Within 24 hours of releasing new music, British songwriter Ed Sheeran has smashed Spotify records for the most listened to song.
The 25-year-old star, who hasn’t released new music for over a year, dropped tracks Shape of You and Castle on the Hill this week, and within 24 hours they were played more than 6 million times each.
This surpassed the previously held streaming record on Spotify, by fellow British band One Direction.
Taking to his twitter page on the weekend, Sheeran said he was “truly overwhelmed with the reaction to these new songs.”
He added: “I’ve never had anything like this, thank you for all your wonderful messages.
“Now please blast them out as loud as you can from every speaker you can find, as many times as you can. Lots of love, Ed x.”
Shape of You, Ed explains, was originally thought up with Rihanna in mind, but after he writing it the ginger-haired singer imagined she wouldn’t want to sing the lyrics – so kept it for himself.
Meanwhile Castle on the Hill is a love song for Suffolk, England, where Ed grew up.
“I’ve shot the music video actually in Suffolk and the cast of it are people from my high school. The main guy who looks just like me is weirdly from my sixth form.”
