The 33-year-old 'Starboy' hitmaker has been named as the world's most popular musician by Guinness World Records after the Canadian star sets two world records for music streaming.
- Mar 22, 2023
AceShowbiz - The Weeknd's popularity is unrivaled. The "Starboy" hitmaker, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, was named as the world's most popular musician, Guinness World Records revealed on Monday, March 20.
According to Guinness World Records, the 33-year-old Canadian star has set two world records for music streaming. In addition to having the most monthly listeners on Spotify, The Weeknd is the first artist to reach 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
The streaming platform also announced the artist's milestone last month. "It's official: On February 27, The Weeknd became the first artist in Spotify History to reach 100 Million monthly listeners," it wrote at the time.
The surge has been driven in part by the huge success of his "Die for You" remix featuring Ariana Grande which went viral on TikTok. The remix additionally clinched the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 list earlier in March, marking the seventh number-one hit for both musicians.
The Weeknd's milestones didn't stop there. The "Blinding Lights" hitmaker was the biggest winner at the 2023 Juno Awards in Canada. He nabbed four awards, including both artist of the year, songwriter of the year, single of the year for a third time for 2022's "Sacrifice" and pop album of the year for "Dawn FM".
The Guinness World Records additionally revealed that there's a huge gap between The Weeknd's monthly listeners number with next artist on the list. Miley Cyrus is at No. 2 with 82.4 million monthly listeners following the release of her highly-anticipated eighth studio album "Endless Summer Vacation". The others trailing behind include Shakira (81.6 million), Ariana (80.6 million), Taylor Swift (80. 2 million), Rihanna (78.5 million) and Ed Sheeran (77.5 million).
This wasn't the first Guinness World Records award for The Weeknd. Back in 2016, he was presented with two certificates including Spotify's most streamed album in 2015 and the most consecutive weeks in the Top 10 of Billboard's Hot 100 by a solo male artist.
