Spotify Wrapped NZ: Prince Harry tops New Zealand audiobook charts, Six60, L.A.B dominate playlists

Multimedia Journalist·NZ Herald·

5 Dec, 2024 01:52 AM6 mins to read

Prince Harry has topped the Spotify charts in New Zealand this year. Photo / Composite / Getty Images

Spotify Wrapped has arrived for another year, offering New Zealanders a personalised look at their music, podcast and audiobook preferences over the past 12 months.
Spotify has once again released the data for New Zealand listeners at large, revealing the songs and artists that have dominated local playlists.
Six60 and L.A.B have again reigned supreme, while Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, has surprisingly proven popular among Kiwi audiobook enthusiasts.

Spotify Wrapped has arrived for another year, bringing with it an influx of Instagram activity (“Wow, I can’t believe Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and Drake were my most-streamed artists!”) and online debate (cue the “no one cares” trolls emerging from their holes).

A highly anticipated event on the Chronically Online Calendar, Spotify Wrapped presents a personalised panorama of each user’s listening habits of the past year, diarising their most-streamed songs, artists, podcasts and for premium subscribers, audiobooks, in an eye-catching audio-visual format.

But Spotify Wrapped is also a snapshot of pop culture and the zeitgeist at large, chronicling the most popular music and digital media of the past 12 months. Data is also broken down by country, providing insight into what its userbase has most heavily consumed.

In the case of New Zealand, that would be the The Joe Rogan Experience. But more on that later.

Perhaps surprisingly, New Zealand’s most listened-to audiobook of 2024 was Spare, Prince Harry’s explosive yet divisive 2023 memoir that received lukewarm reviews from critics. It was also reportedly the most discarded book among European tourists last year. Take from that what you will.

When it comes to homegrown talent, Kiwis are a predictable bunch: four of the five most-streamed local artists were a repeat of last year, with Six60 taking the top spot. L.A.B, Stan Walker and Katchafire followed in second, third and fourth place respectively, although this year, Lorde nudged Sons of Zion out of the ranking.

And when it comes to international heavyweights ... again, Kiwis are a predictable bunch. New Zealand’s top five most-streamed artists of 2024 included Drake, Kanye West, Billie Eilish and Eminem respectively. Who is number one, you might ask?

Drumroll, please.

Taylor Swift, of course!

Let’s take a deeper look into the music and media that defined New Zealand’s 2024.

Most-streamed songs

It’s no surprise Six60 and L.A.B both make appearances here, given what we already know. Six60’s iconic 2011 anthem, Don’t Forget Your Roots, snagged fourth place, while L.A.B’s In the Air and Mr Reggae took second and fifth. Third was a wildcard: Brutha Rodz' Heart of a Lion.

And in first place ...

The 2023 radio staple, Blue Eyed Māori by Corella.

When it comes to international artists, TikTok anthem and certified earworm Million Dollar Baby by Tommy Richman came in fourth, followed by the song of the Northern Hemisphere summer, Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso. Lose Control by Teddy Swims and Too Sweet by Hozier were in second and third place respectively.

As for the winner ...

That coveted spot was filled by Benson Boone’s 2024 banger, Beautiful Things. What an alliteration.

Six60 pose on a couch outside their former student flat at 660 Castle Street in Dunedin.

Most-streamed albums

While there isn’t data available on the most-streamed albums by local artists - although it would likely be Six60’s Six60 (2011), Six60 (2015) and Six60 (2019) - there was a top five for international acts. Unsurprisingly, Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft, Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n' Sweet and Benson Boone’s Fireworks & Rollerblades took second, third and fifth place, with SZA’s SOS creeping into fourth.

But alas, who was the top dog?

That blank space was ultimately filled by Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, once again showing how Aotearoa is a Nation of Swifties (despite their queen bypassing New Zealand on her Eras Tour this year).

Taylor Swift performs onstage during The Eras Tour at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario. Photo / Getty Images

Most-streamed podcasts

New Zealand’s most diverse category, 2024’s most popular podcasts were an intriguing blend of raunch, real-life stories, (sometimes questionable) neuroscience, and ... a whole lot of Rogan.

The Joe Rogan Experience (which was also Spotify’s No. 1 podcast worldwide for the fifth year in a row) was followed by The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett, The Morning Shift, Call Her Daddy, and Huberman Lab.

Joe Rogan MC's during the UFC 300 ceremonial weigh-in at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 12, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo / Getty Images

Most-streamed audiobooks

As previously mentioned, Prince Harry’s contentious memoir was, somewhat surprisingly, New Zealand’s book du jour for 2024, beating out the likes of It Ends with Us (very fitting, given the pop-culture-moment that was the film’s deliciously dramatic press tour earlier this year), J.R.R Tolkien’s seminal The Fellowship of the Ring, #BookTok staple A Court of Thorns and Roses, and the self-helper Atomic Habits.

But local literature was also given a Spotify shout-out, with the Herald investigative journalist Jared Savage’s 2020 read Gangland: New Zealand’s Underworld of Organised Crime and its 2023 follow-up, Gangsters Paradise, securing first and fourth place respectively. Rounding out the list were Māori Made Easy by Scotty Morrison, national treasure Sam Neill’s 2023 memoir Did I Ever Tell You This?, and Kāwai by Monty Soutar.