The Weeknd is the first artist in history to exceed 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify
Here’s an act that has been popping up a lot in playlist from our readers (yes, we do check what you listen on Spotify out of cheer curiosity really). We guess that The Weeknd’s appeal towards this scene probably lays in the frequent use of electronic and new wave elements in his music.
Today it became clear that The Weeknd has made history as the first artist to reach 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify. As of today, he scored the biggest monthly listener count ever on the platform with 100.4 million. His “Blinding Lights” remains the most streamed song of all time with 3.4 billion streams and counting.
The Weeknd, whose real name is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer. He was born on February 16, 1990, in Toronto, Canada, to Ethiopian immigrant parents. He dropped out of high school at the age of 17 and spent most of his time working on his music, which he uploaded to YouTube under the name The Weeknd.
In 2011, The Weeknd gained widespread attention with his mixtape “House of Balloons,” which was released for free on his website. The mixtape led to a record deal with Republic Records.
The Weeknd’s debut studio album, “Kiss Land,” was released in 2013, his next album, “Beauty Behind the Madness” in 2015. The latter was a commercial success. The Weeknd’s subsequent albums, “Starboy” (2016) and “After Hours” (2020) did even better and especially “Starboy” featuring Daft Punk became a huge success.
The Weeknd’s music is known for its dark and moody themes, and the ability to blend different genres, including R&B, pop, and electronic music.
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Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
