SINGAPORE — Mandopop superstar Jay Chou continued his reign as Singapore’s most-streamed artiste on Spotify this year, beating familiar names such as Korean boy band BTS in second spot and English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, who was third.

Chou was also the most-streamed artiste here in 2018 on Spotify, a popular music streaming service.

Rounding out the top five of the most-streamed artistes here this year were Singapore Mandopop singer JJ Lin and American pop star Ariana Grande.

SINGAPORE’S MOST-STREAMED SONG

Sultry summer hit Senorita, sung by real-life lovers Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello, burned the airwaves here as Singapore’s most-streamed song, and also notched up more than one billion streams globally in 2019.

Boy With Luv, a collaboration between BTS and American pop singer Halsey, took second place, while Eric Chou’s Chinese hit What’s Wrong was the third most-streamed track here over the past year.

Grande’s viral hit, 7 Rings, took fourth spot and Sunflower — the first single from the animated movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — rounded out the top five.

On the home front, forever-favourite JJ Lin led the pack as the most-streamed Singaporean artiste followed by Stefanie Sun. Relative newcomer Jasmine Sokko, an electronic music singer-songwriter, took third spot as Spotify’s most-streamed local artiste for 2019, with Tanya Chua and singer-songwriter Joel Tan — who is better known by his stage name Gentle Bones — making up the top five.

BTS topped the most-streamed group category, followed by K-pop girl group BlackPink, American band Maroon 5, K-pop girl group Twice, and Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer.

Jay Chou, Sheeran and Lin claimed the top three spots for most-streamed male artistes in Singapore, while the female category was led by Grande, American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish.

Globally, female voices were a force on Spotify in 2019, with Eilish and Grande coming in as the second and third most-streamed artistes globally. At the top of the list: Rapper Post Malone.

Eilish’s album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, was also 2019’s most-streamed album, followed by Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding and Grande’s Thank U, Next.

A LOOK BACK

This year, Spotify also took a look back at the decade and examined the music, culture and streaming through the eyes of fans, artistes and creators.

With more than 28 billion streams to his name, Canadian rapper Drake is the most-streamed artiste of the decade.

Among the five most-streamed artistes in the past decade were Sheeran, Malone, Grande and Eminem.