Spotify has released the Swedish part of the annual report Loud & Clear, on the distribution of compensation to artists and other rights holders whose songs have been played on the streaming service.
Of the almost two billion kronor that went to the Swedish music scene in 2025, Spotify highlights that 557 Swedish artists received royalty payments of more than 500,000 kronor. That's 27 more than the figure for 2024.
Several Swedish artists have done well internationally during the year. Andy Sloan-Vincent cites Robyn as an example.
It's been a big restart for her, he says.
Ghost and Zara Larsson
The rock band Ghost is also successful abroad, as is Zara Larsson.
Several artists, such as Dennis Lyxzén of Refused and jazz musician Jonas Kullhammar, have been critical of Spotify's compensation levels, which they believe are too low compared with, for example, the heyday of the record industry in the 1990s.
Andy Sloan-Vincent responds that Spotify pays out the same percentage as other streaming services.
It is important to remember that approximately 70 percent of all revenue is paid to rights holders.
He also thinks it's important to remember that the music industry bottomed out when illegal file sharing killed the CD market just after the turn of the millennium. The creation of Spotify reversed that trend.
"It's easy to get nostalgic and forget some of the things that happened. It's a completely different industry now and we look at it very positively," says Andy Sloan-Vincent.
The AI question
Under Spotify's compensation model, all monthly streaming revenue is put into a pool that is distributed to artists based on the proportion of plays they receive of the total. Last year, Spotify revealed that 75 million AI-generated songs had been removed from the service. 100,000 new songs are uploaded to Spotify every day, and the more that are AI-generated, the less money goes to human musicians.
Spotify has tightened its rules over the past year and introduced technology to detect fully AI-generated music. However, there is no general ban on AI technology.
We don't want to decide what tools artists can use in their creation, says Andy Sloan-Vincent.
What matters to us is quality: music that people want to listen to and artists that fans embrace.
Facts: Loud & Clear 2025
Swedish artists generated almost two billion kronor in Spotify royalties in 2025. The corresponding figure for 2024 was 1.9 billion.
557 Swedish artists received more than 500,000 kronor.
Among Swedish artists who earn more than a million dollars from Spotify, over half are either female solo artists or mixed-gender bands, making Sweden a world leader in the category.
Globally, Spotify paid out SEK 101 billion in compensation to the music industry in 2025.
According to its latest quarterly report in February, Spotify has 751 million users globally, including 290 million premium subscribers.
