The Weeknd broke a Guinness World Record for being the World’s Most Popular Artist

The Canadian singer-songwriter The Weeknd has been acclaimed as the “statistically most popular musician on the planet” by the organization Guinness World Records (GWR).

The announcement was made after the musician broke two new records in the Guinness Book of World Records. The first artist to exceed 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify, he also broke the record for most monthly listeners on Spotify.

The Canadian celebrity, whose given name is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, is statistically ahead of his contemporaries, and the study from GWR states that “no one else even comes close” to him.

According to GWR, as of the 20th of March in the year 2023, The Weeknd has 114 million monthly listeners on Spotify, giving him a lead of 30 million over Miley Cyrus, who has 82.4 million listeners.

Shakira comes in third place with 81.6 million followers, followed by Ariana Grande (80.6 million), Taylor Swift (80.2 million), Rihanna (78.5 million), and Ed Sheeran, who is the closest male competitor (77.5 million).

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According to GWR, the rise in The Weeknd’s streaming numbers might be attributed to the release of his remix of “Die For You” which features Ariana Grande.

The Weeknd’s song “Die For You” was first made available to the public in 2016 as a part of the album Starboy. The new version of the song reached its highest position on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 2023, shortly after its release.

In 2016, The Weeknd was awarded their respective Guinness World Records titles for the very first time. He was given the certifications for the album that had the most streams on Spotify in 2015 as well as the album that had the most consecutive weeks spent by a male solo artist in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

A number of his songs have achieved mainstream success, including “Save Your Tears,” “Blinding Lights,” “After Hours,” “I Feel It Coming,” “Loving Me Harder,” and “Out of Time.”