The Guinness World Records has compiled streaming data from the globe’s biggest stars, and the Blinding Lights hitmaker has come out on top with a whopping 111.4 million monthly listeners.
Miley Cyrus is in second place with 82.4 million monthly listeners, followed by Shakira (81.6 million), Ariana Grande (80.6 million), Taylor Swift (80.2 million), Rihanna (78.5 million), and Ed Sheeran (77.5 million).
It comes after the 33-year-old superstar – whose real name is Abel Tesfaye – trumped Ed Sheeran’s Shape Of You after Blinding Lights became the most-streamed song of all time on the streaming platform.
The report comes just after the Canadian artiste’s Call Out My Name copyright infringement case was settled.
The Weeknd and co-defendants Nicolás Jaar and Frank Dukes were sued by producers Suniel Fox and Henry Strange in 2021, who claimed the track from the singer’s 2018 debut EP My Dear Melancholy was “strikingly and/or substantially similar, if not identical” to their unreleased track Vibeking.
However, on Mar 17, Fox and Strange’s attorneys filed papers confirming both sides had reached a settlement, meaning the case is likely to be dismissed.
The filing, as seen by Rolling Stone, read: “Because the parties are still in the process of formalising, executing, and consummating that settlement, Plaintiff respectfully requests that the Court take all dates off calendar and set a date in 30 days for the parties to file a joint status report if the case has not already been dismissed.”
Jaar had insisted that he had no hand in co-writing the track as The Weeknd used an interpolation of his 2016 song Killing Time.
Fox and Strange – who make up the duo Epikker – argued that the songs contained “quantitatively and qualitatively similar material in their respective lead guitar and vocal hooks, including melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic elements distinctive to Vibeking”.
Despite Vibeking never being released, the pair claimed The Weeknd had heard their song.
