Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, more commonly known as The Weeknd, is officially the most popular artist in the world, according to Guinness World Records (GWR). In a statement, the organisation stated that the singer-songwriter is ‘statistically the most popular musician on the planet’.
‘No one else even comes close’, GWR stated earlier this week. ‘The Weeknd is the king of Spotify’, the organisation wrote on Twitter. According to GWR, the 33-year-old Canadian singer has set two new world records. He currently has the most monthly listeners on Spotify, with 111.4 million as of March 20. He is also the first artist to reach 100 million monthly listeners on the digital music service app.
Guinness said that Miley Cyrus is the Weeknd’s closest competitor, with 82.4 million monthly listeners. He is also comfortably ahead of Shakira (81.6 million), Ariana Grande (80.6 million), Taylor Swift (80.2 million), Rihanna (78.5 million), and his closest male challenger, Ed Sheeran (77.5 million). ‘The Weeknd’s surging streaming figures come on the back of the release of his ‘Die For You’ remix featuring Ariana Grande, which went viral on TikTok’, the statement read. ‘The track peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the seventh number-one hit for both The Weeknd and [Ariana] Grande respectively’, it added.
Notably, the original ‘Die For You’ was released in 2016 as part of The Weeknd’s ‘Starboy’ album, but it topped the charts six years later. ‘This is the longest climb to number one on the Hot 100 for a non-holiday song in history’, GWR said. The Weeknd is no stranger to GWR. Back in 2016, the Canadian singer won an award for the most streamed album on Spotify, and another for the most consecutive weeks in the Top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 by a solo male artist.
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