Rapper Post Malone has broken a new record on Apple Music, releasing a song -- "Rockstar" feat. 21 Savage -- that was streamed over 25 million times in a single week. Apple Music confirmed to The Verge that this officially beats the service's worldwide single week streaming record previously set by DJ Khaled's song "I'm the One."
According to Carl Chery, Apple Music's head of artist curation, Apple has been interested and supportive of Post Malone even prior to the launch of the company's first streaming service, Apple Music. Once Apple Music did launch, Post Malone's "Rockstar" got "prime placement" on some of the most-listened-to hip-hop playlists, including The A-List, It's Lit, and #OnRepeat, helping increase Post Malone's presence on Apple Music.
Chery said that the reason behind the support of "Rockstar" is a simple one: "If we like it, we support it."
Post Malone has shattered Apple Music’s single week streaming record with over 25 million streams of his new single “Rockstar” feat. 21 Savage, the streaming service tells The Verge. The previous record holder for worldwide single week streams was “I’m the One” by DJ Khaled.
“We just have a long history of supporting Post Malone, even before he got signed. ‘White Iverson’ was being heavily supported in iTunes — that song is old enough that Apple Music wasn’t even live yet. We were supporting him heavily back then, and we did the same thing with the Stoney project last year,” Chery says. “The process is pretty simple for us, if we like it, we support it.”
In total Apple Music grabbed 56 percent of the first week streams of "Rockstar" in the United States, and 41 percent worldwide, despite the single being released on multiple streaming services. Apple has been able to acquire large portions of the streaming market for other songs in the past, particularly Drake's "More Life" earlier this spring, and Chery said that this is because the company is "ahead of the curve on them."
The Apple Music executive explained that he heard "Rockstar" pre-release and "knew immediately" how much it would gain traction with fans, allowing the team to place it in the right playlists the week it was released, and grow from there.
“A lot of times on those records where we outperform is because we’re ahead of the curve on them, Chery says.” Chery told me he heard "Rockstar" before it was released and knew immediately that it would be a hit, allowing Apple to move fast and add it to the relevant playlists in the first week. “And to a point, Apple Music becomes the destination where people want to hear that particular record,” Chery said.
Other previous Apple Music streaming records include Drake's album "Views," which became the first album on Apple Music to be streamed more than 1 billion times. Apple is continuously adding content into Apple Music to bolster its subscribers and retain current users, most recently introducing a new social element to the "For You" tab on iOS and macOS, generating even more music discovery among friends and family.
Top Rated Comments
It's like some people here have never walked into an actual music store. You're going to be exposed to music you may not be interested in, but no one's forcing it on you.