Spotify’s 10-Year Canada Wrap: Top Artists and Surprising Stats

Spotify is celebrating 10 years in Canada, and the streaming platform has unveiled some surprising data on Canadian music and global trends. The streaming music service shared its latest anniversary data with iPhone in Canada today.

Over the past decade, Canadian artists have made a huge impact worldwide. Fans globally streamed Canadian tracks over 300 billion times on Spotify, helping Canada become the third-largest music exporter on the platform. Leading this wave, The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” stands as Spotify’s most-streamed song of the decade, hitting over 4 billion streams.

Canada’s music icons like Drake and Céline Dion (our one and only queen) also left their mark. Drake was named Spotify’s most-streamed artist of the year three times in the past ten years. Céline Dion saw a 44% spike in global streams following her Eiffel Tower performance at the Paris Olympics.

Spotify data also shows the changing landscape of Canadian listening habits. Since 2014, streams of songs by women artists surged by a massive 1,475%, totalling over 104 billion plays. Canadians are also proud of their roots; users have created around 500,000 playlists with “Canada” in the title, and even 10,000 playlists mentioning “poutine.”

Canada’s cultural moments also influenced Spotify. When the nation legalized cannabis in 2018, Bob Marley and the Wailers dominated, with five of the top 10 biggest streaming increases on that day.

With 20 Canadian artists amassing 66 songs with over a billion streams, Spotify says Canada is at the forefront of the music industry.

Recently, Spotify did increase its prices in Canada, changes said to be made due to the federal government’s Online Streaming Act.