Lewis Capaldi’s 2018 song ‘Someone You Loved’ has surpassed Ed Sheeran as the UK’s most streamed song of all time.
The Scottish singer-songwriter has been crowned the new “king of streaming”, overtaking Sheeran’s ‘Shape Of You’, according to Official Charts data.
“I’m the streaming king! In the UK! On this particular song! I feel huge, I feel massive, I feel my loins expanding as I become more and more aware of the reality of my coronation as the king of music. Thank you,” Capaldi told Official Charts. “A very large accolade that I will now shoulder for the rest of my life, or until Ed Sheeran releases his next album…”
He added: “Listen…The Beatles, Drake, Metallica, The Eagles, Michael Jackson, don’t worry guys, no hard feelings, I just had to take this one. Take a step back and let Daddy steer the ship now, ok?”
Joking about overtaking his friend and musical peer, the singer continued: “Ed’s a man who is like a brother to me, he’s been a mentor, he’s put his arm round me and said don’t worry everything’s going to be ok. He gave us the honour of supporting him on the closing shows of the Divide tour, he’s been nothing but kind and gracious and beautiful, a good friend in an ever-changing industry. So to Ed I say ‘EAT MY SH*T’! That’s what happens…nice guys finish last. You snooze you lose, kiddo. Keep up!”
Sheeran is credited as a co-writer on Capaldi’s forthcoming second album ‘Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent’, due out May 2023. Though the singer recently explained why he changed lyrics written by Sheeran.
The news comes as The Official Singles Chart marks its 70th anniversary with a new all-time statistical survey spanning the past seven decades.
On Friday, November 14, 1952 the very first UK singles chart was published in NME, the results of a survey of 20 record shops by former advertising manager Percy Dickins.
The new survey found that ‘Someone You Loved’ had 562 million streams to its name.
It also concluded that 179 singles had reached 1million sales, the biggest being Elton John’s ‘Something About The Way You Look Tonight’ / ‘Candle In The Wind’ in 1997, with 4.94million sales.
The latest single to secure the accolade was Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’, marking her first to top 1million sales in the UK.
Additionally, 1,404 singles were found to have reached the Official Number One spot, with Swift’s ‘Anti-Hero’ reaching the top of the charts at the end of last month.
“This new survey hammers home just how much music listening and buying the Official Singles Chart has seen across the past eight decades – and just how much music the British public has enjoyed in that time,” Official Charts Company chief executive Martin Talbot said.
“The Official Singles Chart was born just a few months after Queen Elizabeth took the throne, on the day of then Prince Charles’ (now King Charles III) fourth birthday. Since that time, from the era pre-rock & roll right up to the present day, there is barely a facet of life that hasn’t changed – and the Official Singles Chart has been there to chronicle it all.”
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