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On The Table Read Magazine, “the best entertainment magazine in the UK“, experts have looked at the total play count of Spotify’s top 10 tracks and albums to work out 2023’s top grossing songs!
Spotify Wrapped
The release of the 2023 edition of Spotify Wrapped took social media by storm, with millions of users unabashedly revealing snapshots of their listening habits.
Inspired by this trend, the experts at BestCasinoSites set out to work out how much the top-streaming artists of 2023 may have earned in royalties. To do this, the total play count of Spotify’s global top 10 tracks and top 5 albums were inserted into a royalties calculator, Music Gateway, to uncover each track and album’s estimated earnings.
2023’s Top Grossing Songs
| Rank | Track | Artist | Total number of plays | Approximate global listening time (in years) | Total estimated royalty earnings |
| 1 | Flowers | Miley Cyrus | 1,607,470,758 | 10,195 | £5,529,699 |
| 2 | Kill Bill | SZA | 1,482,849,305 * | 7,194 | £5,101,002 |
| 3 | As It Was | Harry Styles | 2,842,520,081 * | 15,053 | £9,778,269 |
| 4 | Seven (feat Latto) (Explicit version) | Jung Kook, Latto | 1,134,521,316 | 6,584 | £3,902,753 |
| 5 | Ella Baila Sola | Eslabon Armado, Peso Pluma | 992,899,550 | 5,195 | £3,415,574 |
| 6 | Cruel Summer | Taylor Swift | 1,402,514,173 * | 7,916 | £4,824,649 |
| 7 | Creepin’ (with The Weeknd & 21 Savage) | Metro Boomin, The Weeknd, 21 Savage | 1,076,006,566 * | 7,541 | £3,701,463 |
| 8 | Calm Down (with Selena Gomez) | Rema, Selena Gomez | 1,139,328,936 * | 8,635 | £3,919,292 |
| 9 | Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53 | Bizarrap, Shakira | 833,540,648 | 5,656 | £2,867,380 |
| 10 | Anti-Hero | Taylor Swift | 1,259,012,995 * | 7,985 | £4,331,005 |
*Please note, ‘Total number of plays’ accounts for all plays since the song’s release, as some songs were released prior to 2023. The ‘Total estimated royalty earnings’ are based on these all-time figures. The top ten songs are ordered based on Spotify’s record of the most streamed songs in 2023. All data can be found here.
Flowers
BestCasinoSites can reveal Miley Cyrus’ hit single Flowers is Spotify’s top-grossing song of 2023. The lead track off of Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation album, was the singer’s first new music since 2020’s Plastic Hearts.
Flowers is the fastest song to surpass one billion streams on the platform (a feat achieved in just 112 days), and with a total of over 1.6 billion streams, the American artist has potentially earned a whopping £5,529,699 from royalties.
Kill Bill
Cashing in at only £400,000 less, SZA’s Kill Bill comes in second with an estimated royalty earning of £5,101,002. Clocking over 1.4 billion plays to date, the singer went on to release a four song bundle of the single, including acoustic and sped-up versions – the latter of which was inspired by a user-created version which became a huge trend on TikTok. SZA also recruited fellow superstar Doja Cat for a featured version of the single.
As It Was
Capturing the third spot is Harry Styles’ As It Was, which – despite being released in April 2022 – has been streamed more this year, to rise four places since last year’s Wrapped. The single smashed chart records in both the UK and US, potentially generating £9,778,269 in royalty earnings off of a staggering 2.8 billion streams since its release.
2023’s Top Grossing Albums
| Rank | Album | Artist | Total number of plays | Total estimated royalty earnings |
| 1 | Un Verano Sin Ti | Bad Bunny | 15,001,688,920 * | £51,605,809 |
| 2 | Midnights | Taylor Swift | 7,330,559,095 * | £25,217,123 |
| 3 | SOS | SZA | 6,182,155,999 * | £21,266,617 |
| 4 | Starboy | The Weeknd | 12,399,407,233 * | £42,653,961 |
| 5 | MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO | KAROL G | 4,316,251,162 | £14,847,904 |
*Please note, ‘Total number of plays’ accounts for all plays since the album’s release, as some albums were released prior to 2023. The ‘Total estimated royalty earnings’ are based on these all-time figures.The top ten albums are ordered based on Spotify’s record of the most streamed albums in 2023. All data can be found here.
Un Verano Sin I
For the second year in a row, Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti takes the coveted top spot as most streamed album, as well as highest-earning. With over 15 billion streams, the Puerto Rican rapper and singer may have earned a staggering £51,605,809 in royalties.
Midnights
Amid her slew of rerecorded albums, Taylor Swift’s new music release Midnights comes second, earning the star an estimated £25,217,123 from royalties.
SOS
Rounding off the top three is SZA’s SOS, from which her number two most streamed track, Kill Bill, hails. The artist’s sophomore album has potentially generated £21,266,617 in royalties.
Methodology
- BestCasinoSites.net were keen to uncover the top-grossing songs and albums on Spotify this year.
- The experts first acquired the number of streams for Spotify’s top 50 tracks globally, released in its 2023 Wrapped report.
- They then inserted the figures into a royalties calculator, musicgateway.com, to obtain each song’s estimated earnings on the platform.
- The earnings were noted down in GBP (£) and were converted to US Dollars ($) on a currency conversion site, xe.com. The exchange rate was based on the rate on November 29th 2023: 1 GBP = 1.2701284 USD.
- The estimated figures were ranked in descending order to determine the artist potentially racking in the most from Spotify.
- The same method was repeated for the top albums of 2023 to unveil the highest-earning album on Spotify this year.
- Subsequently, the approximate global listening time of each song was obtained by multiplying the duration of each track and its number of streams.
- All data was collected on November 29th 2023 and is accurate as of then.
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