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Danish singer claims all-time Spotify record

'Lean On', the downbeat electronic track featuring Odense native MØ and Major Lazer that has quickly become a club favorite, has soared to be the most streamed song ever on Spotify.

Published: 13 November 2015 08:02 CET
Danish singer claims all-time Spotify record
MØ hails from the island of Funen. Photo: PR
'Lean On', released in March, was streamed as of Thursday nearly 528 million times.
 
It edged out 'Thinking Out Loud', the ballad by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, which just last month was certified with fanfare as the first song streamed more than 500 million times on Spotify.
 
'Lean On', which features a touch of Indian influence on the hook over a downtempo house beat, was a collaboration between Los Angeles-based electronic group Major Lazer and French producer DJ Snake.
 
Danish singer MØ sings the chorus, which goes, “Blow a kiss, fire a gun / All we need is somebody to lean on.”
 
MØ, whose real name is Karen Marie Ørsted, wrote on Instagram that she was “speechless and so fucking happy” about the feat. In a subsequent post, she blew a kiss to her fans from a boat headed to Mexico, saying “life doesn't get better”.
 
 

A video posted by MØ (@momomoyouth) on Nov 11, 2015 at 10:24am PST

 
Major Lazer thanked fans on Facebook, writing, “We only need you to lean on!”
 
The video for 'Lean On' was shot in India and includes a Bollywood-inspired dance sequence, with Major Lazer member Diplo known for his interest in South Asia.
 
DJ Snake marked the milestone just as he started a tour of India, as he resumed live-sets following a car accident.
 
'Lean On' went to number one on the mainstream US singles chart and has also been an especially strong hit in parts of continental Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
 
Swedish-based Spotify, which says it has 75 million active users, is by far the largest company in the growing industry of streaming, which allows unlimited, on-demand music. As streaming has taken off so recently and rapidly, virtually none of the hits on Spotify's all-time list are more than a few years old.
 
Other songs in the top five are a remix of Jamaican reggae singer OMI's 'Cheerleader', 'Uptown Funk' by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, and 'Take Me to Church' by Hozier — all released since 2013.
 
English superstar Adele's new song “Hello” has broken records for its initial performance but is still far below all-time performers with just under 126 million streams on Spotify on Thursday.
 
In addition to the Spotify record, the success of 'Lean On' also made MØ the highest-placed Danish artist on the influential Billboard Hot 100 list in over 60 years. 
 
The singer was also featured earlier this year as one of Rolling Stone magazine’s ‘artists you need to know’ and has performed at a string of high-profile international music festivals. She also appeared on Saturday Night Live alongside Iggy Azalea back in October, although that particular performance did not turn out so well. 
 

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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