150 Metal Bands Ranked By Their Spotify Monthly Listener Counts
First-week sales figures still get a whole lot of attention despite their waning importance. While those numbers do retain some meaning, especially relative to one another, I’ve yet to see streaming figures touted in any meaningful, comparative analysis that carries weight in industry discussions.
Of the various, disparate metrics available in the streaming world, I find Spotify’s “Monthly Listeners” measure to be the most useful in comparing one band’s relative popularity to another. Posted on the top of every artist’s main page, the number quantifies how many users actively listened to a band within the past 28 days, and the tally is updated every day for a rolling, current metric. This method of quantification has some flaws — namely that it’ll always favor artists who have released music more recently and will skew towards younger listeners more technologically inclined — but I still think it’s the best measure we’ve got.
So, without further ado, inspired by this tweet, here are the Monthly Listener tallies for 150 well-known metal bands I’ve chosen at random (with help from our own list of the most popular metal bands on the internet):
AC/DC: 17.16 million
Guns N’ Roses: 16.82 million
Linkin Park: 16.64 million
Metallica: 13.38 million
System of a Down: 8.13 million
Kiss: 7.68 million
Disturbed: 7.34 million
A Day to Remember: 6.56 million
Black Sabbath: 6.46 million
Slipknot: 6.35 million
Limp Bizkit: 5.96 million
Motley Crue: 5.8 million
Ozzy Osbourne: 5.26 million
Soundgarden: 5.03 million
Korn: 4.93 million
Def Leppard: 4.93 million
Avenged Sevenfold: 4.79 million
Whitesnake: 4.76 million
Iron Maiden: 4.7 million
Five Finger Death Punch: 4.58 million
Bring Me the Horizon: 4.52 million
Shinedown: 4.31 million
Breaking Benjamin: 4.07 million
Marilyn Manson: 3.96 million
Stone Sour: 3.69 million
Volbeat: 3.56 million
Godsmack: 3.3 million
Motorhead: 3.1 million
Pantera: 3.03 million
Judas Priest: 2.75 million
Megadeth: 2.43 million
Bad Wolves: 2.18 million
Deftones: 2.11 million
Killswitch Engage: 1.95 million
Dio: 1.95 million
Rob Zombie: 1.92 million
Asking Alexandria: 1.9 million
Trivium: 1.74 million
Halestorm: 17.3 million
Sabaton: 1.69 million
Ghost: 1.69 million
Slayer: 1.68 million
In Flames: 1.59 million
Mudvayne: 1.4 million
All That Remains: 1.28 million
In This Moment: 1.27 million
Nightwish: 1.27 million
Lamb of God: 1.26 million
Within Temptation: 1.24 million
Machine Head: 1.15 million
Dragonforce: 1.14 million
Dream Theater: 1.1 million
Sevendust: 1.05 million
Anthrax: 959,000
Danzig: 951,000
Gojira: 889,000
White Zombie: 843,000
Misfits: 827,000
Mastodon: 819,000
Sepultura: 796,000
Architects: 792,000
Airbourne: 753,000
Insane Clown Posse: 622,000
August Burns Red: 612,000
Skindred: 603,000
Living Colour: 595,000
Manowar: 588,000
Clutch: 586,000
Opeth: 582,000
Babymetal: 571,000
Fear Factory: 570,000
Hatebreed: 563,000
Sonata Arctica: 497,000
Testament: 484,000
Thy Art is Murder: 464,000
Lacuna Coil: 446,000
Meshuggah: 421,000
Death: 412,000
Demon Hunter: 409,000
Epica: 408,000
Soilwork: 398,000
Whitechapel: 397,000
Attila: 391,000
Suicide Silence: 388,000
Periphery: 386,000
Type O Negative: 385,000
Soulfly: 384,000
Polyphia: 367,000
Chon: 360,000
Light the Torch: 339,000
Refused: 334,000
Cradle of Filth: 331,000
Cannibal Corpse: 311,000
Dimmu Borgir: 294,000
New Years Day: 282,000
Kreator: 275,000
The Ghost Inside: 271,000
Red Fang: 248,000
Born of Osiris: 248,000
Exodus: 238,000
Emmure: 234,000
3Teeth: 209,000
Tesseract: 205,000
Mercyful Fate: 204,000
Sleep: 190,000
Devin Townsend: 188,000
Rhapsody of Fire: 187,000
The Black Dahlia Murder: 184,000
The Contortionist: 183,000
Plini: 181,000
Between the Buried and Me: 179,000
Carnifex: 164,000
Deicide: 146,000
Alien Weaponry: 136,000
Death Angel: 135,000
Veil of Maya: 226,000
King Diamond: 184,000
At the Gates: 169,000
Dying Fetus: 132,000
Municipal Waste: 123,000
Kvelertak: 123,000
Converge: 123,000
Carcass: 121,000
Unearth: 121,000
Code Orange: 118,000
Torche: 114,000
Shadows Fall: 113,000
High on Fire: 113,000
Myrkur: 109,000
Deafheaven: 107,000
Fleshgod Apocalypse: 101,000
Gwar: 98,000
Celtic Frost: 94,000
Within the Ruins: 91,000
Fit For An Autopsy: 88,000
Darkest Hour: 87,000
Emperor: 85,000
Allegaeon: 80,000
Cult of Luna: 74,000
Revocation: 67,000
The Faceless: 66,000
Cattle Decapitation: 64,000
Isis: 64,000
Neurosis: 63,000
Crowbar: 61,000
Rivers of Nihil: 57,000
Yob: 51,000
Vein: 50,000
Brutus: 47,000
By contrast, here are the Monthly Listener numbers of a few pop stars and hip hop artists:
Ed Sheeran: 69.58 million
Taylor Swift: 40.03 million
Katy Perry: 37.27 million
Maroon 5: 32.24
Beyonce: 28.69 million
Kanye West: 26.91 million
The Weeknd: 26.06
Wiz Khalifa: 20.53 million
Kelly Clarkson: 11.75 million
Dr. Dre: 9.71 million
Nipsey Hussle: 5.62 million
Carrie Underwood: 5.3 million
