Ed Sheeran is the first artist to reach 500 million plays on Spotify for a single song, the streaming giant announced today. The track in question (and this shouldn't come as any surprise) is Sheeran's hit single "Thinking Out Loud" from his last album, 2014's x. Sheeran might be joined in the half billion streams club soon given all the other crazy Spotify records artists like Justin Bieber, One Direction and Wiz Khalifa have broken this year, but he seemed pretty pleased to set the record. "Chuffed to hear that 'Thinking Out Loud' has had half a billion plays on Spotify," Sheeran said of the news. "Being the first artist to hit that milestone is amazing." He later added, "Thanks to all the people who use this as a wedding song, soundtrack to a date, and as a way to woo someone into a Netflix and chill situation."
What's more, Spotify offered up some just-as impressive stats that break down just how ubiquitous Sheeran's music is on their platform, like how at least one of his songs is featured in 25% of Spotify users' playlists. Sheeran is also the second most streamed artist on the platform with 2.9 billion overall streams. Whose first? Eminem.
Check out a geographic breakdown of Sheeran's popularity below.
