Surprising new tastemakers, surging global megastars and the music that was too hot to stop in 2025.
The year’s brightest stars
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Taylor Swift
Justin Bieber
Drake
Bad Bunny
Bruno Mars
Kendrick Lamar
The Weeknd
Rihanna
Ed Sheeran
Billie Eilish
Bruno Mars
Taylor Swift
Billie Eilish
ROSÉ
Drake
Ariana Grande
Lady Gaga
Justin Bieber
The Weeknd
Eminem
Spotlight
Singh with me: the secret of Ed Sheeran’s success
For decades, India has produced megastars who never make it to the West. But Arijit Singh’s collab with Ed Sheeran for hit single “Sapphire” bridged that gap: 46.1m Spotify streams and 74.2m YouTube views in less than three weeks.
Singh isn’t just one of India’s biggest stars. He’s the most followed artist on Spotify, with 150.3m followers. That’s more than Bruno Mars or Taylor Swift.
His talents and star power helped supercharge the success of Sheeran, whose new album, Play, made waves in 2025.
Rising (super)stars
2023
171
superstars
2024
146
superstars
2025
279
superstars
Compared to 2024, twice as many artists reached Chartmetric’s ‘superstar’ status
The year’s hottest tracks
2025
1
Die With A Smile
3.1B
2
APT.
2.1B
3
A Bar Song (Tipsy)
1.5B
4
Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido
1.5B
5
Sailor Song
1.5B
6
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
3.2B
7
Ordinary
1.2B
8
luther (with sza)
1.2B
9
That's So True
1.4B
10
WILDFLOWER
1.6B
This was the year that...
1
Taylor Swift locked in as music’s hottest star and Bad Bunny gatecrashed Chartmetric’s top 5 artists.
2
Lady Gaga tracks won most-played on Spotify (‘Die with a Smile’) and most Shazams (‘Shallow’).
3
More artists on Chartmetric became ‘Superstars’ than in either of the past two years.
What kind of music was the world listening to in 2025? And what global feelings did that music speak to?
What genres do 2025’s new artists and tracks belong to?
hip-hop/rap
50%
pop
10%
indie
8%
dance
6%
reggaeton
5%
brazilian funk
5%
classical
5%
lofi
4%
emo
4%
house
4%
Across the top 1,000 artists, what are the big shifts in genre?
2020
2025
Don’t be fooled by pop and hip-hop’s huge share of the music produced in 2025. Musical tastes are going global: Bollywood and ‘Other’ regional genres (K-pop, Brazilian funk, corridos) have rocketed in popularity to eat up the music market.
The mood of music in 2025
Less Positive
More Positive
High energy
Low energy
Spotlight
Raps and cowboy hats: how music went cross-country
Six years after Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” changed the game, country/rap crossovers were at the forefront of pop music in 2025.
Dallas rapper BigXthaPlug worked with country wunderkind Bailey Zimmerman on “All The Way”, racking 153.6m streams on Spotify.
But Morgan Wallen led the way: he reteamed with Post Malone on “I Ain’t Comin Back”, then brought on Lil Wayne and Rick Ross – two of the most famed rappers of all time – for the July single “Miami”.
This was the year that...
1
Regional genres like Bollywood, K-pop, reggaeton, Brazilian funk and corridos surged in popularity.
2
‘Chill’ artists were the vibe, with fans feeling tracks that were ‘Blue’, ‘Romantic’ and ‘Dark’.
3
Country’n’rap collabs rediscovered a genre chemistry that creates pop hits.
What does live music look like on a post-pandemic planet? And which acts are bringing the energy to stages around the world?
The career stages of 2025’s live performers
undiscovered
6%
developing
10%
mid-level
15%
mainstream
34%
superstar
18%
legendary
17%
Performing live is still the greatest source of income for artists. So whether it’s a legendary act headlining world stadiums or a developing band playing weekly at their local dive bar, every artist wants to take the stage.
Which artists headlined the most live events?
1
Vince Giordano And The Nighthawks
190
2
Postmodern Jukebox
189
3
Purple Reign
143
4
Heavysaurus
135
5
Wayne Newton
130
6
Robert Glasper
130
7
Donny Osmond
120
8
Chris Botti
115
9
Cem Adrian
114
10
Aaron Lewis
112
How are music festival genres evolving?
2023
2025
Festivals are evolving beyond genre-specific roots to match fan tastes. Dance and electronic take centre stage at Glastonbury, while country and folk artists fade at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival.
Spotlight
Comebacks: how reunions ruled the live circuit
Oasis fans had begged for it since 2009. This year, they got it: Noel and Liam back on tour.
Despite no new music, Oasis’s Spotify monthly listeners jumped to 32mand they gained over 300k followers on TikTok. Oasis wasn’t the only big reunion.
Just days before his tragic passing, Ozzy Osbourne and his Black Sabbath bandmates convened for a huge benefit concert that hosted legacy metal acts Metallica, Slayer, and Pantera.
Sabbath’s YouTube views more than doubled to 2.1m following the concert.
This was the year that...
1
The live music landscape has shifted: festivals are fading and concerts are storming back.
2
Long-awaited reunions for both Oasis and Black Sabbath were emotional and lucrative.
3
Cover bands, jazz acts and Vegas performers are the artists who are always on stage.
Thousands of songs were synced with movies, TV shows and games in 2025. So which media and music hooked up to define the year’s on-screen sounds?
How many total track syncs were there for 2025?
There’s nothing like a song you love coming in at the perfect moment during a TV show or movie. This year, plenty of songs were synced multiple times across the three main media outlets.
Movies
2.6K
TV
1.6K
Games
1.2K
New sounds or golden oldies?
0%
new
0%
catalog
Despite catalog tracks like Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” (Stranger Things) getting a second wind from sync, music supervisors are opting for more current songs to soundtrack new releases in TV and movies.
Top music types on screen
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Movie
soundtrack
pop
alternative
instrumental
ambient
rock
dance
hip-hop/rap
r&b/soul
electronic
TV
soundtrack
pop
alternative
rock
r&b/soul
dance
hip-hop/rap
instrumental
country
electronic
Game
game-pop
soundtrack
anime
dance
argentine indie
kawaii future bass
lofi
pop
hard rock
brazilian hip-hop/rap
Spotlight
Gotta be golden: the KPop Demon Hunters phenomenon
This was the year that an animation about K-pop starlets hunting demons became the most-streamed Netflix movie in history.
And it sent KPop Demon Hunters trio HUNTR/X into orbit. The soundtrack cleared 3b streams, led by hit single “Golden”, which earned over 868m streams and a David Guetta remix.
After the soundtrack dropped, HUNTR/X filled five of Charmetric’s top six “Trending Artists” slots (measuring the greatest increase in Spotify monthly listeners).
They’re now signed to major agencies like WME. Who knows if they’ll have time to hunt demons?
This was the year that...
1
Music from the last five years is far more likely to be chosen for movie soundtracks.
2
TV leans towards older tracks – and the small-screen produced 98% of syncs in 2025.
3
Kpop Demon Hunters showed the incredible power of syncs to catapult an artist from zero to hero.
How did the world’s biggest brands match with the hottest bands of 2025?
Which brands do top artists’ followers connect with?
Brand affinity among music fans is incredibly diverse. However four brands do stand out: Calvin Klein, Gucci, Rolex and Disney.
These are the only brands that appear three times within Chartmetric’s top 10 artists.
Adidas
2.4M
Gucci
882K
Lamborghini
559K
FIFA
412K
Ferrari
382K
Calvin Klein
353K
Balenciaga
323K
NFL
294K
Porsche
294K
Call of Duty
265K
What are the top brand sectors for music fans?
Number of people who follow artists and brands (grouped by sector)
TV & Film
8.6B
Fashion
8.5B
Electronics
7.2B
Motor Vehicles
5.8B
Music
4.7B
Brands and music go hand in hand. TV & Film and Fashion brands are universally popular among music lovers, even more so than brands in the Music sector itself.
Which brand sectors do genre audiences love?
Clearly, the top three sectors are TV & Film, Electronics and Fashion. But Fashion matters most to fans of Hip-Hop and R&B. Motor vehicles rate highly with Electronic fans. And for House fans, Music comes first.
Spotlight
Hiding in plain sight: rock’s masked revival
Rock music saw an exciting resurgence this year behind makeup, masks and mystery.
Ghost’s Skeletá became the first hard rock album to top the Billboard 200 since AC/DC’s Power Up in 2020.
Then the haunting mask of Sleep Token’s lead singer covered Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist, as new album Even in Arcadia more than doubled their monthly listeners to 9.8m.
The enigmatic branding is more than a gimmick. It’s a world created around the music, inspiring dedicated fans to piece the story together.
This was the year that...
1
Calvin Klein, Gucci, Rolex and Disney were the brands with the most consistent affinity with followers of music’s top artists.
2
‘TV & Film’, ‘Electronics’ and ‘Fashion’ are the most-loved brand sectors for music fans of all tastes.
3
By hiding their own identities, Sleep Token created the year’s most powerful new brand identity.
Who wrote the words behind the music that mattered?
Who wrote the most songs in Spotify’s global top 50?
Number of songs written
Amy Allen
23
Dylan Wiggins
22
Esbjorn Ohrwall
20
Carter Lang Sabrina Carpenter
17
Jack Antonoff Justin Bieber Roberto Jose Rosado Torres
16
Bad Bunny tops another chart in 2025, largely thanks to his 17-track new album. And Justin Bieber’s lyrical collaborators show up in force, not least Carter Lang, whose work on Bieber’s comeback double album lands him in second place.
Which songwriters are shaping music’s top genres?
1
Jack Antonoff
Manchild
Sabrina Carpentar
2
Amy Allen
So Close To What
Tate McRae
3
Max Wolfgang
The Artist of Loving
Olivia Dean
4
Tobias Jesso Jr.
SWAG
Justin Bieber
5
Daniel Nigro
The Subway
Chappell Roan
Solo songwriters or group efforts?
% of 2025 tracks written by
1 songwriter
48%
2-3
36%
4-6
13%
7-10
3%
10+
1%
The average collaborators in 2025 are only very slightly less than the all-time average, indicating a slow shift towards more individual work. This trend is championed by bedroom artists such as Billie Eilish.
Spotlight
Who has the write stuff?
Most songs on Chartmetric – including those released in 2025 – only have one songwriter.
But let’s look closer. 8 in 10 artists on Spotify have fewer than 1,000 monthly listeners. Most tracks on Chartmetric are from casual artists who occasionally put up rough cuts. Some might only ever share a single song.
When artists advance in their career, it’s far more likely for them to bring in other writers to assist – whether by their choice or the studio’s.
None of Spotify’s top 10 tracks were written solo (the average is 6.8 songwriters) and Bad Bunny’s VOY A LLeVARTE PA PR has 17.
This was the year that...
1
Bad Bunny became the undisputed king of songwriting in 2025, with 17 tracks to his name.
2
On YouTube, the rock genre is still ruled by songs written by legends like McCartney, Jagger and Springsteen.
3
Solo songwriters wrote almost half the tracks released this year, as music leans towards individual creativity.
From top charts to hot playlists, where are music fans discovering, curating and sharing?
Every song that appeared on a top 50 chart in 2025
Every platform has a top 50 chart. These charts are like spotlights: when a song enters one, it can be seen by the world. But some spotlights are bigger than others.
During 2025, over 3,500 songs appeared in TikTok’s fast-shifting top 50. Yet only 433 songs appeared on Spotify’s far more stable top 50.
tiktok
4K
itunes
1K
apple music
569
shazam
533
spotify
433
soundcloud
384
deezer
315
amazon
294
Where did people drop their playlists in 2025?
Playlists created by
Platform
Users
Other
Apple
64%
26%
10%
YouTube
23%
77%
Spotify
98%
SoundCloud
100%
Spotify remains the biggest platform for hand-picked playlists not controlled by the platform or generated by algorithms. Millions of independent curators such as music bloggers and influencers have gathered significant audiences around their taste.
The fastest-growing Spotify playlists
Total followers gained in 2025
phonk
1.7M
Deutschrap Brandneu
1.3M
Hot Hits Korea
870K
Breathe
823K
Modo Mentiras
649K
The year’s biggest leaps in playlist followers are a sure sign of regional music’s growing global appeal, from Hot Hits Korea (91% of its total followers joined this year) to Mexican musical Mentiras’ playlist (7 in 10 of its total followers joined this year).
How long do songs take to hit 1 billion streams?
2015
Release year
2,729
days
2017
1,992
2019
1,398
2021
821
2023
511
2025
197
New releases are reaching one billion streams faster than ever. Songs released in 2015 took an average of 7.5 years to reach 1 billion streams. But in 2025, that number dropped to just over 6 months. Three tracks released in 2025 joined the billion club.
This was the year that...
1
Spotify remained the people’s platform when it comes to playlists: 98% were user-generated compared to just 26% on Apple Music.
2
The fastest-growing playlists on Spotify curated regional sounds, from Latin music to Korean pop and beyond.
3
Three new tracks took less than eight months to hit 1b Spotify streams: Bad Bunny’s “DtMF”, Alex Warren’s “Ordinary”, and KPop Demon Hunters’ “Golden”.
Which countries and markets are shifting the global landscape of music?
Where do Chartmetric’s top 1,000 artists come from?
2020
2025
Western markets are no longer the only drivers for breakout talent. Puerto Rico continues to punch above its weight. And now South Korea (a 5x increase) and India (jumping from 0.6% to 11%) are emerging as influential hubs for top artists worldwide.
Which countries have the most similarity in listening tastes?
Even as global music flows freely across borders, regional identities continue to shape listening habits.
From South America and Asia, to the MENA world and beyond, countries inside these markets often find themselves listening to similar tunes.
Iran
83
Lebanon
52
Albania
49
Israel
46
Switzerland
46
Which regional music has the most global popularity?
Net importer
of music
Balanced music
exchange
Net exporter
of music
Norway and South Korea were among the world’s biggest music exporters in 2025. For every one Korean listener who follows foreign artists, there were 17.8 foreign listeners who follow Korean artists.
The biggest music labels of 2025
SME
147M
WMG
79M
DALE PLAY Records
62M
UMG
53M
MUEVA
11M
Success rarely happens by chance. These music labels are the players that ensured artists’ voices reached audiences worldwide in 2025.
This was the year that...
1
Regional markets like India became influential drivers for breakout talent, denting the dominance of the Western music.
2
For every South Korean listener who follows foreign artists, nearly 18 South Korean artists were listened to by foreign fans.
3
Universal Music Group (UMG) was the world’s most ubiquitous music label, representing the greatest number of artists.
Here are some notes on our data collection methods, please feel free to reach out if you have any further questions about this report or Chartmetric in general.
Producer: Andreas Katsambas
Project Managers and Lead Writers: Nicki Camberg and
Sarah Kloboves
Design Support: Crasianne Tirado
Data Analysts: Melina Raglin and Shashank Chaudhary
Backend Engineering: Jay Hung
Additional writing support from Saleah Blancafor, Alejandra
Arevalo, and Crasianne Tirado.
Includes content from How Music Charts articles written by Saleah Blancaflor, Jon O’Brien, Harry Levin, Nicki
Camberg, and Third Bridge Creative contributors Michelle Hyun Kim, Jaelani Turner-Williams, Quinn Moreland,
and Kemet High.
Design and Development: Beyond Words Studio
Special thanks to Chaz Jenkins, Akash Mukherjee, and Chartmetric Founder & CEO Sung Cho.
Social media
Epic following
Which artists best used social platforms to stand above the crowd?
Who gained the most followers in 2025?
1
Ana Castela
6.8M
2
Jung Kook
6.8M
3
Talwiinder
6.1M
4
Sabrina Carpenter
6M
5
Zé Felipe
5.8M
6
KATSEYE
5.7M
7
Himesh Reshammiya
4.9M
8
Nath√°lia Valente
4.7M
9
Charles Leclerc
4.6M
10
Shakira
4.3M
Which countries have the biggest social audiences?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Instagram
USA
Brazil
India
Indonesia
Mexico
UK
Italy
Argentina
Colombia
Russia
TikTok
USA
Mexico
Brazil
Philippines
Colombia
Indonesia
UK
Argentina
Russia
Germany
YouTube
USA
Yemen
Indonesia
India
Albania
Philippines
Brazil
Angola
Mexico
Russia