Statistics show that Abel Tesfaye, better known by his stage name The Weeknd, is by far the most popular musician on the planet.
Image Credit: Christian Bertrand/Shutterstock
Owing to his achievement, the 33-year-old Canadian singer has established two new Guinness World Records. The Weeknd was named the ‘First artist to reach 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify’ and ‘Most monthly listeners on Spotify’ with 111.4 million (as of 20 March 2023).
Currently, The Weeknd has around 30 million more monthly listeners than Miley Cyrus, who is in second place (82.4 million). He also handily beats 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).
Image Credit: Guinness World Records/Trevor Traynor
The Weeknd’s rising streaming numbers are a result of the success of his “Die For You” remix featuring Ariana Grande, which gained massive popularity on TikTok.
With the caption, “wrote and recorded a verse for my friend after a 14-hour day on set,” Grande teased the song by releasing a TikTok video of herself in the studio before it was officially released.
@arianagrande ⭐️?
It is their fourth joint project after “Love Me Harder” (2014), “Off the Table” (2020), and the remix of “Save Your Tears” (2021).
The original “Die For You” was released in 2016 as part of The Weeknd’s Starboy album, and it finally topped the charts six years later. It took this song the longest in history to reach number one on the Top 100.
Another 1 Ari ⭐️? pic.twitter.com/e4q98RdRRi
— The Weeknd (@theweeknd) March 6, 2023
The Weeknd has a number of other Guinness World Records accomplishments. He received two certifications in 2016: one for the most streamed album on Spotify in 2015 and another for the most consecutive weeks by a solo male artist in the Billboard Hot 100’s Top 10.
Published by HOLR Magazine.