Calvin Harris ends 2024 as the country’s most popular musician – with the DJ racking up nearly double the number of monthly listeners as two other most popular Scottish artists. The 40-year-old singer and producer, of Dumfries, has nearly 59million monthly listeners on streaming service Spotify alone.
Spotify stats show that the songwriter, real name Adam Wiles, has 58,930,893 monthly listeners, making him the 38th most popular artist in the world. And the website’s stats show the places he is most popular are the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne, London, and São Paulo in Brazil, and Santiago, in Chile.
More than 33million listeners tune in to rock giants AC/DC every month, seeing them 149th in the world. The band features Glasgow-born guitarist brothers Angus and Malcolm Young, and vocalist Bon Scott, who was born in Forfar and grew up in KIrriemuir, Angus. All three emigrated to Australia with their families when they were children.
Bathgate’s Lewis Capaldi is next on the list of Scots, with just under 30million monthly listeners. The 28-year-old’s 29,789,147 fans see him ranked 191st in the world, with 633,019 monthly listeners in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Just like Calvin Harris, the five cities where Capaldi is the most popular include Sydney, Melbourne, São Paulo and London.
Aberdeen-born singer-songwriter Annie Lennox has over 18,039,180 monthly Spotify fans in her own right, as a solo artist, while 15,370,572 users enjoy the 70-year-old’s band Eurythmics every 30 days. Colin Hay was born in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, and lived in Scotland until he was 14, when he emigrated to Melbourne Australia, where he formed the band Men at Work.
The band, which was formed in the late 1970s, has 12,562,650 monthly listeners on Spotify. Hay is also plays alongside former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr as part of His All-Starr Band. Glasgow band Franz Ferdinand have 8,719,777 monthly listeners, while fellow Glasgow rockers Simple Minds have 8,259,356 music fans listening to them on the streaming service every month.
David Byrne was a founding member of American band Talking Heads, after emigrating to Canada from Dumbarton when he was two and then settling in the United States. He was lead singer, the main songwriter, and played guitar in the group, which has 7,998,871 monthly Spotify listeners.
Stealers Wheel were formed in Paisley, Renfrewshire, in the early 1970s, by former school friends Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan. The band’s best-known hit – “Stuck in the Middle with You” – reached number 6 in the American charts in 1973, and was used by Quentin Tarantino as the backing music for the murder of a police officer in 1992’s Reservoir Dogs, his debut film.
Stealers Wheel has 6,204,373 monthly listeners, while Rafferty, who died in 2011, has 4,743,961 as a solo artist, and Egan has 11,891. Leith band The Proclaimers have 6,173,218 monthly listeners, Paisley’s Paolo Nutini has 4,065,742, Travis have 2,609,272, Glasgow music legend Donovan has 1,549,146, and Lulu has 368,827.
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond. Sign up to our daily newsletter.