The Weeknd enters 2022 with 500 million streams on Spotify

Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, has secured the title of the most streamed artist on Spotify just two weeks into the new year.

On January 15, The Weeknd surpassed 500 million Spotify streams. He is the first musician to reach this milestone this year, in part due to his latest album, Dawn FM. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 154k equivalent album sales during its first week.

The Weeknd’s ‘Dawn FM’ debuted at #1 on UK Music Chart

The album also debuted at #1 on UK Music Charts with over 20,000 chart sales, making it Abel’s third #1 on the chart. With no physical version available, streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music accounted for all album sales in the first week of release.

The album garnered 426 million Spotify streams in just seven days following the release of Dawn FM.

Dawn FM, The Weeknd’s fifth studio album, released on January 7, 2022, by XO and Republic Records. It features Jim Carrey, Tyler the Creator, and Lil Wayne as guest vocalists, along with Quincy Jones and Josh Safdie as spoken word artists.

Abel describes the album’s idea as a ride to the “light at the end of the tunnel.” It serves as a follow-up to his fourth studio album After Hours (2020). Dawn FM is an uplifting record with dance-pop and synth-pop tracks largely influenced by new wave, funk, and electronic dance music styles from 1980s. Music critics praised the album’s trippy theme, sound, and melodies.

The singer plans to go on the After Hours till Dawn Stadium Tour in the summer of 2022, which will cover North America, Europe, South America, Asia, Australia, Africa, and the Middle East. The tour will cover both Dawn FM and After Hours albums.

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The tour was originally supposed to begin on June 2020 in Vancouver, and end on November 16, 2020, in London. However, all the initial planned dates were postponed because of concerns over the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and arena limits, and the event will now take place in the summer of 2022.