Surprising new tastemakers, surging global megastars, and the music that was unstoppable in 2025.
The year’s brightest stars
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 171.5m 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
225
superstars
2024
222
superstars
2025
759
superstars
Compared to 2024, more than three times as many artists reached Chartmetric’s ‘superstar’ status
The year’s hottest tracks
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
There was significantly less movement among top hits as only three of the top 10 streamed songs were released in the same year.
3
More artists garnered ‘Superstar’ status than ever before, suggesting that the cycle for ‘success’ is becoming shorter and shorter.
What kind of music was the world listening to in 2025? And what global feelings did that music speak to?
What genres represented 2025’s new artists and tracks?
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 among leading artists: 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
Spotlight
Cross-genre Collaborations 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 189m 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
The sound of the mainstream wasn’t always happy, with fans feeling tracks that were ‘Blue’, ‘Romantic’, and ‘Dark’.
3
Cross-genre collaborations and sounds found serious success on streaming platforms.
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%
In 2025, 312k concerts and 2.6k festivals hosted fans around the world. From undiscovered acts to legendary headliners, everyone took the stage. But none more so than mainstream artists, who dominate the live scene.
Which artists headlined the most live events in 2025?
How are music festival genres evolving?
2023
2025
Festivals are evolving beyond genre-specific roots to match fan tastes. Dance and electronic took center stage at Glastonbury, while country and folk artists are fading at 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 32m and 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
Dance/Electronic artists were the fastest growing acts booked on the festival circuit compared to previous years.
2
Long-awaited reunions for both Oasis and Black Sabbath drove significant conversation in the live sector.
3
Classic rock icons, pop superstars, and cover band residencies headlined the most events.
Thousands of songs were placed in films, TV series, and video games during 2025, but which pairings truly shaped the year’s on-screen soundscape?
How many 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
2.7K
TV
1.6K
Games
1.2K
New sounds or golden oldies?
New
0%
Catalog
0%
Film leaned toward new music and original soundtracks, while television made greater use of catalog tracks — a trend highlighted by Stranger Things propelling classics such as Prince’s “Purple Rain” and The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” to the top charts.
Top music types on screen
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.
In 2025, 5 of the top 10 breakout artists from South Korea were featured on the soundtrack, including EJAE (Rumi’s singing voice), samUIL Lee (Romance Saja boy), and even the HUNRT/X group themselves.
Some are now signed to major agencies like WME. Who knows if they’ll have time to hunt demons?
This was the year that...
1
Genre and mood varied between media formats: film and television favored soundtrack selections, while games embraced more experimental sounds.
2
Television was more likely to use catalog music than film, frequently reintroducing familiar tracks that resonated with audiences.
3
Kpop Demon Hunters showed the incredible power of syncs to catapult an artist from zero to hero.
How did the world’s top brands match with the hottest bands of 2025?
Which brands do top artists’ followers connect with?
Brand affinity among music fans is incredibly diverse. Only six brands appear three times within Chartmetric’s top 10 artists: Calvin Klein, Gucci, Disney, Rolex, Pokemon, and H&M.
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?
1
2
3
4
5
Alternative
Christian
Country
Electronic
Hip-hop/Rap
Pop
R&B/Soul
Rock
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 Country and Electronic fans.
Spotlight
Artistry As A Brand: How Rock Embraced Identity
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, Disney, Rolex, Pokemon and H&M had the most consistent brand 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
Genres like rock gained momentum this year as artists leaned into artistry-driven branding and immersive identity-building.
Who wrote the words behind the music that defined the mainstream?
Who wrote the most songs in Spotify’s global top 50?
Number of songs written
While hitmaking songwriters like Amy Allen and Jack Antonoff powered many of 2025’s pop anthems, artists writing their own music continued to dominate the charts.
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
65%
2-3
27%
4-6
7%
7-10
1%
10+
0.2%
While an average of 2.3 songwriters were used across all tracks globally in 2025, the majority only utilized one.
Spotlight
Who has the write stuff?
Most songs on Chartmetric – including those released in 2025 – only have one songwriter.
But let’s look closer. Most tracks on Chartmetric are from casual artists who occasionally put up rough cuts. Somemight 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
The year’s biggest superstars also ranked among its top songwriters, highlighting that top artists still write their own music.
2
Amy Allen played a leading role in shaping the pop music landscape of 2025.
3
Solo songwriters wrote two thirds of the tracks released this year, but the higher an artist climbed, the more likely they were to write with a team.
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 3,600 songs appeared in TikTok’s fast-shifting top 50. Yet only 439 songs appeared on Spotify’s far more stable top 50.
What type of playlist curator dominated each platform?
Playlists created by
Platform
Users
Other
Apple
YouTube
Spotify
SoundCloud
Spotify and SoundCloud remain the biggest platforms for independent curators, allowing millions of music bloggers and influencers to gather audiences around their taste.
The fastest-growing Spotify playlists in 2025
Total followers gained
The year’s biggest leaps in playlist followers are a sure sign of regional music’s growing global appeal, from Hot Hits Korea (90% of its total followers joined this year) to Mexican musical Mentiras’ playlist (70% of its total followers joined this year).
How long do songs take to hit 1 billion streams
2015
Release year
2.7k
days
2017
2.0k
2019
1.4k
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 billions club in the same year.
This was the year that...
1
Independent playlist curators were the driving force behind music discovery and diversity.
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 greatest 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.
Which regional music has the most global popularity?
Net importer
of music
Balanced music
exchange
Net exporter
of music
As music globalizes, markets have fallen into different roles: some function as strong export markets, others as heavy consumers of international music, while some maintain a clear preference for local repertoire.
The most successful recording companies of 2025
Global number of listeners for tracks by new local artists
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 were an influential driver for breakout talent, denting the dominance of the Western music.
2
Korea and Norway dominated as worldwide exporters while trigger city hubs in Southeast Asian and Latin America were some of the biggest importers of global hits.
3
Majors were at the top in most countries, but indies catering to strengths of local scenes are often competitive (especially in markets with very strong cultural identities.)
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 manager: Sarah Kloboves
Lead writers: Harry Levin and Sarah Kloboves
Additional editorial support: Beyond Words Studio
Design support: Crasianne Tirado
Data analysts: Melina Raglin and Shashank Chaudhary
Includes content from How Music Charts blog articles with special data contributions by Jubran Haddad and the Jambase team.
Design, data visualization and development: Beyond Words Studio
Special thanks to Chartmetric Founder & CEO Sung Cho.
Social media
Epic following
Which artists best utilized social platforms to stand above the crowd?
Who gained the most followers in 2025?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Which countries have the biggest social audiences?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Instagram
TikTok
YouTube
How did social demographics play out in 2025?
Female
Male
Instagram
YouTube
TikTok
The more things change, the more they stay the same: social media use still explodes at 18 and drops off at 35, whether it’s the ladies who prefer TikTok and Instagram or the gents who watch YouTube.
Spotlight
Going global: how KATSEYE created a new reality
Global girl group KATSEYE is the only artist in the top 10 for growth across all three platforms we tracked: Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. It speaks to regional music’s exploding appeal.
KATSEYE’s six members come from four countries across three continents. They were all contestants on reality series The Debut: Dream Academy, put through rigorous training similar to iconic acts like BLACKPINK.
Organized by Geffen Records and South Korean entertainment giant HYBE, the show’s goal was “taking the K out of K-Pop and making it global”.
KATSEYE’s success proves it’s a winning formula.
This was the year that...
1
Women ruled. Across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, the people who gained the most followers since 2024 are all female artists.
2
Trigger cities in Latin America and Southeast Asia powered some of 2025’s most socially engaged countries.
3
Ages 18-35 remain the peak years for social media fandom, especially on TikTok and YouTube.