cat