Drake and Future were the most streamed artists in 2017

They took the No. 1 and 2 spots respectively in the best ever year for streaming.

January 03, 2018
Drake and Future were the most streamed artists in 2017 Drake and Future perform in Atlanta, Georgia. July 22, 2016.   Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images for Atlantic Records

Drake and Future were the most streamed artists in 2017, according to a new report in Variety. The top spot was Drake's with 6 billion songs streamed, with Future coming in next with 4.2 billion songs. It's the second year in a row Drake has secured the most streams of any artist in the world.

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The massive numbers for both artists come off of a record-setting year for music streaming. The mode of listening continues to dominate for consumers, and increased by 50.3% in 2017 for 377 billion streams. 80% of that number was from paid subscriptions.

Conversely, digital sales of albums and songs dropped 14.6% and 23.2%. In fact, the daily average of song streams in 2017 (1.67 billion) far surpassed the total number of song downloads for the year (563.7 million).

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Another hip-hop artist with a 2017 milestone: Kendrick Lamar. His single "HUMBLE." was streamed 555.2 million times, the most of any single song.

Drake and Future were the most streamed artists in 2017