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MUSIC

These were Sweden’s most streamed artists on Spotify this year

Music streaming giant Spotify has revealed the artists and songs people listened to most in 2017.

Published: 6 December 2017 14:59 CET
These were Sweden’s most streamed artists on Spotify this year
Singer Zara Larsson was the second most streamed artist in Sweden. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg / TT

Users in Sweden listened to 19-year-old pop star Zara Larsson more than any other Swedish artist, followed by Håkan Hellström, Avicii, rock band kent and hip hop group Hov1. Veronica Maggio, Lars Winnerbäck, Joakim Lundell, Axwell / Ingrosso, and Miriam Bryant completed the top ten.

Looking at artists from across the world, however, Ed Sheeran beat Zara Larsson to the top spot; the English singer-songwriter’s tunes were the most streamed worldwide, and Sweden was no exception. 

READ ALSO: 'I'm still waiting for my job at Spotify', jokes Obama

This was no surprise considering that his album ÷ (Divide) was the most played album globally and his song Shape of You became Spotify’s most played song ever, with over 1.4 billion listens.

Coldplay, The Chainsmokers, Kygo, Drake, and The Weeknd also made it into the top ten artists streamed in Sweden.

In August this year, Spotify said that the number of people paying to use the platform had reached 60 million,  more than double the base of nearest competitor Apple Music, which in early June said it had 27 million subscribers.

However, Spotify also said in June that it had more than 140 million overall users — meaning that most people listen on its free, advertising-backed tier, which is controversial with many artists.

READ ALSO: 60 million people now pay to use Spotify

 

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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