Cheers To 10 Years of Spotify in Canada
Since launching in Canada in 2014, Spotify has been the go-to audio platform for Canadians while also providing a home for artists, creators, authors, and listeners alike. And yesterday, to honor our partnership with those communities over the last 10 years, our team in Canada flung open the doors to our Toronto HQ to welcome them for a day of events and entertainment celebrating Spotify’s journey with Canadians.
Featuring performances by Québec-based singer-songwriter Claudia Bouvette and country artist Cameron Whitcomb, alongside a fireside chat with author Uzma Jalaluddin for Spotify’s “Audiobook Club,” the open house encapsulated how Spotify has helped to broadcast Canadians’ unique diversity and culture around the world, as well as from coast-to-coast-to-coast.
A decade of helping to grow Canadian talent
For a decade, Spotify has been proud to help put Canada’s talent on a global stage—from Toronto’s Drake and The Weeknd, to Calgary’s Tate McRae and Québec’s Patrick Watson and Les Cowboys Fringants. Twenty Canadian artists have a total of 66 tracks that have achieved more than one billion streams on Spotify. Drake has been the most-streamed artist of the year globally on Spotify three times over the last decade. And The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” is the most-streamed song of the decade globally with more than 4 billion streams.
To help Canadian artists build their profiles, Spotify harnesses tools and experiences that only streaming can bring to Canada. Through groundbreaking features like AI DJ, daylist, and AI Playlist that all launched in the last year alone, best-in-class ways for artists to choose how to engage with their fans, and the power of Spotify’s editorial playlists, Spotify has transformed the way Canadians discover and enjoy audio content.
This year, Canada was amongst the first five markets in the world to be able to access Audiobooks in Spotify Premium. And to give just one example of Canadians’ appetite for all things audio, after just 100 days of French-language audiobooks being available on Premium in Québec, Spotify grew listenership of its French titles by 2,461% and three of the top five most listened to audiobooks in Québec are in French.
Québécois musicians are also engaging with Spotify’s community of fans through artist- or editor- curated playlists such as Du Québec and Rap québ. More than a sixth of our users globally have engaged with French music or podcasts on Spotify worldwide in the last year. Patrick Watson’s “Je te laisserai des mots” was the most-streamed Francophone track on Spotify around the world in 2023 and 2024.
Canadian artists launch to global success on Spotify
Spotify Canada has also compiled its ‘Global Impact List,’ which tracks Canada’s most listened-to songs as exports from January 2024 through October 2024:
- JENNIE, Lily-Rose Depp, and The Weeknd – “One Of The Girls”
- Tate McRae – “greedy”
- Daft Punk and The Weeknd – “Starboy”
- The Weeknd – “Blinding Lights”
- Madonna, Playboi Carti – and The Weeknd, “Popular” from The Idol Vol. 1 (Music from the HBO Original Series)
- The Weeknd – “Die For You”
- Drake, Kyla, and Wizkid – “One Dance”
- Justin Bieber and The Kid LAROI– “STAY”
- Ruth B. – “Dandelions”
- Lana Del Rey and The Weeknd – “Stargirl Interlude”
These artists contribute to making Canada the third largest music exporter in the world on Spotify, with Canadian rights holders generating more than $400 million in royalties from streams outside of Canada in 2023. And in that time, Canadian music artists were discovered by first-time listeners on Spotify more than 3.8 billion times.
Championing a Canadian ecosystem that works for artists, creators, fans, and platforms alike
The success of the current streaming ecosystem in Canada speaks for itself: In a given week, Spotify users in Canada typically listen to over 600,000 distinct Canadian tracks. That’s over 83 times the rate at which unique Canadian songs are played on Canadian radio. No other music distribution channel comes close to exposing Canadians to this level of diversity of Canadian music.
Spotify’s active support has been crucial in fostering Canadian culture across a range of communities, spaces and genres. Together with artists, authors, creators and fans, we’re building a Canadian audio ecosystem that has, rightfully, become a beloved part of Canada’s cultural landscape. Here’s to the next 10 years and beyond.
