Most of the Top-Streamed Songs of 2022 Weren’t Even Released This Year
Replay, Spotify Wrapped, and the year-end Billboard Hot 100 lists are out! This week, the top streaming service shared personalized data about the top songs, artists, and albums that each of its users listened to in 2022. And they also shared data on the top-streamed songs worldwide — and a lot of the tracks featured high on the lists weren’t even released this year.
Leading the list of Apple Music’s “Top Songs of 2022: Global” playlist is the Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s song “Stay,” which was released in July 2021. The track ranked at No. 3 for Most-Streamed Songs Globally on Spotify.
For Billboard‘s year-end Hot 100 Songs of 2022, “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals — which dropped in 2020 — ranked No. 1. On Spotify, the two-year-old song ranked at No. 2, while it reached No. 6 for Apple Music.
Two songs from October 2021 also ranked high: Kodak Black’s “Super Gremlin” reached fourth on Apple Music’s list and ninth on the Hot 100, while Adele’s “Easy on Me” came in at fifth on Apple Music and fourth on the Hot 100.
Apple Music’s Top 10 ranking for most-streamed songs globally
- “Stay” by The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber
- “As It Was” by Harry Styles
- “Wait For U” By Future ft. Drake and Tems
- “Super Gremlin” by Kodak Black
- “Easy On Me” by Adele
- “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals
- “Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)” by Elton John & Dua Lipa
- “First Class” by Jack Harlow
- “Me Porto Bonito” by Bad Bunny & Chencho Corleone
- “Abcdefu” by Gayle
Spotify’s Top 5 most-streamed songs globally
- “As It Was” by Harry Styles
- “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals
- “Stay” by The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber
- “Me Porto Bonito” by Bad Bunny and Chencho Corleone
- “Tit Me Pregunto” by Bad Bunny
Billboard‘s Hot 100 Songs of 2022
- “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals
- “As It Was” by Harry Styles
- “Stay” by The Kid LAROI & Justin Bieber
- “Easy On Me” by Adele
- “Shivers” by Ed Sheeran
- “First Class” by Jack Harlow
- “Big Energy” by Latto
- “Ghost” by Justin Bieber
- “Super Gremlin” by Kodak Black
- “Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)” by Elton John & Dua Lipa
The seventh spot on Apple Music went to PNAU’s Remix of Elton John and Dua Lipa’s “Cold Heart” from August 2021, while it reached No. 10 on the Hot 100.
To round off Apple Music’s list, TikTok’s favorite “Abcdefu” by Gayle appears at No. 10. And on Billboard‘s list, “Ghost” from Justin Bieber’s album Justice ranked at No. 8 despite dropping in September 2021.
The success of Bad Bunny’s album Un Verano Sin Ti — which was released this year — was palpable across platforms, as Apple Music and Spotify both ranked the project No. 1 on its platforms. Tracks from it also ranked high on its year-end rankings.
On Spotify, Bad Bunny was the most-streamed artist globally for the third consecutive year, while Drake was the most-streamed artist in the United States.
Apple Music also revealed the Top 100 most-read lyrics on the platform, topped by Encanto‘s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno“; and the Top 100 most-Shazamed songs, led by “Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)” by Elton John and Dua Lipa.
If you’re looking for a qualitative ranking of the 100 best albums that actually dropped in 2022, check out Rolling Stone‘s list, led by Beyoncé’s Renaissance.
This story was updated on Dec. 1 at 12:45 p.m. to include data from Spotify Wrapped and Billboard.
