Anyone looking for statistical proof that Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” is a certifiable smash can find it in Spotify’s announcement that the song had broken the record for the most streams in a single week. The service announced Friday morning that, as of Thursday, “Flowers” had become the most-streamed song in a seven-day period in Spotify history.
As of Friday morning, the latest update for Cyrus’ “Flowers” streams on the site showed that it had racked up 101,838,799 stream since coming out late in the day on Jan 12. On Thursday, it reached the 100 million point faster than any other song ever has to date on Spotify.
“It’s been incredible watching ‘Flowers’ break the record for most streams in a single week,” said Jana Coffey, Spotify’s artist & label partnerships lead, in a statement to Variety. “The song was already off to an amazing start after its first day, and it’s only grown from there. Rather than seeing massive streams on day one that decline throughout the week, each day since release has been bigger than the one before. Miley is back, and with her album ‘Endless Summer Vacation’ coming out in a few months this is just the beginning.”
The previous record-holder for most Spotify streams in a week? BTS’ “Butter,” which very nearly made it to the 100 million mark in its first seven days. It set a then-record with 99.37 million Spotify streams in its first seven days on the platform’s stream counter, getting to the 100 million mark on its eighth day. (Some put an asterisk on the “Butter” numbers, as a subsequent “filtered” total that weeded out streams recognized as attempts to artificially inflate the total lowered the number to 58.1 million.)
The giant results for “Flowers” on Spotify bode extremely well for the odds of “Flowers” coming out on top of the Billboard Hot 100 when that chart’s top 10 is announced on Monday. “Flowers” has been seen as in hot competition with SZA’s multi-week riser “Kill Bill” to claim the Hot 100’s No. 1 spot away from the current leader, Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero.”
Although downloads are not nearly as big of a factor in the Hot 100 as streaming and radio, digital sales for “Flowers” have also been unusually high, with the tune not budging from the top spot on the iTunes song sales chart since it came out eight days ago.
If “Flowers” does prevail in debuting at No. 1, it will be Cyrus’ first song to top the Hot 100 since “Wrecking Ball” a decade ago; that smash remains her lone topper on that chart to date.
Spotify graphic congratulating Miley Cyrus for breaking record
However big “Flowers” becomes, it will still have a way to go in becoming her most-streamed song ever. According to current stats on the platform, her all-time leader there is “Party in the USA,” which has claimed 1.1 billion Spotify streams to date. That song peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100 in 2009.
From Variety US