2020 PLAYBACK

Playback is SoundCloud’s year-in-review where we celebrate the artists, tracks and moments that mattered most in 2020. See how our community expressed themselves (and connected with each other) through music during a year when everything else felt on pause. 

Here are this year’s most popular creators and music released on the platform, based on our community’s reactions. 

TOP ARTIST

POP SMOKE

We celebrate the life and work of Pop Smoke as our “Top Artist.” The rising Brooklyn drill star was beloved by the SoundCloud community and they continue to show it. 

In 2020 alone, fans streamed Pop Smoke’s music over 191,500,188 times. 

Plays

191.5M

TOP TRACK

BLUEBERRY FAYGO

by Lil Mosey

In 2016 when he was 14 years old, Lil Mosey uploaded his very first track to SoundCloud and quickly gained over 50K streams. Even more people took notice in 2020. 

This year, his double-platinum Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 single “Blueberry Faygo” garnered over 54M streams and over 760K likes. 

Plays

54.6M

TOP REMIX

Different Day (Lil Baby - Emotionally Scarred Remix)

by NLE Choppa

Not only did platinum-selling artist NLE Choppa stop by SoundCloud’s live music discovery program Fresh Pressed to talk about his highly anticipated album Top Shotta, he also earned a spot on our list for his emotionally-charged remix of Lil Baby’s “Emotionally Scarred,” which was streamed on SoundCloud over 7.9M times.

Plays

7.9M

TOP DJ MIX

Halloween IX

by RL Grime

RL Grime’s 9th annual Halloween mix secured the #1 spot for the top DJ set this year. 

Uploaded on October 30, the fan-favorite tradition has been reposted over 5,600 times. Listeners got in the spooky spirit, streaming the set over 546K times in less than one month. 

Plays

551.4K

LONGEST REIGN

STILL WITH YOU

by JK of BTS

Plays

BTS was all the rage this summer, taking not just one but two categories with fan favorite “Still With You by JK of BTS,” released on June 5. 

The track stayed in the #1 spot on SoundCloud’s New & Hot Chart for two straight weeks. 

47.4M

BUZZIEST DROP

still with you

by JK of BTS

The track also received the most engagement from listeners in a single day. 

The BTS Army helped break the record for both “most comments” and “most likes” — 121,981 comments and 512,864 likes — on SoundCloud within 24 hours.

Plays

47.4M

SOUNDCLOUD IN CULTURE

2020 has been a difficult year for many, but creativity positively thrived. Here are some of the emerging movements that bubbled on SoundCloud before they popped anywhere else, the real-time creative responses to events around the globe and some of the rising artists we spotlighted early on that had big breakthroughs in 2020.

ARTISTS

CULTURE

Now that we’ve celebrated SoundCloud’s top creators and moments around the world, it’s time to check out your own personal faves. Revisit the creators that kept you going this year with your personalized playlist, Your 2020 Playback, on SoundCloud now. 

Introduce your friends and fans to the tracks you’ve been obsessing over by sharing Your Playback — you can even add SoundCloud’s custom Playback giphy stickers here.