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Spotify’s less expensive subscription plans that exclude audiobook listening have been adopted by about 14% of its U.S. subscribers, according to a new Morgan Stanley survey.
In June, Spotify allowed existing subscribers to opt into “basic” plans without free audiobook listening in exchange for a slightly lower price. The basic plans arose from Spotify’s decision to bundle 15 hours per month of audiobook streaming with the standard premium subscription plans. Around the same time, the company increased the monthly premium subscription fee in the U.S. to $11.99 for individual plans and $19.99 for family plans that allow up to six people per account. The basic tiers provide access to music and podcasts while allowing subscribers to opt out of the audiobook offering.
So far, not many Spotify subscribers are opting for the music- and podcast-only tier. Morgan Stanley’s 11th annual Audio Entertainment Survey found that in 2024, 17% of U.S. individual premium subscribers opted into the less expensive basic plan, while 10% of family plan subscribers chose the less expensive basic tier. While the premium family plan’s percentage of all subscribers dropped only slightly to 25% from 26%, the premium individual plan’s share of subscribers fell to 48% in 2024 from 61% in 2023.
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The basic tiers’ light adoption rates help shed some light on the financial impact of Spotify’s decision to pay a lower mechanical royalty allowed for bundled digital services. In May, Billboard estimated that Spotify would pay $150 million less to songwriters, publishers and PROs in 2024 than they would have if Spotify had not bundled music and podcasts with audiobooks in the premium plans. (That estimate was calculated before Spotify raised premium rates again in June and gave subscribers the option to pay a lower rate for a plan that excludes audiobooks.) Less than a fifth of subscribers have opted for the basic plan, meaning the lower royalty rate of the music-audiobook bundle still applies to the vast majority of subscriptions.
The cost of the premium tier appears to have had a slight impact on consumer sentiment, however. The introduction of the basic plan and the second price increase in as many years coincided with a decline in Spotify’s user satisfaction. The survey found that the percentage of Spotify users who are “very satisfied” with the service slipped to 57% in 2024 from 61% in 2023, while “somewhat satisfied” users increased to 29% from 26%. Among streaming services, YouTube Premium was No. 1 in user satisfaction with 87% of respondents either “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with the premium video platform. Spotify, last year’s No. 1, was No. 2, followed by SiriusXM at No. 3, YouTube Music at No. 4 and YouTube at No. 5. Apple Music had the biggest decline, dropping from No. 2 in 2023 to No. 7 in 2024. Tidal ranked last in user satisfaction with 80% of users either “satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with the service.
Spotify fared well among young consumers. Overall, the platform accounted for 11% of listening time, third behind AM/FM radio’s 25% and SiriusXM’s 12%. But amongst the 18-29 age group, Spotify dominated with 19% of listening time, well ahead of YouTube and AM/FM radio’s 13% shares a piece and SiriusXM and Apple Music’s 9% shares a piece.
Spotify ranked behind only AM/FM radio in terms of U.S. active users. The survey puts U.S. AM/FM listenership at 316 million, about triple Spotify’s 106 million (including both subscribers and free users). Pandora ranked No. 3 with 44 million active users, ahead of Apple Music’s 41 million and SiriusXM’s 38 million. Amazon Music was estimated to have 13 million active users.
Songwriters Jessi Alexander, Amy Allen, Jessie Jo Dillon and RAYE will not be attending or performing at Spotify’s Songwriter of the Year Grammy party slated for Jan. 28, with Allen and Dillon citing Spotify’s treatment of songwriters as the reason for their absence. As a result, four out of five nominees in the Songwriter of the Year category at this year’s Grammys will be opting out of the event. (A representative for the fifth, Edgar Barrera, has not responded to Billboard‘s request for comment.)
Representatives for Allen (“Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter, “Adore You” by Harry Styles and “greedy” by Tate McRae) and Dillon (“10,000 Hours” by Dan + Shay, “Lies Lies Lies” by Morgan Wallen and “Am I Okay?” by Megan Moroney) confirmed to Billboard that they both made the decision not to attend due to Spotify cutting royalty rates on premium streams for songwriters and publishers in April of last year, which Billboard estimated will lead to a $150 million decrease in royalties over 12 months compared to how much they would have made had the royalty rate not been reconfigured.
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Spotify believes it qualifies for a lower mechanical royalty rate for songwriters and publishers because it has added audiobooks to its premium subscription tiers and reclassified those services as “bundles,” with multiple services included in one price. Now, the royalty originally intended for songwriters and publishers alone is split between paying for music and audiobooks.
“After some thought, I couldn’t in good conscience support this initiative given their approach to bundling royalties,” said Dillon in a statement to Billboard. “It is very nice to be individually honored, but it is better for me and my entire songwriter community to be paid fairly for our art. There are no songs without songwriters.”
A representative for RAYE (“Escapism.” by RAYE, “Dancing With a Stranger” by Sam Smith & Normani, “Secrets” by One Republic) says the singer/songwriter never committed to attending or performing at this event, so “there’s nothing for her to back out of at present,” but adds that RAYE has been “an outspoken advocate on behalf of songwriters’ rights igniting an industry-wide dialogue on the topic.” A representative for Alexander (“Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” by Luke Combs, “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus, “You, Me and Whiskey” by Justin Moore & Priscilla Block) confirmed to Billboard that she will not be attending the event but did not provide a reason for dropping out.
A representative for Spotify declined Billboard’s request for comment.
Spotify started its Songwriter of the Year Grammy event to celebrate the nominees for the prestigious writing award, which the Recording Academy established in 2023. Each Songwriter of the Year nominee has been invited to take the stage at Spotify party and sing the songs they wrote for other artists in a room full of their peers.
Other songwriters have taken to social media to express their dismay about Spotify’s upcoming event after receiving Save the Dates from the streamer. Songwriter Ross Golan said, via an Instagram Story, “If you are a songwriter, you cannot go to this. Do not let Spotify f— you on bundling and then give you free booze.” A 2023 Grammy Songwriter of the Year nominee Laura Veltz said in her own Instagram Story, “Spotify is robbing you. Songwriters: do not fall for this horse s—.”
In April 2024, Spotify officially added audiobooks as an offering to its premium tiers (which include premium, family and duo plans). By adding audiobooks, the streaming service claimed it now qualifies to pay a discounted so-called “bundle” rate to songwriters for premium, duo and family tier streams.
At the time, a Spotify representative said that “changes in our product portfolio mean that we are paying out in different ways based on terms agreed to by both streaming services and publishers” and called its decision to reclassify premium tiers as bundles as “consistent” with “multiple [other] DSPs.” Other competitors like Apple Music and Amazon Music do have bundled offerings — including Amazon bundling Prime and Amazon Music and Apple bundling Apple Music and Apple News — but Spotify’s move to make its popular premium tiers into bundles has a much larger impact than its competitors, given that Spotify is the most popular streaming service in the U.S. and the premium tiers are a widely used offering.
“Spotify is on track to pay publishers and societies more in 2024 than in 2023,” the Spotify representative added at the time, citing the company’s Loud and Clear report that says the streamer has paid nearly $4 billion to publishers, PROs and collection societies in the last two years.
The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), and various songwriters did not take the news lightly. The MLC filed a lawsuit against Spotify in May, claiming the streamer “improperly” classified its premium tiers as bundles. The NMPA’s CEO/president David Israelite said Spotify had “declare[d] war” on songwriters and launched a multi-faceted attack that included sending a cease-and-desist for unlicensed lyrics, video and podcast content; unveiling a legislative proposal; and filing complaints with the FTC and nine other consumer trade groups.
Israelite has also voiced his disapproval over Spotify’s Songwriter of the Year party, saying in an Instagram post: “Is this a joke? Spotify declares war on songwriters. Is attempting to gut what they pay them. Is being sued by the MLC. And they think they can throw a party honoring songwriters? I’m at a loss for words. Actually, I’m not. Hubris. Audacity. Crassness. Hypocritical. Cynical. Forward this and add your own word.”
Spotify is celebrating a record-breaking artist with a first-ever concert film. The streaming platform teamed up with The Weeknd to launch a concert film on Tuesday (Jan. 7). The show, Billions Club Live With The Weeknd, is a 45-minute film capturing the star’s recent one-night-only Los Angeles concert honoring his record-breaking 25 songs with over […]
When it came to music stocks in 2024, there was Spotify, and then there was everything else.
The Swedish music streaming company not only had the top-performing music stock of the year, but its share price’s gain nearly tripled the next best company. Despite ending the year on a four-week losing streak during a downturn that eroded an otherwise spectacular year for many markets and indexes, Spotify’s share price jumped 138.1% to $447.38 in 2024.
Layoffs and price increases in 2023 did wonders for Spotify’s financial statements. Headcount was reduced by about 25%, eliminating the bloat gained during a pandemic-era hiring spree that mirrored a boom in subscriber gains. At the same time, Spotify broke with its long-standing tradition of leaving prices untouched by hiking fees in the U.S. and many other major markets — followed by a second price hike in 2024 in the U.S. and U.K. After more than a decade of adding features and expanding editorial programming, the streaming giant believed it could finally raise prices without its customers fleeing to competitors (many of whom raised their prices before Spotify). It was right.
The one-two punch quickly produced results. Perpetually unable to turn a profit, Spotify went from an average quarterly operating loss of 112 million euros ($121 million) in 2023 to an average quarterly operating profit of 296 million euros ($322 million) in the first three quarters of 2024. Gross margin (revenue less cost of sales) shot up, too, from 24.1% in the second quarter of 2023 (the last period before the first price increase) to 31.1% in the third quarter of 2024. Subscribers didn’t just stick around, they grew in numbers, from 220 million before the first price increases to 252 million on Sept. 30, 2024.
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Investors have rewarded Spotify for becoming a more efficient business without sacrificing the product quality necessary in a competitive market. An investment in Spotify on Nov. 4, 2022, when the share price reached an all-time low of $69.29, would have returned 446% by the end of 2024. For a brief time in early December, Spotify’s market capitalization surpassed $100 billion.
The 20-company Billboard Global Music Index gained 38.5% in 2024, easily besting the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (up 28.6%), the S&P 500 (up 23.3%), the Shanghai Composite Index (up 12.7%) and the FTSE 100 (up 5.7%). Because the index is unweighted, Spotify, the index’s largest company by market value, was responsible for much of that improvement. Without Spotify’s gain, the index would have risen just 2.5%.
Streaming and live music accounted for eight of the 10 music stocks that posted gains in 2024, reflecting these companies’ ability to capture the financial benefits of consumers’ willingness to spend more on music. Despite Spotify’s enormous improvement, live music was the best segment with an average gain of 24.8%. Live Nation was the index’s second-best performer with a 38.3% gain, besting German promoter CTS Eventim (up 30.4%), Sphere Entertainment Co. (up 18.6%) and MSG Entertainment (up 11.8%). These companies have benefitted from music fans’ ability to withstand consistently higher prices. Last year, the average ticket price for the top 100 tours was $132.30, up from $119.64 in 2023, according to Billboard Boxscore.
Music streaming stocks posted an average gain of 23.0%. Chinese music streaming companies Cloud Music and Tencent Music Entertainment gained 27.2% and 26.0%, respectively, and U.S.-based LiveOne gained 5.0%. Abu Dhabi-based Anghami and French streamer Deezer were exceptions to music streaming’s banner year. Anghami fell 21.2% while Deezer slipped 37.1%.
Record labels and music publishers — here classified as multi-sector companies — continued to expand their revenue in 2024 but didn’t have the momentum of live and streaming companies. Universal Music Group (UMG) fell 4.2% even though its sales through the third quarter reached 8.4 billion euros ($9.1 billion), up 6.3% from the prior-year period. Warner Music Group (WMG) dropped 13.4% after its revenue for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 rose 6% to $6.4 billion. Both companies’ recorded music streaming revenue grew nicely, too — 7.3% for UMG and 6.9% for WMG — but investors rewarded streaming companies, not record labels, for subscriber and pricing gains.
K-pop companies were down across the board in 2024. HYBE, SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment lost an average of 19.0% last year after gaining an average of 30.0% the prior year. Some of the decrease can likely be attributed to sharp profit declines and uneven revenue growth in recent quarters, though it can also be attributed to the rough year for South Korean stocks in general. The KOSPI composite index dropped 9.6% and was already in poor shape when South Korean Prime Minister Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on Dec. 3.
French music company Believe is an outlier in the multi-sector category, though most of its 37.1% gain can be attributed to the deal in June that took the company private at a 21% premium. Another notable outlier is Reservoir Media, which gained 26.9% without the benefit of a transaction to boost the share price. Instead, Reservoir shares were helped by activist investor Irenic Capital Management LP, which took an 8.1% stake in September and called on the “undervalued” company to “undertake a full review of all alternatives” to maximize shareholder value. From the date of Irenic Capital’s regulatory filing to the end of the year, Reservoir Media shares rose 17.8% while other multi-sector stocks either barely improved or lost value.
Radio companies have not been darlings of Wall Street in recent years, and 2024 was no exception. For all the optimism espoused by broadcast and satellite radio companies, they continue to struggle in an increasingly streaming-based world. The worst-performing music stock of the year was Cumulus Media, which fell 87.4% to $0.67. Through September, Cumulus’ revenue was down 2.4% and its net loss more than doubled. SiriusXM fell 58.3%, with much of that decline coming after the company announced plans to focus on in-car satellite listening after its streaming app, launched in late 2023, failed to catch on with consumers. iHeartMedia dropped 25.8% but ended the year on a high note after exchanging much of its long-term debt to extend maturity dates.
Just a few days in, Kesha is already having a killer 2025. The “Delusional” singer took to X on Thursday (Jan. 2) to crow about the fact that her debut single, “Tik Tok,” is back on top again. “It was 15 years ago that I got my first #1 song! YALL did that. And the […]
Billie Eilish‘s “Birds of a Feather” soared to even higher heights just before the new year, with the Hit Me Hard and Soft track becoming Spotify‘s most-streamed song of 2024. As announced Thursday (Jan. 2) by Interscope, “Birds of a Feather” moved to the top spot of the streamer’s year-end song statistics in the final […]
The Canadian government’s so-called “streaming tax” is on pause.
The CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) revealed in June 2024 that major global streaming companies would be mandated to pay 5% of their annual Canadian revenues into funds that fuel Canadian content. The decision was part of the Online Streaming Act, new legislation that modernizes Canada’s Broadcasting Act for the first time in a generation.
Since then, many of the biggest streaming companies — including Spotify, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Disney — have been fighting the decision in court. This week, the Federal Court of Appeal decided to put the companies’ required payments on hold until their appeal is heard.
The Canadian Press reports that the payments, estimated to be at least $1.25 million each annually, will not have to be made until the court process is finished. They’ve agreed to expedite the hearings to June 2025, with the bulk of the money due in August.
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While pursuing legal challenges, many of the biggest streaming companies have also launched an online campaign to lobby against the decision in the court of public opinion. A group called DiMA (the Digital Media Association) — whose members include Amazon, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, Apple and more — launched a website with a petition and letter-writing campaign under the name Stop the Streaming Tax. The campaign has at least one high-profile advocate in musician Bryan Adams, a longtime critic of CanCon regulations.
The 5% contributions “could lead to higher prices for Canadians and fewer content choices,” the website argues. “As a result, you may end up paying more for your favourite streaming services and have less control over what you can watch or listen to.”
Many Canadian music associations like CIMA (the Canadian Independent Music Association), meanwhile, have praised the CRTC’s decision. In June, CIMA president Andrew Cash called it “good news for the Canadian music sector” and said it “lays the groundwork for a dynamic partnership with digital platforms where Canadian talent can thrive both domestically and internationally.”
The mandated contributions would go to music funds like FACTOR and Musicaction as well as the Canadian Starmaker Fund, funds to support commercial and community radio, and to the Indigenous Music Office and other Indigenous music incubators.
More on this story as it develops.
This story was originally published by Billboard Canada.
Spotify is firing back at Drake’s accusations that the streamer helped Universal Music Group artificially boost Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” calling the allegations “false” and blasting the rapper’s legal action as a “subversion of the normal judicial process.”
The new filing is the first response to a petition filed last month in which Drake accused UMG and Spotify of an illegal “scheme” involving bots, payola and other methods to pump up Lamar’s song — a track that savagely attacked Drake amid an ongoing feud between the two stars.
In a motion filed Friday in Manhattan court, the streaming giant says it has found zero evidence to support the claims of a bot attack, and flatly denies that it struck any deal with UMG to support Lamar’s song.
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“The predicate of Petitioner’s entire request for discovery from Spotify is false,” the company’s lawyers write. “Spotify and UMG have never had any such arrangement.”
Beyond denying the allegations, the filing repeatedly criticizes Drake for going to court in the first place — calling his claims of a conspiracy “far-fetched” and “speculative,” and questioning why Spotify (a “stranger” to the “long-running fued” between Drake, Kendrick and UMG) is even involved.
Spotify also criticized Drake for the way in which he brought his claims to court — not as a full-fledged lawsuit, but as an unusual “pre-action” petition aimed at demanding information. The company accused Drake of using that “extraordinary” procedure because his allegations are too flimsy to pass muster in an actual lawsuit and would have been quickly dismissed.
“What petitioner is seeking to do here … is to bypass the normal pleading requirements … and obtain by way of pre-action discovery that which it would only be entitled to seek were it to survive a motion to dismiss,” Spotify’s lawyers write. “This subversion of the normal judicial process should be rejected.”
A spokesperson for Drake and his legal team did not immediately return a request for comment on Spotify’s filings.
Drake went to court last month, accusing UMG of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the federal “RICO” statute often used against organized crime. He accused Spotify of participating in the scheme by charging reduced licensing fees in exchange for recommending the song to users. A day later, he filed a similar action in Texas, suggesting that UMG had legally defamed him by releasing a song that “falsely” accused him of being a “sex offender.”
The legal actions represent a remarkable twist in the high-profile beef between the two stars, which saw Drake and Lamar exchange stinging diss tracks over a period of months earlier this year. That a rapper would take such a dispute to court seemed almost unthinkable at the time, and Drake has been ridiculed in some corners of the hip-hop world for doing so.
The actions also represent a stunning rift between Drake and UMG, where the star has spent his entire career — first through signing a deal with Lil Wayne’s Young Money imprint, which was distributed by Republic Records, then by signing directly to Republic.
UMG has not yet filed a responded to the litigation in court. But in a statement issued at the time, the music giant called Drake’s allegations “offensive and untrue”: “No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
In Friday’s filing, Spotify echoed that criticism — arguing that civil RICO cases are difficult to prove even with ample evidence, and that Drake hardly has any: “The Petition asserts no specific facts of any kind in support of these alleged RICO and deceptive practices violations,” the company wrote. “Instead, it relies exclusively on speculation … or the claims of anonymous individuals on the internet.”
Spotify’s attorneys seemed particularly focused on disputing the idea that swarms of bots had been able to flood the platforms to fraudulently boost Lamar’s track — a hot-button issue in the modern music industry. In an affidavit attached to Friday’s filing, Spotify’s vp of music offered sworn testimony that the company “invests heavily” in efforts to “mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform.”
“When we identify attempted stream manipulation, we take action that may include removing streaming numbers, withholding royalties and charging penalty fees,” David Kaefer wrote in the filing. “Confirmed and suspected artificial streams are also removed from our chart calculations. This helps us to protect royalty payouts for honest, hardworking artists.”
The Weeknd‘s Q4 career moves have proven the pop star has remained dedicated to finishing the year strong before kicking off 2025 with a bang: He performed a one-night-only stadium show in São Paulo, Brazil in September and released three singles that he debuted during the show: “Dancing in the Flames,” the Billboard Hot 100 No. 3 hit “Timeless” with Playboi Carti and “São Paulo,” featuring Anitta. In October, he took over a handful more stadiums in Melbourne and Sydney during his rescheduled Australian tour. And the following month, he announced his sixth studio album Hurry Up Tomorrow will be released on Jan. 24, and he’ll perform another one-night-only stadium show at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl the day after.
And somewhere in the middle of all of this, The Weeknd also became the artist with the most songs to hit one billion streams on Spotify, with 24 songs in the Billions Club. And nearly 2,000 of his top listeners on Spotify got to relive those hits during Spotify’s first-ever Billions Club Live concert at Santa Monica’s Barker Hangar on Tuesday evening (Dec. 17).
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“It’s a little holiday gift for the OG XO fans supporting me since day one,” he said while blue strobe lights kicked off his 70-minute set. “2024 is almost done. But 2025, we got some new s–t coming out. New album, new tour, new movie. New everything!” His upcoming album Hurry Up Tomorrow, which is the third and final installment of his After Hours / Dawn FM trilogy, will be supported by a psychological thriller film of the same name that will mark the singer’s feature-starring debut.
It’s poetic that the Canadian-Ethiopian superstar (real name Abel Tesfaye) is closing this chapter of his career the same way he started it over a decade ago, with a trilogy of cohesive projects. Outside of his big-picture ideas, he finds clever ways to thread together little details from his entire discography. The popular idiom “this house is not a home,” for example, is a common lyrical theme, which The Weeknd references not only in the 2020 After Hours title track he performed but also dating back to “Twenty Eight” from his 2011 debut mixtape House of Balloons. But for someone as beloved as him, The Weeknd feels right at home on stage even during the remarkably intimate show.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been at a venue like this. Feels like back in the Kiss Land tour or Trilogy tour,” he reflected. “Maybe after the stadium tour, we might go back in time and we might do smaller venues.”
He tapped his frequent collaborator Mike Dean — whom The Weeknd jokingly blamed for his minor coughing fit because he was “hitting that f–king bong all night” — to steer the set “wherever you wanna take it,” before the hip-hop superproducer’s eerie synths introduced Metro Boomin‘s “Creepin,’” featuring The Weeknd and 21 Savage. The Weeknd later summoned his drummer Ricky Lewis to play “Popular,” the platinum-certified hit with Madonna and Carti from his 2023 HBO drama series The Idol. It’s one of two songs from the show to hit one billion Spotify streams, with the other being “One of the Girls” with JENNIE and Lily-Rose Depp. Then, he called on his guitarist Patrick Greenaway to cue the next song — and Greenaway’s scene-stealing shredding summoned “Heartless.” The Weeknd had multiple opportunities to bring out special guests, considering 13 of the 24 songs in the Billions Club are collaborations, but the unprecedented concert felt more suited for his solo victory lap rather than an all-star relay race.
“Oh s–t, this hit a billion?!” he marveled as “Reminder,” from his 2016 album Starboy started playing. The Weeknd warned the crowd of the song’s gunshot background sound during the chorus, a conscious reminder his concertgoers have picked up on from his previous shows. And while this one’s circular stage setup was much simpler than his ornamented stadium show designs, it didn’t stop The Weeknd from making the night memorable: Yellow spotlights flickered as he sang the “I just wanna see you shine ’cause I know you are a stargirl” outro from his and Lana Del Rey‘s “Stargirl Interlude,” and they later twinkled to recreate the grandiose ballroom feel of “Earned It” from the 50 Shades of Grey film. And red strobe lights provoked the sinister aura of his 2015 Hot 100 chart-topper “The Hills” from Beauty Behind the Madness.
He asked if any of his ballads had hit one billion Spotify streams to slow down his set, but the singer was taken aback by the siren-like synth intro of his Gesaffelstein-featuring “I Was Never There” from his 2018 EP My Dear Melancholy, classifying it as more of a “power ballad.” After his 2012 debut single “Wicked Games” (“I know that song didn’t hit a billion, but I felt like I had to do it. It’s necessary, at least one House of Balloons song,” he said matter-of-factly) and “Die For You” — which experienced a TikTok-fueled resurgence six years after its release and produced the Hot 100 No. 1 remix with Ariana Grande — The Weeknd wanted to “pick up the pace” and Daft Punk‘s fuzzy disco-pop production from “I Feel It Coming” instantly got the audience in a groove.
After what felt like the ultimate finisher with “Blinding Lights” — the first song to hit four billion Spotify streams as well as the top Hot 100 song of all time — The Weeknd teased his Hurry Up Tomorrow era by singing a snippet of an unreleased song he’s teased during previous shows, reportedly titled “In Heaven.” “In 2025, everything is fine. In 2025, everything will be fine. I’ll come back for you, XO. But until then, hurry up tomorrow! Hurry up tomorrow! Hurry up tomorrow! Hurry up tomorrow!” he bellowed.
Check out the full set list from The Weeknd’s Spotify Billions Club Live concert below.
“Call Out My Name”
“Moth to a Flame”
“After Hours”
“Lost in the Fire”
“Creepin’”
“Popular”
“Starboy”
“Heartless”
“Reminder”
“Stargirl Interlude”
“One of the Girls”
“The Hills”
“Often”
“I Was Never There”
“Wicked Games”
“Earned It”
“Die For You”
“I Feel It Coming”
“Can’t Feel My Face”
“Save Your Tears”
“Blinding Lights”
Encore:
“Timeless”
“São Paulo”
To close out 2024, Sabrina Carpenter was on countless people’s year-end Spotify Wrapped lists — including her own.
That’s exactly why the 25-year-old pop star didn’t join many of the streaming service’s users in sharing her listening-habit summary on social media this year, she told Vogue Arabia in a new interview published Tuesday (Dec. 10). “When I first saw mine, my initial reaction was, ‘Oh, damn, I can’t post that, because I’m on my own [list],’” she told the publication. “‘It’s a bit conceited.’”
“But then I was like, I guess it’s a good thing that I’m on my list and listening to my own music, because it means I f–k with what I do,” Carpenter added.
The Girl Meets World alum definitely isn’t the only one. In 2024, her smash hit “Espresso” was streamed more than 1.6 billion times on Spotify, making it the app’s most-streamed song of any other upload. Plus, her Billboard 200-topping sixth studio LP Short n’ Sweet was the platform’s third-most popular album, bested only by Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft.
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While on the topic of Spotify Wrapped, Carpenter did reveal which other four artists made her top 5: Dolly Parton, ABBA, Kacey Musgraves and the Bee Gees.
Carpenter is currently on a break from her first-ever arena trek, with the North American leg of the Short n’ Sweet Tour closing in November. The “Please Please Please” singer will get back on the road for a run of European dates in March.
In the meantime, fans can enjoy her new holiday special A Nonsense Christmas, which premiered Dec. 6 on Netflix. Of the project, Carpenter told Vogue Arabia, “It was kind of a s–t show — but in the best possible way. A Christmas s–t show, which is way better than normal ones, because everyone’s festive and dressed up,” she said, revealing that her crew filmed the special in just two days. “You can’t really be mad when everyone is dressed like Christmas. And I’m so lucky that my friends were a part of it, that just made it all the more fun.”