The Weeknd Sets New Spotify Listening Record

The Weeknd has become the first artist in Spotify history to hit 100 million monthly listeners, the streaming service has confirmed.

The star already has the service’s most-played song of all time, Blinding Lights, which has been played a staggering 3.4 billion times.

His latest accolade comes a few days after he dropped a new remix of Die For You with Ariana Grande.

The 2016 track has enjoyed a new lease of life after going viral on TikTok.

A minor hit when it was first released, reaching number 74 in the charts, it re-entered the Top 40 last week and is set to be a high climber this Friday.

The Weeknd is the first star to achieve 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify – which has a 50% market share in the UK and about 30% worldwide.

To put that in perspective, The Beatles have 27 million monthly listeners, Madonna has 23 million and Michael Jackson has 34 million.

Tesfaye’s closest competition is Miley Cyrus, who languishes behind on 82.5 million, despite the record-breaking success of her current single, Flowers.

If the star’s 100,450,642 listeners had each played just one of his songs, he would have earned $239,072 (£198,176) last month.