The issue, says Ben Watts, Spotify’s head of music for Australia and New Zealand, is how crowded the playing field is on streaming platforms.
“Yes, Australian artists are competing with international artists, but they’re also competing with the history of music, because the audience essentially has the choice of most music that was ever released,” says Watts.
Vance Joy’s Riptide, released 12 years ago, was the top Australian song of the year, again.Credit: Celina Martins
How to make Australian music more visible while still serving subscribers what they want to hear is, he adds, something “we’re constantly talking, as an industry, about. We all want Australian music to continue to grow, both locally and internationally, but how that happens, there’s a lot of discussion about. And it will continue, because we’re all looking for the same thing, which is to grow Australian music.”
If discovery of new Australian music remains a problem, streaming platforms such as Spotify have been a boon for heritage acts. INXS sat at No.5 on the local album chart with the 1987 album Kick, while AC/DC were at No.4 with Back In Black, which came out in 1980 and is the second-highest selling album of all time.
AC/DC’s Power Up world tour, which hit Australia last month, saw a surge of interest in the band’s back catalogue, with five tracks hitting the top 10 throwback songs chart (for music released before 2000): Thunderstruck (#1), Highway to Hell (#2), Back in Black (#3), You Shook Me All Night Long (#5) and T.N.T. (#8).
Brian Johnson, left, and Angus Young of AC/DC. The band’s Power Up tour sparked a surge of interest that saw them chart repeatedly.Credit: Brett Costello
The Wiggles were the most-streamed Australian act of 2025, followed by The Kid LAROi and AC/DC. Tame Impala made the top 10 for the first time, as did Royel Otis, Dom Dolla and Spacey Jane, while CYRIL was the most-discovered local artist of the year.
The podcast charts were similarly dominated by foreign content, with The Joe Rogan Experience at No.1. The most streamed Australian podcast was Casefile True Crime, with Hamish & Andy at No.2.
Top Artists (as streamed on Spotify in Australia)
