The Streaming Elite: Apple Music Names All-Time Top 20 Artists
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By all accounts, Apple Music enjoys a pretty good relationship with artists compared to most other music streaming services. Apple has been called a “friend to songwriters,” it pays musicians significantly more in streaming royalties than its biggest rivals, it features artists in big-budget documentaries, and it runs annual Apple Music Awards to recognize outstanding contributions to the music industry.
So, it’s only appropriate that Apple is now highlighting those artists who have made the top 20 on Apple Music, not just for 2025-26, but for all time. Chart Data released the list this week in a collaboration with Apple, and while most of the names won’t come as much of a surprise, they appear in an interesting order and offer a nice look back at just over a decade of Apple’s streaming history.
Apple Music debuted on June 30, 2015, so we’re just shy of its eleventh anniversary, but the top 20 list is a fascinatingly eclectic mix of artists who have dominated the service from the start with more recent chart-toppers.
The first two spots are occupied by Drake, who was on board from day one — to the point of formally endorsing Apple Music at its launch event — and Taylor Swift, who initially planned to withhold her new album, 1989, to protest Apple’s policy of not paying artists for streams during users’ initial three-month free trials. However, Apple relented in time for 1989 to make its streaming debut at Apple Music’s launch.
Nevertheless, Swift had committed to releasing the rest of her music on Apple Music at launch — a move that showed remarkable support for Apple’s new streaming service. The hit artist had pulled her entire catalog from Spotify only eight months earlier to protest the negative impact of streaming on paid album sales, so her complete discography showing up on Apple Music turned out to be a huge feather in Apple’s cap. Two years ago, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was ranked by Apple Music as the 18th best album of all time, and Swift herself was Apple’s Songwriter of the Year in 2020 and Artist of the Year in 2023.
Sitting at number seven is The Weeknd, an artist who has traveled in Apple’s orbit more than most. The Canadian singer-songwriter was arguably the true debut artist on Apple Music, closing WWDC 2015 — the event where Apple Music was formally announced — by premiering his new single, “Can’t Feel My Face,” in a live performance, only hours before it went on sale.
However, the accolades didn’t end there. The Weeknd was selected as Apple’s Global Artist of the Year for 2021 after his 2020 album After Hours became the most pre-added album of all time by a male artist. The Weeknd returned in 2024 to help show off the capabilities of Apple’s latest iPhone Pro models with the entire official music video for “Dancing in the Flames” shot on an iPhone 16 Pro Max, plus the debut of a groundbreaking immersive music experience for the Apple Vision Pro.
Many of the other names on this list have also done much more than passively stream their hits on Apple Music. Future, who comes in third, had one of the biggest premiere hits on Beats 1 radio (now Apple Music 1) when he debuted EVOL on DJ Khaled’s We The Best Radio show in 2016.
Then there’s Bad Bunny, whom Apple crowned Global Artist of the Year in 2022 after his blockbuster album Un Verano Sin Ti shattered worldwide single-day streaming records to become the biggest album in Apple Music history. After that, it wasn’t surprising when Apple named him to headline the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show earlier this year.
Lil Baby was also recognized as Apple Music’s Global Artist of the Year in 2020, and also headlined the inaugural Rap Life Live event at Howard University, with the concert film broadcast exclusively on Apple’s platform. Kanye West also completely rewrote the playbook for Apple Music events in 2021 with his Donda listening parties — massive stadium spectacles that Apple secured the global livestream rights for, breaking platform streaming records. However, a year later the somewhat mercurial artist turned on Apple Music and its rivals by refusing to release Donda 2 on any of them in an attempt to promote his own proprietary hardware player.
Others on the list have intertwined their careers with Apple Music in other ways. Ed Sheeran served as the inaugural performer at Apple Music Live’s first concert in London in 2022, while heavyweights like Kendrick Lamar and Lil Durk have granted Apple exclusive rights to film their massive stadium tours, and Post Malone and Ariana Grande have bypassed traditional media junkets entirely in favor of Apple Music 1 and Zane Lowe’s interview studio to launch their new album eras.
While all of these artists would have undoubtedly done just fine without Apple Music, there’s definitely a synergistic relationship where Apple’s efforts to build deep, transactional relationships with artists have paid off, creating a service that feels more connected to the music than ever — a stark contrast to the more “industrial” feel of Spotify’s heavily algorithmic approach.
