Tones And I Is The First Woman To Reach Three Billion Streams On Spotify

Victorian artist and producer Tones And I has broken a new record, being crowned the first woman to reach three billion streams on Spotify.

Tones And I shared the news on social media, sharing a screenshot with a press shot of herself and a caption that read: “@TAG’s Dance Monkey becomes the first song by a female artist to reach 3 billion streams on Spotify.” She reacted to the screenshot with a series of handclap emojis and wrote, “The 👏🏻 first👏🏻 female 👏🏻 in 👏🏻 the 👏🏻 WORLD”.

Last year, Tones And I reached ten billion streams worldwide, with Dance Monkey becoming the highest-streamed song by a female artist. You can find out more about the song’s path to success here.

In April 2020, a year after its release, Dance Monkey became the most streamed song ever by a female artist on Spotify – and that’s after it hit #1 in 30 countries, including Australia.

In 2020, Tones And I had gathered over seven billion streams on all streaming services with Dance Monkey, but at that stage, the song had 1.4 billion on Spotify alone.

“Seeing Tones surpass seven billion global streams of Dance Monkey within 12 months since release is a monumental achievement, and we are incredibly proud of her,” Lemon Tree Music And Artists Only, who co-manage Tones worldwide, told The Music in a statement.

“The management team are very excited for what's to come this year and can't wait for the world to hear the songs Tones has written.”

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This month, Tones And I came out swinging against Universal Music after the record label pulled its music catalogue from TikTok at the end of January.

“If they wanted to make a statement, they should've just pulled the biggest artist from TikTok with their consent,” Tones And I said. “But, to take up-and-coming artists that need this platform off the biggest music marketing platform in the world, to me, is a shame and makes their job and lives and careers even tougher.

“Taylor Swift, whatever… They don’t need TikTok, but all these up-and-coming artists that have signed with Universal now cannot use TikTok as a marketing platform for all their music, whereas artists from different labels can still use their music on TikTok. Universal, while fighting this battle, lets everyone else use their music while maybe even reaping the rewards of this outcome.”