Britain’s most streamed songs of the 21st century year by year
Streaming has transformed the way we all consume music and the music industry on the whole. Data has become more readily available than at any other time in history, and now, it’s possible to see the most-streamed track from every year of the 21st century.
There are an array of streaming platforms, such as Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Deezer, but since its incarnation in 2006, Spotify has become the home of music. The Swedish platform has shaken up the music industry as we all have every song ever to be recorded available to listen to in our pocket. While there are ample reasons why the Swedish start-up has been detrimental to artists, most notably the pittance it pays per stream, the statistics offer up an intriguing insight into our listening habits.
In an interview with The Guardian, Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the British Phonographic Industry and the Brit awards, discussed the impact of streaming on British music: “More artists than ever are able to forge a career in music thanks to the global reach of streaming. There are a broad range of deals to choose from and rising label investment is helping to realise their creative and commercial potential, increasing the opportunity to “break through” in a hypercompetitive global market.
“The rise of streaming means thousands of artists are seeing their songs played in the 10s and 100s of millions in the UK alone – in the last year 1,800 artists achieved more than 10m streams – 72% more than the 1,048 who achieved the equivalent number of sales in the CD era. Typically, UK artists will then see four times the number of streams globally to build significant artist revenues from streaming.”
Interestingly, a new investigation sanctioned by the BBC shed light on the biggest winners of the streaming age and revealed the most-streamed songs in the United Kingdom from each year of the 21st century. Surprisingly, most tracks on the list are courtesy of homegrown talent.
The artist with the most entrants on the list is Ed Sheeran, who has achieved this feat on three occasions. In 2014, his track ‘Thinking Out Loud’ was the most streamed song in Britain, and Sheeran again did this three years later with ‘Shape Of You’. Furthermore, in 2021, ‘Bad Habits’ by the Suffolk singer-songwriter was the most listened to across streaming platforms.
Meanwhile, Eminem is the only non-British act to have made the list on two occasions. ‘Lose Yourself’ is the highest streamed track from 2002, and ‘Slim Shady’ followed this up eight years later with his Rihanna collaboration, ‘Love The Way You Lie’.
There are a couple of surprising entrants to make the list, such as soft-rock band Toploader’s ‘Dancing On The Moonlight’ is the song that Brits love the most from 2000, and they also can’t get enough of The Kooks’ 2006 indie-pop hit, ‘Naive’.
See the full list below.
The most-streamed songs of the 21st century in the United Kingdom
2000s
2000 – ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’ by Toploader
2001 – ‘How You Remind Me’ by Nickelback
2002 – ‘Lose Yourself’ by Eminem
2003 – ‘Mr Brightside’ by The Killers
2004 – ‘Let Me Love You’ by Mario
2005 – ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ by Arctic Monkeys
2006 – ‘Naïve’ by The Kooks
2007 – ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ by Arctic Monkeys
2008 – ‘I’m Yours’ by Jason Mraz
2009 – ‘Party In The USA’ by Miley Cyrus
2010s
2010 – ‘Love The Way You Lie’ by Eminem Ft. Rihanna
2011 – ‘Someone Like You’ by Adele
2012 – ‘Let Her Go’ by Passenger
2013 – ‘Riptide’ by Vance Joy
2014 – ‘Thinking Out Loud’ by Ed Sheeran
2015 – ‘Cheap Thrills’ by Sia
2016 – ‘Say You Won’t Let Go’ by James Arthur
2017 – ‘Shape Of You’ by Ed Sheeran
2018 – ‘Someone You Loved’ by Lewis Capaldi
2019 – ‘Dance Monkey’ by Tones & I
2020s
2020 – ‘Head & Heart’ by Joel Corry Ft. MNEK
2021 – ‘Bad Habits’ by Ed Sheeran
2022 – ‘As It Was’ by Harry Styles
