Since India announced a nation-wide lockdown on the 25th of March, people who were holed up in their houses logged on to the various music streaming platforms. While music streaming figures showed a decline initially, they picked up later with various artists releasing new songs while being stuck at home.
Music lovers also discovered newer genres and artists not just from India but globally. In 2020, the audience turned to music in record levels, listening to and discovering more music than ever before.
In this year-end series we shall take a look at the artists, songs and albums which ruled the music streaming platforms in India 2020.
This week we feature one of the world’s leading music streaming platforms, Apple Music.
Biggest Songs of 2020 on Apple Music
It was clear from the day that Roddy Ricch’s debut studio album ‘Please Excuse Me For Being Anti-Social’ was released, that “The Box” would be the standout track. Garnering 13.7 million plays worldwide in its debut week, “The Box” was an immediate standout on Apple Music’s Rap Life playlist as well as the Apple Music Top 100 charts.
While The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” had the second most streams this year, Tones And I with the song “Dance Monkey’” was the third most streamed song. Rounding out the top 5 most streamed songs of the year are DaBaby’s “ROCKSTAR”, featuring Roddy Ricch and “Life is Good” by Future featuring Drake.
Biggest Albums of 2020 on Apple Music
Led by the year’s biggest song, Roddy Ricch’s album ‘Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial’ is the most streamed album of the year. While Lil Baby’s album ‘My Turn’ was the second most streamed album this year, Pop Smoke’s ‘Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon’ comes in at number 3.
Rounding out the top 5 albums are Lil Uzi Vert’s ‘Eternal Atake – LUV vs. the World 2’ and Summer Walker’s ‘Over It’.
Top 10 Artists: India on Apple Music
Arijit Singh
The Weeknd
Post Malone
Drake
Ed Sheeran
Maroon 5
Taylor Swift
Sidhu Moose Wala
Diljit Dosanjh
Eminem
‘WAP’ (feat. Megan Thee Stallion) by Cardi Bi topped the list of Top Most-Read Lyrics in 2020, while ‘Dance Monkey’ by Tones And I was announced as the Top Shazamed Song of the year.
Author Profile
Also read
2021.02.19How has music programming on TV, radio and streaming platforms changed during the pandemic
2021.02.18Interview of the Week – Berges Y. Malu, Director, ShareChat
2021.02.13Are these the greatest love songs?
2021.02.12Interview of the Week – Padmanabhan NS, Head of Artist and Label Partnerships, Spotify