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Kendrick Lamar breaks Spotify record

By | Published on Wednesday 18 March 2015

Kendrick Lamar

So everyone’s really digging Kendrick Lamar at the moment, aren’t they? Word on the street is that all the buzz around his new album ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ has actually been achieved by him making a really good record. But keep that to yourself.

However, do feel free to share this news: Spotify last night announced that Lamar’s new long player has broken the worldwide record for “most streams in a single day”. On its first day, aka Monday, it was played a massive 9.6 million times. And to put that in perspective, that’s…

• One stream for every person living in Sweden. Which is possibly how Spotify achieved this feat in the first place. I think under Swedish law it’s now obligatory to stream at least one album a day on Spotify.

• One stream for every person living in Tokyo. Though Spotify is yet to launch in Japan. So scratch that. Come back in 9.6 million years when the Japanese record industry finally realises it needs to embrace the global streaming brands.

• One stream for every pound made by the movie ‘The Interview’ during its first four days of online release. Even though Lamar opted for the controversial ‘make something good’ strategy here, rather than the easier ‘piss off a dictator’ approach to grabbing the headlines.

• One stream for every person signed up for Obamacare by the end of January this year – none of whom could possibly have been made ill by this album, on account of it not being available back then.

• One stream for every English person who drinks a “worrying” amount of alcohol each week, according to recent research. Though those people were probably too drunk to press play.

• The number of work days lost in the UK each year due to ‘winter blues’. Yeah, that’s a likely story. I bet they all just took the day off to listen to the new Kendrick Lamar record.

• One stream for every person who watched the Tuesday night episode of Eastenders during its recent ‘live’ week. Even though Lamar is very unlikely to fluff his lines.

• One stream for every barrel of oil recently found near Hurghada in Egypt. I can’t help thinking that if I spent more time writing about oil and less making nonsense lists about Kendrick Lamar I’d be making a whole load more money.

I trust that helped.



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