Guinness World Records names singer-songwriter The Weeknd as world’s most popular artist

KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 — Canadian singer-songwriter The Weeknd has been crowned the world’s most popular artist by the Guinness World Records.

This is after he set two new Guinness World Records titles by being the first artist to reach 100 million monthly listeners on music streaming platform Spotify.

He was also acknowledged for being the artist with the most monthly listeners on the platform with 111.4 million listeners (as of March 20) according to a report on Guinness World Records official website.

The Weeknd or his real name Abel Tesfaye is currently 30 million listeners ahead of second placed Miley Cyrus who recorded a total of 82.4 million monthly listeners followed by Shakira (81.6 million) and Ariana Grande (80.6 million).

His song Blinding Lights which was from his fourth album, After Hours, is also the most streamed track on Spotify with over 3.4 billion streams as of February 2023.

The song has also topped Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You which has been on the top spot since September 2017.

According to the report, another factor contributing to The Weeknd’s surge of listeners is also because of the release of his Die for You remix featuring Ariana Grande earlier this year, which has made waves on short video sharing platform, TikTok.

The track has also peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, thus becoming The Weeknd’s seventh single to hit the top spot.

He is also the only solo male artist to have multiple number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 from multiple albums aside from the legendary Michael Jackson.

This is not The Weeknd’s first time being acknowledged by the Guinness World Records as he broke two records previously in 2016.

The first was for the most streamed album on Spotify in 2015 and the other record was for the most consecutive weeks in the Top 10 Billboard’s Hot 100 by a solo male artist.