At Last, Taylor Swift Is No. 1 on the Year-End Streaming Songs Artists Chart

Taylor Swift has remained a ubiquitous presence in pop culture for a long while; no doubting that. Her stranglehold on the Billboard charts has, too, been widely touted, ranking at No. 1 on the Top Artists chart for each of the past two years and not straying outside the top five since 2020.

But there’s one prize Swift had never hoisted – until 2024, that is.

Swift’s had her share of streaming wins ever since the weekly Streaming Songs chart began in 2013. Her nine No. 1s are second most among all acts, only to Drake’s 20 (and three ahead of her closest competitors, Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber, each with six). Even still, 2024 marks the first time Swift claims the Top Streaming Songs Artists distinction, after coming as close as No. 2 in 2022.

Explore All of Billboard’s 2024 Year-End Charts

Think of it as a volume thing, in part. In the 2024 chart year (charts dated from Oct. 28, 2023, through Oct. 19, 2024), Swift premiered 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in October 2023, begetting a two-week No. 1 in “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version) [From the Vault]” and the entire top nine of the Nov. 11, 2023, survey. Her encore came in April: new album The Tortured Poets Department, itself armed with a No. 1 in the Post Malone-featuring “Fortnight” for a week and the full top 15 of the May 3 ranking. Tough to argue with a Streaming Songs Artist coronation with that kind of domination.

Interestingly enough, Swift’s top appearance on the year-end Streaming Songs chart is from neither of those releases. “Cruel Summer,” at No. 20, was first released on 2019’s Lover, appearing on Streaming Songs for two weeks that year. It returned to the survey in mid-2023 on the strength of a social media trend, and by the Nov. 4, 2023, ranking – one week before the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) – it was No. 1. It spent many weeks inside the top 20 from there, its last appearance in that range to date being in mid-March.

“Fortnight” follows at No. 23 on the year-end recap, while The Tortured Poets Department’s “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” (No. 36) and “Down Bad” (No. 67) are also on the year-end, 75-position Streaming Songs list, as is “Is It Over Now?” at No. 61.

Swift’s “Cruel Summer” being No. 20 is the lowest on the chart for the No. 1 on Streaming Songs Artists since the ranking began in 2013, the previous low being The Weeknd’s “The Hills” at No. 6 in 2015.

The No. 1 on Streaming Songs, meanwhile, continues a major trendline of the 2020s: the surge of country music on streaming services, as Zach Bryan’s “I Remember Everything,” featuring Kacey Musgraves, takes top honors.

In 2022, the year-end article noted how Wallen was the first country artist to appear in the top 10 of the year-end Streaming Songs chart, a feat that seemed downright otherworldly after a first near-decade of the chart where country songs making the year-end chart at all were few and far between. In 2023, country had an even bigger year on the tally, with Wallen taking top Streaming Songs Artists honors and his “Last Night” being the No. 1 on the songs-based survey, flanked by Bryan, Luke Combs and Bailey Zimmerman on the artists ranking. It seemed country had finally arrived as a streaming force.

Turns out 2023 wasn’t the ceiling. In 2024, three of the top 10 – Wallen, Bryan and Combs – are musicians whose fare is always snugly within the country genre (even if Bryan’s also often blurs the line between singer-songwriter output in both the country and rock worlds). They’re joined by Post Malone; the genre chameleon’s Streaming Songs appearances in 2024 largely skewed country thanks to his star-studded F-1 Trillion album (which notably featured both Wallen and Combs).

As for songs, four of the top 10 are country, much like in 2023. “I Remember Everything” leads largely on the strength of its longevity; though its four weeks at No. 1 on the weekly ranking came in its first six weeks on the chart (Sept. 9-Oct. 14, 2023), the song has never fallen off the tally. In fact, it spent its last week in the top 10 to date in April and often can still be found in the top 20, over a year after its release.

That’s the Zach Bryan way, though. The troubadour’s catalog has long had an impressive shelf life, with 2022’s “Something in the Orange” No. 11 on the year-end Streaming Songs chart after being No. 3 in 2023. “Pink Skies” (No. 21) and “28” (No. 55) both appear on the album he released during the chart year, July’s The Great American Bar Scene.

Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Malone’s Wallen-featuring “I Had Some Help” and Wallen’s “Last Night” (last year’s No. 1) join Bryan in the top 10 at Nos. 2, 5 and 8, respectively. And in all, 23 of the 75 tunes to grace the year-end chart are country, up from 20 in 2023.

Outside of the four (Wallen, Bryan, Combs and Malone) in the top 10 of the year-end artists ranking, Shaboozey also appears on the survey at No. 11, giving the country genre five appearances on the 25-position tally, topping the four in 2023.

But the year wasn’t all about Swift and country’s biggest stars. In 2024, three up-and-coming pop singers made their presences known on the charts, and that popularity extended to streaming services, with Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Benson Boone making their first appearances on Streaming Songs Artists at all, let alone in the top 10.

Carpenter paces the group at No. 4, boasting a top 10 on the year-end Streaming Songs chart with “Espresso” at No. 9, followed by “Please Please Please” at No. 17 and “Taste” at No. 54. Roan, at No. 8, also snags three appearances on the song-based ranking: “Good Luck, Babe!” at No. 19, “Hot To Go!” at No. 42 and “Pink Pony Club” at No. 73. And while Boone (No. 10) only has one song on the ranking, it’s also the highest-ranking of the trio, as “Beautiful Things” reaches No. 6.

With Carpenter, Roan and Boone flanked by fellow pop singers in Swift and Billie Eilish (whose music also skews alternative, though her core genre is considered pop) in the top 10, the pop genre has its best year in the top 10 of Streaming Songs Artists since 2021, when Olivia Rodrigo paced (at No. 1) a group of either pop-centric or pop-adjacent acts (Doja Cat, The Weeknd, Lil Nas X, Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande among them).

Billboard’s year-end music recaps represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts from Oct. 28, 2023, through Oct. 19, 2024. Rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the titles appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology detail, and the October-October time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate.