Ed Sheeran song becomes most streamed Spotify track ever

Ed Sheeran’s 2017 track ‘Shape of You’ from his ‘Divide’ album is now the most streamed track on Spotify ever.

The hit song, which reached number one in dozens of countries around the world, including the UK and America, has to date had over 2 billion streams on the music platform.

Sheeran, who is believed to be worth an incredible £80 million, celebrated the achievement on his official Instagram account. The 27-year-old wrote ‘Thank you world. First song to 2 billion streams on @spotify xx’ accompanied with an official Spotify video stating the same.

Despite the song’s phenomenal success, it has not been without controversy. Sheeran originally released the song in January 2017 as written by himself, Steve Mac and Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid.

However, many listeners claimed that the chart-topping track sounded eerily similar to TLC’s 1999 hit No Scrubs. While it is unknown whether any legal action was taken, Sheeran added the writers of the TLC track to the ‘Shape of You’ credits two months after its initial release.

As of March 2017 Sheeran, Mac and McDaid are listed alongside Kandi Burress, Tameka Cottle and Kevin Briggs as the writers of the track.

Sheeran was the most listened to artist in the world on Spotify in 2017, and despite not releasing a new album this year, he is Spotify’s most streamed British artist of 2018.

He has slipped to fifth most streamed artist internationally this year. Ahead of him is J Malvin, XXXTENTACION, Post Malone and at first place Drake.

Canadian rapper Drake also had the most listened to single and album of this year both in the UK and internationally, with ‘God’s Plan’ and ‘Scorpion’ respectively.

While Ariana Grande was the most streamed female artist internationally and Dua Lipa was the most streamed female artist in the UK.

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