Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape of You’ becomes first song to reach three billion Spotify streams

Ed Sheeran has finished 2021 on a high note. The pop star has revealed that his 2017 hit, ‘Shape of You’, has become the first song to reach three billion streams on Spotify. 

Sheeran announced the milestone on his Instagram on Wednesday, December 22nd. “I’ve just heard ‘Shape of You’ has reached 3 billion streams on Spotify, which is absolutely insane,” he said in the video. “I remember this song hitting a billion and thinking that that was weird.

The first song to hit 3 billion streams and I’m really, really chuffed with it. Thank you, Spotify, for your support over the years. We’ve had a great 10 years together and hopefully, we have a great 10 years more.”

Sheeran also shared a little backstory on the hit, recalling that he was hesitant about making it into a single on his 2017 album Divide before Ben Cook – former president of Atlantic Records U.K. – luckily intervened.

“The song wasn’t meant to make the album… the album wasn’t done, and when I finished the song, Ben Cook from my record label was basically saying, ‘You  have to put this on the album, it has to be a single,'” he said. “I said to him, ‘I want ‘Castle on the Hill’ to be the first single, that’s going to be bigger.’ We agreed to disagree and put both songs out at once, and I have to say that Ben, I was wrong and you were very much right.”

Cook was proven very right. ‘Shape of You’ is one of Sheeran’s biggest singles to date, spending a total of 59 weeks on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, including 12 weeks at number one. It was a chart-topper in over 34 countries in total, including Australia and the U.K..

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Check out ‘Shape of You’ by Ed Sheeran:

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.