News & Politics

Taylor Swift Tops DC’s 2022 Spotify Wrapped

Bad Bunny, Kanye West, Drake, The Weeknd are Washington's other Spotify faves.

Spotify has confirmed what we already suspected: Taylor Swift is DC’s favorite artist of 2022.

The 32-year-old singer is having a moment, dominating sales charts, headlining a hotly-anticipated 2023 tour, and quite possibly helping to spur a Department of Justice antitrust probe into much-unloved Ticketmaster. Here in DC, the October release of her latest album, Midnights, prompted the H Street dive bar The Pug to host a gathering for Tay’s fans, while just last week a Swift-inspired holiday bar popped up in Navy Yard.

It’s no surprise, then, that locals streamed Swift’s songs on Spotify more than those of any other artist this year. Of course, that doesn’t take the sting out of the news that Swift’s upcoming The Eras Tour will not include our area—though we certainly can’t blame Swift for not wanting to spend time at crumbling FedEx Field.

Washington’s second favorite artist of 2022, Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny, had been in DC twice this year—playing the Capitol One arena in March and Nationals Park in August.

DC’s fourth favorite artist of 2022, Kanye West, has been the subject of recent discussion in the nation’s capital for reasons that have nothing to do with his music. The musician now known as Ye, who’s been harshly criticized for making antisemitic comments, reportedly had dinner with white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and former president Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago last week. News of the dinner sparked condemnations from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, among other Republicans.

Here’s the full list from Spotify, released as part of the music streaming giant’s annual Wrapped marketing campaign, which celebrates the fun side of surveillance capitalism:

DC’s Top Artists of 2022 on Spotify:

  1. Taylor Swift
  2. Bad Bunny
  3. Drake
  4. Kanye West
  5. The Weeknd

DC’s Top Songs of 2022 on Spotify:

  1. As It Was” by Harry Styles
  2. Heat Waves” by Glass Animals
  3. Me Porto Bonito” by Bad BunnyChencho Corleone
  4. First Class” by Jack Harlow
  5. Tití Me Preguntó” by Bad Bunny

Senior Writer

Luke Mullins is a senior writer at Washingtonian magazine focusing on the people and institutions that control the city’s levers of power. He has written about the Koch Brothers’ attempt to take over The Cato Institute, David Gregory’s ouster as moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, the collapse of Washington’s Metro system, and the conflict that split apart the founders of Politico.