And just like that it is a struggle to find any artist with more than three songs in the Billions Club. Since I've run out of high number artists, I'm going to work backwards from songs and artists who have been added recently. Two weeks ago Kendrick Lamar got his third song in the Billions Club, LOVE. FEAT ZACARI from Damn. It joined Humble, which is closing in on two billion streams with a little over 1.8 billion streams right now. His final Billions Club song is from the Black Panther soundtrack and it features SZA who is a three song Billions Club member herself- all three songs have features or she is the feature. Lamar also has another track from Damn. ready to cross over- DNA.- which has 962 million streams.
But you'd have to say that Lamar is clearly an artist with a capital A and that like a Beyonce, he is not doing it for the hits. A good example of this is the streaming figures from his last record, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, which came out about a year ago, was highly rated by critics and was followed by an arena filling headlining tour- the most streamed track on that record is still at 255 million streams which is...not great.
Like everyone, I respect Kendrick Lamar as an artist, but I'm not a huge fan- as a criminal defense attorney and avid reader of literary fiction I have plenty of experience with the "real life" that Lamar raps about in my art intake, and I've never connected with his rap, even though it is obviously superior stuff from an artistic standpoint.
Sam Smith is a pure pop play, an Artist born and bred for the Spotify Billions Club as much as Ed Sheeran, Adele and Ed Sheeran. Witness Unholy, his latest Billions Club member- it just made the list today, which is impressive because it was released in September of last year, meaning it took about 7 months from release to the Billions Club. Unholy was a monster smash all over the globe but particularly in the UK and the US where it was a number one and a Grammy winner. It marked the first in both categories for a transgender performer, Kim Petras, and also her only appearance in the Billions Club.
Smith has shown an ability common to the more succesful repeat players on this list, which is that they can score Billions Club members via an album single OR from a one off collab OR from a track from movie/tv show etc, or even from songs that are in two of those three categories. Smith has done it both ways and it isn't hard to imagine he could put out another hit tomorrow. Can a Las Vegas residency be far away? Smith is the 16th biggest act in the world according to Spotify.
Big four song update for the Billions Club today with 3/4 songs coming from already profiled artists: Adele, Rihanna and Imagine Dragons. They also updated the total number of songs on the playlist to 389 from 381. Adele's new song, as predicted is Set Fire to the Rain which I understand is a focus of her ongoing Las Vegas residency. Send My Love which had 905 million streams on March 20th, is now up to 910 million streams, so that's a pace of five million streams every two weeks or ten million streams a month, which suggests it will be added to the Billions Club nine months from today.
I already put the Las Vegas Set Fire to the Rain video in the last post, so.
From 3/20/23
BILLIONS CLUB
Adele (5/376)
83/376 = 22%
Adele seems like a good artist to start off the push to 30 percent in the Billions Club project. She is a woman, making her only the third woman of eleven artists discussed. Adele is also the first artist on this list where I've actually met and interacted with people who know her personally. I've never met Adele, but I know people who have. Incredibly, Adele is one of the most, and perhaps THE most indie artist in the Billions Club. She was signed by XL in the UK, one of the best indie labels in the world and her origins were similar to many indie artists of that time and place. What was not similar was the audience response and the international success of her second record, 21, which according to Wikipedia is "the best selling album of the 21st century." 21 came out in 2011, which means that Adele is technically an artist who broke out before streaming took over, though her general lack of productivity over the years has masked just how long she has been around at this point.
The single from her last record, Easy on Me, released in 2021, isn't even her most recent Billions Club member, that being When We Were Young, from 25. There wasn't a second single from 30, probably reflecting the fact that Adele only needs one hit per record in her Las Vegas residency phase. Any betting person would have to believe that Adele has at least one more billion stream hit in her, but there is an open question for her, like there is for Rihanna of whether she will care enough to put up with all the bullshit she would have to go through to get a song to that point.
Like the more active members of the Billions Club it is easy to see her scoring another Billion Club member via a number of avenues outside of a new LP: She could have a theme song for a movie or tv show a la her Bond theme, she could do a duet with one of the other Billions Club artists: Ed Sheeran, Drake, Dua Lipa, Rihanna all seem like legitimate possibilities among the artists I've already covered. I do think though there is a question about what there is seriously left for Adele to accomplish and why she would bother.
I'd imagine you'd be hard pressed to find a human being on earth- at least a human being among the billions of people who live in North and South America, Europe and large parts of Asia and Oceania, you have personal memories about one or more of Adele's billion streamers. Rolling in the Deep was literally inescapable for about 18 to 24 months. Likewise for Hello, which was her lead single from 25 (Rolling in the Deep was on 21.) That is two years of total domination for two different songs.
She's also got at least two more songs poised to make the leap within a year or so- Set Fire to the Rain- which features prominently in her Vegas show:
Is at 980 million streams so it should be any day now. Send My Love, from 21, has 905 million streams. So even if she never releases another new song she will eventually have seven songs in the Billions Club.
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