Spotify: Fewer and fewer English songs in pop music

Rosalía recently became the first female singer to win a Brit Award in the "Best International Artist" category for an album with few English songs. Photo: Getty Images

The company reports that last year, its global top 50 featured songs in 16 different languages, including Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, Turkish, Indonesian, and Arabic. This is more than double the figure for 2020.

Bad Bunny, who sings exclusively in Spanish, became the most-listened-to artist in the world. And Brit Award winner Rosalía sings in 14 dialects on her latest album Lux.

Spotify reported that Brazilian funk became the fastest-growing genre in the world, with its audience increasing by 36%. The popularity of K-Pop grew by 31%, and Trap Latino by 29%.

According to company data, all these genres generated over $100 million in royalties for Spotify last year.

However, English still dominates the charts: according to data from IFPI, an organization representing the music industry, 14 of the 20 best-selling albums last year were recorded exclusively in English.

However, the list included South Korean groups Stray Kids, Enhypen, and Seventeen, as well as Japanese rock band Mrs Green Apple – fans are increasingly turning to music that goes beyond typical rock and pop paradigms.

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Blackpink have achieved success as a group and as solo artists, performing songs in Korean, English, Thai, and Japanese. Photo: Live Nation / Blackpink

Last week, Spotify's most-streamed songs chart featured songs by Bad Bunny and Rauw Alejandro (Puerto Rico), Nadhif Basalamah (Indonesia), Tyla (South Africa), Tems (Nigeria), Ryan Castro (Colombia), El Bogueto, Peso Pluma, Neton Vega and Fuerza Regida (Mexico), Blackpink, Jung Kook and Jin (South Korea).

In this regard, the UK still lags behind the rest of the world. Only two of the country's best-selling songs last year featured foreign languages, with both tracks – APT by Rosé & Bruno Mars and Golden by Huntr/x – being predominantly in English with occasional Korean phrases.

Record payouts

Spotify's data was published in its annual Loud And Clear report, which provides detailed information about the global economy of streaming music services.

According to Spotify, last year the streaming giant paid $11 billion in royalties to the music industry, which is $1 billion more than in 2024. The company claims this figure makes it the highest-paying retailer in the world.

In the UK, the company paid artists £860 million in royalties, a 6% increase from the previous year, with over 75% of these royalties generated outside the UK.

Spotify also reports that about 150 British artists earned over £1 million last year, and the number of artists earning over £500,000 has more than doubled since 2018.

In the global list, 80 leading artists earn more than $10 million a year just from Spotify.

However, the Swedish company tried to emphasize that payouts don't just benefit the top one percent of successful artists, stating that "approximately half of the royalties were received by independent artists and labels."

More than 13,800 artists earned $100,000 on Spotify last year, the company added.

The company's well-thought-out transparency policy is designed to answer critics who argue that it underpays artists, who receive between £0.002 and £0.0035 for each song play.

However, it's worth noting that the royalties distributed by Spotify do not always go directly to musicians, as a portion often goes to labels, distributors, publishers, managers, and songwriters.

Meanwhile, several artists, including Massive Attack, Deerhoof, and King Lizard and the Gizzard Wizard, cut ties with Spotify in protest against the company's links to the defense company Helsing.

Daniel Ek, CEO and co-founder of Spotify, was recently appointed chairman of the German technology company, which specializes in artificial intelligence software integrated into combat aircraft and drones, such as the HX-2 AI Strike Drone.

Announcing their decision to remove their catalog from Spotify, Massive Attack musicians stated:

"The economic burden that has long weighed on artists is now compounded by a moral and ethical burden, resulting in money earned by fans and the creative efforts of musicians funding deadly, apocalyptic technologies."

In response, a company spokesperson explained that Spotify and Helsing are "completely separate companies."

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