Spotify Wrapped 2025 & The Music Trends That Defined the Year

Spotify Wrapped 2025 ran from January 1 to mid-November 2025 (Spotify shortened the window by a few weeks in 2024). Globally, Bad Bunny retained the top spot for the third year running, Taylor Swift dominated the female charts, and the rise of regional Mexican music reshaped the global top 10. Here's the recap — and what the trends tell us about where music is heading in 2026.

Global top artists

Bad Bunny topped the global chart for the third consecutive year, amassing over 18 billion streams across his catalog. Debí Tirar Más Fotos, his surprise album release in early 2025, drove much of that volume. His Spanish-language dominance continues to set a template for non-English global artists.

Taylor Swift remained the most-streamed female artist globally, with The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology continuing to pull streams well into its second year. Drake rounded out the global top three, with For All The Dogs: Scrimmage and the "POV" remix cycle driving additional streams.

Notable risers: Sabrina Carpenter, whose Short n' Sweet became the surprise pop album of 2025; Chappell Roan, whose ascendance from festival circuit to arena headliner was the year's most dramatic arc; and Jimin and other K-pop soloists, who continued to pull massive individual streams outside their groups.

Global top tracks

The most-streamed songs on Spotify globally in 2025:

1. Espresso — Sabrina Carpenter
2. Beautiful Things — Benson Boone
3. Lose Control — Teddy Swims
4. DTMF — Bad Bunny
5. Die With A Smile — Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars
6. BIRDS OF A FEATHER — Billie Eilish
7. Gata Only — FloyyMenor, Cris MJ
8. Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido — Karol G
9. Please Please Please — Sabrina Carpenter
10. Apt. — ROSÉ & Bruno Mars

The standout pattern: 7 out of 10 global hits are non-English or bilingual, reinforcing the internationalization of streaming. Spanish-language music continues to over-index in raw stream counts.

Genre trends

Regional Mexican, K-pop, Afrobeats, and Latin trap continued their multi-year climb. In raw percentage of global streams:

• Latin music crossed 12% of global streams (up from 9% in 2023).
• K-pop held at 8% globally, with growth in Latin America and Africa offsetting softness in Korea itself.
• Hip-hop declined to 18% (from 24% in 2020) — still the largest genre, but no longer growing.
• Pop rebounded to 16%, driven by Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, and Billie Eilish.
• Country crossed 8% globally for the first time, driven by Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan, and Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter continuing into 2025.

Regional breakdown

Spotify Wrapped 2025 by region:

• US: Top artists: Taylor Swift, Drake, Morgan Wallen, Sabrina Carpenter, Zach Bryan. Top track: "Espresso" by Sabrina Carpenter.
• Mexico: Bad Bunny, Peso Pluma, Grupo Frontera, Junior H, Natanael Cano. The dominance of regional Mexican was unmistakable.
• Brazil: The top artist was a local sertanejo or funk carioca act for the eighth straight year, with international acts rounding out the top 10.
• UK: Central Cee, Dave, Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Arctic Monkeys.
• Japan: YOASOBI, Kenshi Yonezu, Ado, Mrs. GREEN APPLE, King Gnu.
• India: Arijit Singh, Pritam, Diljit Dosanjh, AP Dhillon, Alka Yagnik.

The takeaway: streaming has become genuinely global. Every major market has a vibrant local-language scene competing with international hits.

Podcast winners

Spotify's podcast strategy shifted significantly in 2025 after their 2024 layoffs. The top global podcasts in 2025:

1. The Joe Rogan Experience — still dominant globally.
2. Crime Junkie — true crime remains undefeated.
3. The Diary of a CEO — Steven Bartlett's interview show continues to grow.
4. Huberman Lab — Andrew Huberman's science podcast.
5. Call Her Daddy — Alex Cooper's long-running show.

Notable: Spotify's own original podcast production (after the 2024 cuts) is now focused on video and music-adjacent content rather than narrative originals.

What it tells us about 2026

Three trends to watch in 2026:

• The continued rise of regional scenes. Spanish-language, regional Mexican, K-pop, Afrobeats, and country are all growing faster than the global average. Expect more language-switching crossover hits.
• The decline of "TikTok virality first." The 2025 Wrapped list is full of songs that had lasting chart presence, not just TikTok spikes. The platform is rewarding depth over virality.
• AI-assisted production goes mainstream. Several top 2025 tracks had AI co-production credits. Expect this to expand in 2026, with Spotify likely adding AI-disclosure metadata.

The full Spotify Wrapped 2025 dashboard lives at spotify.com/wrapped for the first few months of 2026, after which the data rolls into the broader Spotify app.

FAQ

When does Spotify Wrapped 2026 launch? Typically late November / early December. Spotify announces the dates in October each year.

Does Wrapped work with the modded APK? Yes. Wrapped is account-level, not app-level. The modded APK shows the same Wrapped dashboard.

Can I see my Wrapped history from previous years? Yes — open the Wrapped dashboard in December each year and scroll to access prior years' stories.

How Wrapped actually counts

A few things that are worth knowing about how Spotify counts your Wrapped streams:

• The window is January 1 to mid-November. Spotify shortens the window each year to push users toward the official launch in early December. Anything you listen to in November–December counts toward next year's Wrapped.
• Streams are counted, not play time. A 30-second listen counts as one stream, same as a 4-minute song. Skipping early doesn't disqualify the stream if Spotify's heuristic decides the song "played."
• Podcasts count separately. Your top artists list is music-only; podcasts have their own rankings.
• Family plan streams are per-account. If you share a Family plan, each member's Wrapped is individual.
• The modded APK counts the same as the official client. Streams are tracked at the Spotify account level, not the app level. Whether you listen on the modded client or the official app, the data is the same.

Criticisms of Wrapped

Wrapped is a marketing campaign as much as it is a data product. A few honest critiques:

• It favors high-stream, low-attention listening. A song on repeat for 8 hours a day will dominate your "top tracks," even if you barely engaged with it. Wrapped rewards volume, not depth.
• Privacy concerns. Spotify harvests Wrapped data aggressively. The dashboard is sharable to social, which drives new user acquisition. There's a privacy trade-off there.
• Algorithm dependence. "Your Sound" personality assignments are largely driven by the algorithm Spotify wants to promote, not pure data analysis.
• Excludes niche genres. If you listen to a lot of micro-genre music (e.g., vaporwave, niche jazz subgenres), Wrapped tends to flatten them into broader buckets.

That said, Wrapped remains the most-watched annual moment in streaming. For users who care about their own listening data, the underlying Wrapped dashboard (accessible all year via spotify.com/wrapped) is genuinely useful — even if the social-share version is more marketing than insight.