What 20 Years of Spotify Data Reveals About Our Listeners

All data tells a story, and in our case, that story is written by you. To celebrate 20 years of Spotify, we're sharing bite sized moments that capture how the world listens, discovers, and connects.

Check back each day as we build out the full story.

Day 1

Blinding Lights by The Weeknd is the most streamed song of all time on Spotify.

For the first time, we've unveiled the most streamed artists, albums, songs, podcasts, and audiobooks to date. Check out the full lists here.

Day 2

Since the beginning, fans have streamed over 1.2 trillion hours of audio on Spotify. That's enough time for Artemis II to travel around the Moon and back over 5 billion times.

Day 3 Do listening habits fall along generational lines? We'll let your streaming be the judge of that

Musical Geniuses: 18-24-year-olds win the award for streaming the most minutes of music in 2025

Literary Leaders: 25-34-year-olds win the award for streaming the most minutes of audiobooks in 2025

Information Junkies: 35-44-year-olds win the award for streaming the most minutes of podcasts in 2025

Day 4

One word to describe Spotify listeners over the years? Chill.

Chill is the most streamed mood on Spotify with 4.4 trillion all-time streams.

It's followed by moods like relaxing (No. 2), nostalgia (No. 7), heartbroken (No. 5), love (No. 16), and happy (No. 22).

Day 5

Out of every word in the world, one four-letter-word has stood the test of time for Spotify fans: Love is the most searched word on Spotify across all languages, with 4.3 billion searches since December 2018.

*Note: December 2018 is when Spotify began counting search data

Day 6

The greatest Christmas gift of all? 11 billion streams of music.

We've had a lot of big music streaming days over the years, but one stands out: December 24, 2025 was the biggest ever day for global music streams, with over 11B streams.

Day 7

Let's take it back to 2016. Back to Drake, the Mannequin challenge, and the first year for any song to hit 1 billion streams on Spotify

How it started:

On December 16, 2016, One Dance by Drake, Kyla and Wizkid became the first song in history to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify.

How it's going:

As of April 29, 2026, there are over 1,200 total songs in Spotify's Billions Club.

The fastest to ever do it was Die With A Smile by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars-which hit 1 billion in 96 days on November 20, 2024.

Day 8

Fleetwood Mac's Rumours (1977) has over 8.3 billion all-time streams on Spotify, 49 years after its original release. It's also the oldest album in Spotify's all-time top 100 albums.

Michael Jackson's Thriller (1982) and Nirvana's Nevermind (1991) follow in second and third place.

Day 9

From singing in the shower to surviving the workday, Spotify listeners have built playlists for just about every moment of life.

Here's which tracks have been added the most to daily routine playlists:

Singing in the shower playlists: Shower by Becky G, What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction, and Wannabe by Spice Girls

Cleaning playlists: Shut Up and Dance by WALK THE MOON, No Scrubs by TLC, and Toxic by Britney Spears

Work sucks playlists: All The Small Things by blink-182, 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton, and Sugar, We're Goin Down by Fall Out Boy

TGIF playlists: Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) by Katy Perry, Time of Our Lives by Pitbull and Ne-Yo, and Closer by The Chainsmokers and Halsey

Day 10

Through the good times and the bad, the break-ups and the make-ups, these tracks on Spotify have been there for the fans throughout it all:

Top breakup song of all time: Olivia Rodrigo - traitor (131K playlists)

Top love song of all time: Arctic Monkeys - I Wanna Be Yours (2.7M playlists)

Top happy song of all time: Pharrell Williams - Happy (675K playlists)

Top sad song of all time: Billie Eilish, Khalid - lovely (with Khalid) (2.4M playlists)

Day 11

The treasured art form of playlisting on Spotify goes all the way back to 2008-with millions of fans expressing themselves through music for the past two decades.

Since then, Spotify listeners have created over 9.67 billion playlists across all time.

Day 12

According to a generation of Spotify listeners, July is the happiest month for music and January is the saddest.

Wondering what else changes with the seasons?

EDM peaks in June

Country peaks in summer

R&B peaks in February (Valentine's Day)

Classical peaks in winter

To explore more from the anniversary celebration, visit our Spotify 20 hub.

LINK:	https://newsroom.spotify.com/2026-04-23/spotify-20-data-listening-tren...
	See more stories from spotify

Most recent headlines