Music
Why The Weeknd is the most popular artist in the world
The Weeknd continues to break records thanks to his strong streaming numbers, with Guinness World Records naming him the most popular artist.
The Weeknd, real name Abel Tesfaye, is the world’s most popular artist according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
The Weeknd sets two Guinness World Records
The singer became the first artist in history to cross 96 million monthly listeners on Spotify back in January.
He followed that up with 100 million monthly listeners in February, once again becoming the first artist to cross the mark.
As a result, The Weeknd has been recognized with two awards from Guinness Book of World Records:
- most monthly listeners on Spotify - 111.4 million as of March 20, 2023
- first artist to reach 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify
“Abel Tesfaye, more commonly known as The Weeknd, is statistically the most popular musician on the planet, and no one else even comes close,” read the article on the Guinness World Records website.
“The Weeknd currently has almost 30 million more monthly listeners than second-placed Miley Cyrus (82.4 million).
“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).”
These aren’t the only Guinness World Records for The Weeknd either. In 2016, he was awarded the Most Streamed Album of 2015, as well as the Most Consecutive Weeks in the Billboard Hot 100′s Top 10 by a solo male artist.
The new records aren’t all that surprising when you consider that The Weeknd’s 2020 hit ‘Blinding Lights’ is the most streamed track on Spotify of all time, with over 3.47 billion streams as of March 20.
‘Blinding Lights’ is also the longest charting song on the Billboard Hot 100 of all time, with 90 weeks spent on the chart.
The Weeknd recently teamed up with Ariana Grande
The Weeknd’s two new records come after the huge success of his ‘Die For You’ remix with Ariana Grande, which came out last month and went viral on TikTok.
The track hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the seventh time both The Weeknd and Grande have hit top spot.
It was the duo’s fourth collaboration following ‘Love Me Harder’ in 2014, ‘Off the Table’ in 2020 and the remix of ‘Save Your Tears’ in 2021.