‘We Are Seeing So Many Different Artists Succeed Globally’: Ben Watts Breaks Down Spotify’s Australian Music Global Impact List

Spotify launched its Turn Up Aus initiative in April 2025. Speaking to The Music at the time, Spotify ANZ Managing Director Mikaela Lancaster said the campaign stemmed from a desire to “have full impact, grow the business [and] drive revenue from the Australian market.”

The Turn Up Aus launch came four months after the streamer’s annual Wrapped report, which showed that Australian listeners’ most-streamed artists and songs of 2024 were all from the USA and Canada. Then, in January, Australian acts accounted for fewer than a third of the songs in triple j’s Hottest 100 – the lowest local representation since 1996. 

“We want to continue to grow this market. There's growth left,” Lancaster said of the motivations behind Turn Up Aus.

Today, Spotify releases its Turn Up Aus Global Impact Report, which examines how Australian music is performing with international Spotify listeners. Growth is one of the report’s key findings – specifically, a 37% increase in the streaming of Australian artists internationally from March 2021 to March 2025.

“We're so happy to see that and report it and see Australian artists doing better and better in a greater variety of countries as well,” says Ben Watts, Head of Music for Spotify ANZ, who’s chatting to The Music on the eve of the report’s release.

The USA is the market with the highest percentage of streams for Australian artists, according to the report. The UK is second, Germany is third, Brazil is fourth, and Canada is fifth. Australian artists have also seen major growth in the Philippines, Indonesia, Mexico and France.

The report shows that marquee acts Sia, The Kid LAROI, Chase Atlantic, and Tame Impala received 80% or more of their streams from overseas listeners. “They're doing amazingly well domestically,” Watts says, “but the scale of their global audiences means that inevitably we're going to see 80% or above of their audience be global.”

These acts aren’t alone in reaching international listeners on a mass scale. “Artists are seeing their music pop off in places they can't imagine,” Watts says. “We're enabling them the data to see that happening and then for them to follow up with touring and promotion in those markets.”

Brisbane singer-songwriter Hazlett is an example of an inverse phenomenon, says Watts. “He actually started his career in Spotify's home of Sweden and has kind of spread globally. So, we're seeing such a variety of ways that artists are breaking through globally.”

Hazlett’s single doing my best, released in February, appears at #16 in Spotify’s latest Australian Music Global Impact List, also released today. The list rounds up the top 30 most-streamed Australian songs (or songs that feature Australian artists) by listeners outside Australia in the first half of 2025. I know love by Canadian pop star Tate McRae featuring The Kid LAROI is at #1, while LAROI’s solo single ALL I WANT IS YOU lands at #25.

The release of the Global Impact List follows the publication of Spotify’s Best of 2025 So Far list, which was compiled by Spotify ANZ’s editorial team. Their top albums included Skeleten’s Mentalized, ONEFOUR’s Look At Me Now and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s Phantom Island, as well as hit international releases by Addison Rae, PinkPantheress and Bad Bunny.

Lorde’s What Was That topped their best AU/NZ songs list, appearing alongside Spacey Jane’s Whateverrr, Folk Bitch Trio’s Cathode Ray and Bawuypawuy, the debut single by Yolngu artist Drifting Clouds.

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But none of these artists feature in the Australian Music Global Impact List. The list supports the Global Impact Report’s finding that dance, pop and electronic are Australia’s three biggest export genres.

Beautiful People by Sia and French EDM producer David Guetta is at #2; Dom Dolla’s Dreamin featuring US vocalist Daya is at #3; and Focus by US dance producer John Summit featuring Melbourne artist CLOVES is at #5. Electronica trio RÜFÜS DU SOL and dance acts Timmy Trumpet, Young Franco, BIGMOO, CYRIL, and Odd Mob are also on the list.

“There were one billion export streams in March 2025 of Australian dance music, which is amazing,” says Watts.

The list includes songs by several singer-songwriters and solo acts. Dandelion by grentperez featuring Ruel is at #20; you were mine by 18-year-old folk artist Esha Tewari is at #22; and Milkshake Man by Australia’s 2025 Eurovision representative Go-Jo is at #17.

Meanwhile, Melbourne producer Lithe lands two songs in the top 30: 444 at #18 and Rolling Stone at #28. “Last year, Lithe was one artist who appeared seemingly out of nowhere, even though he released a lot of music and has been working at his craft for so long,” Watts says.

Producer and remixer CYRIL is another 2024 debutant to back it up with two entries in this year’s list. “Their global impact is only increasing over time,” says Watts. “I think that is testament to [how] we're seeing this new wave of artists come through that may not be developing an audience in the traditional manner but are just growing and growing with stature.”

Royel Otis are the only indie rock band on the Global Impact List, with the band’s May single moody appearing at #21. Despite this, Watts emphasises the extent to which global interest in Australian indie rock has surged.

“Indie rock is up 94% in that [March 2021-March 2025] period,” he says. “You see acts like Royel Otis, Dope Lemon doing really well globally. Vacations is another artist who has a massive global footprint and is maybe not quite as big in Australia as they are globally.”

The Global Impact Report names Australia as one of the globe’s top ten music exporters on Spotify, a metric determined by the total amount of royalties paid out to rights holders. Watts is confident that Australian music will continue to perform well on the platform.

“Australian music is culturally unique, it's sonically diverse, and I think we're going to see that growth only snowball and increase over time,” he says. “I just think we are seeing so many different types of artists succeed globally that there's no reason to believe otherwise.”