Ed Sheeran 'nearly broke Spotify' as Divide breaks the record for most streamed album in first week
UK artist Ed Sheeran is capitalising upon his popularity through music streaming service Spotify as the company has revealed he has broke the record for 'best first week of streams for an album'.
Ed Sheeran's Divide album has broken records on Spotify
Sheeran’s album 'Divide’ achieved over 218m streams in four days and 273m streams across the week, breaking the previous record from The Weeknd - 223m streams in seven days upon the release of 'Starboy' November 2016.
The record was sealed between the 3-10 March. Single ‘Shape of You’ sits atop the global number one on Spotify, meanwhile, ‘Galway Girl’ sits at number 2, however, all of the 16 album tracks are in the Global Top 50.
Spotify issued a statement: "It's fair to say that Ed Sheeran nearly broke Spotify this week."
The artist has enjoyed sustained success on Spotify, in October 2015, as he became the first to reach 500m steams. The singer-songwriter initially generated a buzz around the launch of his album as he revealed an exclusive Snapchat lens featuring a clip of his number one hit 'Shape of You' prior to its release.