American music artists dominate both US and international charts

Though there was no real definitive song of the summer this year (bar an ad jingle that took social media by storm), one thing’s remained clear: American pop stars aren’t going anywhere.

While many international artists are enjoying meteoric rises — reaching new audiences all over the world thanks to global platforms like Spotify, YouTube, and even TikTok — most of the world’s biggest music acts are still born in the US. Indeed, looking at Spotify’s top artists and songs globally for 2024, the majority are American artists; zooming out further, a chart of the platform’s most streamed artists of all time tells a similar story.

Hometown glory

Using 12 months’ worth of data from Spotify’s weekly Top 200 chart, piano-learning app Skoove assessed where the music that different nations listen to actually comes from. Of the 73 nations analyzed, 70 had the US in the top five list of where their most-streamed songs originate.

However, some nations still have a lot of homegrown talent on repeat.

Topping the list for home nation artist fandom is India: with a music industry largely ruled by Bollywood soundtracks, 85% of the country’s streams came from Indian artists.

In fact, Turkey, Vietnam, Italy, and Japan — each with their own thriving national music scene — all saw more than 80% of their streams made up by local artists. The popularity of K-pop music, originating from South Korea, was also more evident in Asian countries like Thailand, though its influence on Western culture is mounting.

Despite international success, no country loves American artists more than America itself, where they take a 79% share of Spotify streams. Even with a massive entertainment industry of its own, UK listeners still look to the US for most of their music, with American artists commanding a 55% share of British plays — considerably more than British artists’ 29%.