Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye is having a historic week. The R&B/Pop global megastar earned a major accolade on the Spotify streaming platform.
According to Spotify, The Weeknd became the first act to reach 100 million monthly listeners on the service. Tesfaye currently leads the second-place artist, Pop singer Miley Cyrus, by more than 17 million listeners.
“Blinding Lights” has 3.4 billion Spotify streams at the moment. Other songs like “Starboy” (2.2 billion), “The Hills” (1.7 billion), “Save Your Tears” (1.4 billion), and “Call Out My Name” (1.3 billion) also crossed the streamer’s billion-stream mark.
Earlier this month, The Weeknd made history when “Earned It (Fifty Shades of Grey)” earned Diamond certification (10 million units sold). He became the first artist to have three Diamond singles on one project.
The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind the Madness studio LP from 2015 features the Diamond Award-winning “Earned It (Fifty Shades of Grey),” “The Hills,” and “Can’t Feel My Face.” The RIAA certified Beauty Behind the Madness as 6x-Platinum in December 2022.
In addition to a setting Spotify record this week, The Weeknd presented his Live At SoFi Stadium HBO concert special on February 25. The Los Angeles-set show included the XO Records founder performing songs from his After Hours and Dawn FM projects.
The Weeknd also released “Die for You (Remix)” featuring Ariana Grande on February 24. Industry forecasters predict the new version of the Starboy album track will reach No. 1 on next week’s Billboard Hot 100 chart.