Top 50 most-streamed songs of all time (Spotify + Apple + YouTube) - list at the end

I was bored today so I decided to compile a list of the most streamed songs of all time across platforms. The list I present to you today isn't quite it since I don't include all platforms, but it's close: I draw from Spotify, Apple, and YouTube (I wanted to do Amazon as well but couldn't find a reputable top list for it). The data come from here:

I started by pulling the top 50 songs from each list, then I deduplicated and combined them into a single list. Next I appended each song's rank on each list to its row entry. Whenever a song didn't appear on a given platform's list, I gave it a rank of 51 for that platform. Then I summed the ranks and sorted the sums in increasing order. This effectively means that tracks ranking highly on multiple lists did the same on my list.

So, here's all the data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQL1K5M3AwMhf5I-0iQ1FJh6oGjSTbzQYElaSdGY24t0wtdmsnPjUdtmWMO0oBs_AswkZd07RHGErdX/pubhtml# 

Some key insights (just the first things that jumped out at me):

  • It's mostly songs from the last ten years. Of the top 50 songs, 37 (74%) came out in 2015 or later. The oldest song is from 2005. 30 were released between 2015 and 2019. A golden age of pop or recency bias? You be the judge.
  • Ed Sheeran dominates. He captures the top two spots (with songs that were adjacent on the same album, no less) and is the only artist with four songs on the top 50. While some of you may know that the Weeknd's "Blinding Lights" tops both the Spotify and Apple charts, Sheeran pushes past him when YouTube is factored in. And speaking of YouTube…
  • Youtube does bigger numbers than Spotify, its next largest competitor. This makes sense as YT lets you play full tracks on demand for free, but the charts show just how much bigger it is than Spotify. The latter's number one track has 4.75B streams, while YT has seven tracks with more streams than that. Its #1 track doesn't quite have double the streams of Spotify's, but it's within spitting distance.
  • The top 50 is a bit of a sausage party. Of the top ten tracks, nine are sung by men, and the only one that isn't is "Dance Monkey." 35 tracks in total are sung only by men, and that number rises to 39 if we include male/female duets. That leaves only 11 tracks sung solely by women. Turning to artists with two or more tracks on the list, of which there are 13, only four are women (Dua Lipa, Camila Cabelo, Katy Perry, and Billie Eilish). It's often said that pop music is a women's domain, but a look at the long afterlife of singles after they leave the charts tells a different story.
  • Pop singer(s) + producer(s) = the key to contemporary pop success. The top 50 contains very few bands or rappers–it's mostly slick solo singers and collabs. Even the few bands present (Imagine Dragons, Glass Animals, Maroon 5) sound like pop stars. Non-electronic tracks are few and far between, and they're often intimate ballads (e.g. "Someone You Loved," "Say You Won't Let Go", "Let Her Go", "Another Love").

Have a look and drop your own observations in the comments. Or critique my methods (e.g. why did I use ranks instead of just adding the streaming numbers together? Because Apple's list is based on chart points, not streaming numbers, which aren't directly comparable to Spotify's and YouTube's numbers). 

And as promised, here's the top 50 songs and their summed and final ranks:

Edit: oops, didn't like my table. It's prettier in the link above.

artist title summed_rank final_rank

ed sheeran shape of you 7 1

ed sheeran perfect 30 2

the weeknd blinding lights 53 3

lewis capaldi someone you loved 60 4

harry styles as it was 63 5

post malone & swae lee sunflower 64 6

the kid laroi & justin bieber stay 67 7

tones and i dance monkey 68 8

imagine dragons believer 76 9

glass animals heat waves 76 10

luis fonsi despacito 81 11

harry styles watermelon sugar 85 12

dua lipa don't start now 86 13

post malone rockstar 89 14

the chainsmokers & coldplay something just like this 89 15

onerepublic counting stars 89 16

shawn mendes & camila cabello señorita 91 17

dua lipa new rules 94 18

the chainsmokers closer 96 19

billie eilish bad guy 97 20

taylor swift cruel summer 98 21

ed sheeran thinking out loud 104 22

wiz khalifa see you again 104 23

the weeknd starboy 106 24

mark ronson uptown funk 106 25

psy gangnam style 107 26

lady gaga & bradley cooper shallow 107 27

crazy frog axel f 108 28

el chombo, dancing green alien dame tu cosita 109 29

the neighbourhood sweater weather 109 30

drake one dance 110 31

श्री हनुमान चालीसा 🌺🙏| shree hanuman chalisa original video |🙏🌺| gulshan kumar | hariharan |full hd श्री हनुमान चालीसा 🌺🙏| Shree Hanuman Chalisa Original Video |🙏🌺| GULSHAN KUMAR | HARIHARAN |Full HD 110 32

maroon 5 sugar 111 33

camila cabello havana 112 34

tom odell another love 112 35

shakira waka waka 112 36

post malone circles 113 37

katy perry roar 114 38

billie eilish lovely 115 39

katy perry dark horse 115 40

justin bieber sorry 116 41

james arthur say you won't let go 117 42

ed sheeran bad habits 117 43

passenger let her go 119 44

drake god's plan 119 45

elton john & dua lipa cold heart 120 46

maroon 5 girls like you 120 47

imagine dragons thunder 121 48

vance joy riptide 121 49

alan walker faded 121 50