Guinness World Records Names The Weeknd 'Most Popular Artist'

The Weeknd is the world’s Most Popular Artist, as Guinness World Records has revealed in a recent report. 

As the record-reporting publication notes, The Weeknd - aka Abel Tesfaye - is statistically the most popular musician on the planet, and no one else even comes close. As of this month, the Save Your Tears singer has set two new Guinness World Records: Most monthly listeners on Spotify (111.4 million), and the first artist to reach 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

He’s currently so far ahead of who could’ve been the record holder of the most monthly listeners on Spotify, with Miley Cyrus, in second place, with 82.4 million listeners per month. His closest male challenger is Ed Sheeran, with 77.5 monthly Spotify listeners.

Starboy (2016) is now the third of The Weeknd’s albums to spawn multiple number-one singles. This happened after Die For You featuring Ariana Grande went viral on TikTok earlier this year, sending the track to #1 on the Billboard charts.

Starboy follows The Weeknd’s other record-holding albums, Beauty Behind The Madness (2015) and After Hours (2020). Only Michael Jackson achieved that same feat.

In November 2021, it was revealed that Blinding Lights had overtaken Ed Sheeran's Shape Of You, becoming the current most streamed song on Spotify. 

In addition to taking the Spotify crown, The Weeknd made history after Blinding Lights was crowned the #1 song on Billboard’s Greatest Songs Of All Time Hot 100 Chart. 

After spending 90 weeks on the Hot 100 Chart, the Canadian singer dethroned Chubby Checker, who was awarded the honour in 1960 with The Twist.

At the time of writing, Blinding Lights had spent four weeks at #1, 43 weeks in the Top 5, 57 weeks in the Top 10 and 86 weeks in the Top 40.

The Grammy winner spoke with Billboard about the achievement: “By the time Blinding Lights happened, I was ten years into my career and established as a music figure in the industry already.

“So I’m glad Blinding Lights happened when it happened as opposed to it being the first single I’ve ever dropped. That’d be scary for me.”