BILLIONS CLUB: Ariana Grande (9/372)

BILLIONS CLUB

Arian Grande (9/372)

44/372 =  11%

  Damn y'all I forgot about Ari- I also forgot about the Weeknd- who has 10 cuts.  So the BILLIONS CLUB Mount Rushmore would be Ed Sheeran(11), the Weeknd(10), Post Malone(9), Ariana Grande(9) and Dua Lipa(7).   That is over 10% of all the tracks in the world that have more than 1 billion streams.   The threshold questions for any artist in the BILLIONS CLUB is whether they have done it more than once. While not exactly ANY artist can get one song in the BILLIONS CLUB, the one hit members are a much more diverse bunch than the repeat players.  If you look at my hypothetical BILLIONS CLUB Mount Rushmore, all five are well positioned to get future hits on the playlist, but Drake is the only artist of the five that has an existing song that is within shouting distance of the threshold.  He is also the artist who has a song pass one billion streams the most recently- last week, in fact.  Ariana comes in second in that category- her Save Your Tears remix with the Weeknd crossed the billion streams threshold on January 8th, 2023.  That track was released on Spotify on April 23rd of 2021, meaning it made one billion streams in under two years.  Honestly, you would hope a track with two of the top five most billion streamed artists would be able to accomplish more than 500,000,000 plays a year in the first two years.  Isn't that the whole point of releasing such a collaboration as a non-album one off?

  It's good evidence that when you get to the one billion stream level, an album is beside the point.  Just give the label the single and you can keep the rest for your stupid artist mixtape that no one (relatively speaking) is going to hear.

  Grande had four tracks on the original playlist in July of 2021.  Since then she's added three not counting Save Your Tears- in May, July and September of last year.   More interesting than the songs that have already made it is which song will make the BILLIONS CLUB next.  I don't see any obvious candidates on her albums- which suggests her next billion streamer hasn't been released yet, doesn't exist OR will come from one of her non-album collaborations.  Stuck with U with Bieber is at 920 million.  34+35 seems like it would have a shot but they put out a remix that seems popular in its own right- between the two of them they do have one billion streams- 800 something and 200 something million between them both.   And then break up with your boyfriend I'm bored has 855 million.