It may be Fred Again, Donna Summer or Barkaa. Your musical “listening age” could be 21, 57 or three. You have listened to 14 minutes or 40,000.
But it’s not likely to feature much Australian content.
On Thursday morning, Spotify released its annual data dump, revealing to users their top songs for the year, the albums they loved the most, the artists they could not get enough of and the audiobooks they devoured.
The platform has also published Australia’s Wrapped list, revealing who we collectively, as a country, listened to and loved together. The results are in – and it is clear: we adore pop and smut.
But notably there were no Australian artists in our top five favourite albums or top five favourite songs, unless you count New Zealand-born and South Korean-debuted Rosé’s collaboration with Bruno Mars – at least she lived in Melbourne for a bit.
Globally, Australia’s top artists were Taylor Swift, Drake, Morgan Wallen, the Weeknd and Billie Eilish, while artists the Wiggles, the Kid Laroi, AC/DC, Hilltop Hoods and Tame Impala took the local top five.
Our top global songs were Ordinary by Alex Warren, That’s so True by Gracie Abrams, Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish, Back to Friends by sombr and APT. By Rosé & Bruno Mars.
The ones we loved from homegrown artists were Riptide by Vance Joy, Don’t Dream It’s Over by Crowded House (who count as Australian and no correspondence will be entered into), Somedays by Sonny Fodera, Nights Like This by the Kid Laroi, and Sweet Disposition by the Temper Trap.
Spotify has come under increasing scrutiny for the way its algorithm saddles local acts with a disadvantage.
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This year the effect was clear in the age differences between the global and local charts – the top Australian album was released two years ago, and the top Australian song is more than a decade old.
This year, former Spotify chief economist Will Page found between 2021 and 2024 the number of Australian artists streamed in Australia declined by 20%.
And while revenue from Australian music increased 25%, the share going to local artists shrank by 30%.
“The algorithms of streaming services might recognise language, but they ignore geography, which means local music is not typically recommended to Australian audiences,” Page said.
“If Australians are to enjoy a vibrant domestic music culture, greater investment in new, local artists is needed.”
This year Spotify introduced a “listening age” calculation, which estimated the typical age of someone who listened to similar songs. The feature is designed to accord with the “reminiscence bump” theory - the idea that people often feel the deepest connection to music they heard between 16 and 21.
However, the feature surprised some users, such as 26 year-old Icelandic singer-songwriter Laufey, whose listening age was calculated as 85 and 37 year-old Grimes whose tastes were nonagenarian.
In podcasts, The Joe Rogan Experience took the number one spot for most popular podcast again, followed by The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlet, The Mel Robins Podcast, Casefile True Crime and Huberman Lab.
Locally, Australians’ love of true crime continued as Casefile True Crime took out the number one top local podcast in 2025. This was followed by Hamish & Andy, The Imperfects, It’s A Lot with Abbie Chatfield and ABC News Top Stories.
Our top five audiobooks were denominated by dragon and fairy smut. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros came in at number one, followed by her other book, Iron Flame. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas came in third, followed by Lights Out: An Into Darkness Novel by Navessa Allen and Quicksilver: The Fae & Alchemy Series, Book 1 by Callie Hart.
With more than 19.8bn streams globally, Bad Bunny is Spotify’s 2025 global top artist for the fourth time after holding the title in 2020, 2021 and 2022 and the global top song of 2025 was Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars’ smash hit Die With A Smile, with more than 1.7bn streams globally.
Morgan Harrington, research director at The Australia Institute, acknowledged the structural problems faced by Australia’s music scene – though he also pointed out it has produced some incredible talent and continues to do so.
“People say Australia suffers from the tyranny of distance, but for decades this actually allowed so many excellent, unique artists to find a national audience,” Harrington said.
“But streaming means Australians are permanently plugged into the rest of the world.
“If we want bands we can be proud of in the future, we have to create policies that give them a chance now.”
The platform has had a controversial year, with artists also pulling their music from Spotify over billionaire co-founder Daniel Ek’s investments in Helsing, a German firm developing AI for military technology. Groups including Massive Attack, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Deerhoof and Hotline TNT pulled their music from the service in protest (Spotify has stressed that “Spotify and Helsing are two separate companies”).
