As 2023 has begun, every music platform sums up their early stats and showcases the most streamed artists. This year YouTube has also revealed the most streamed artist of all time around the globe.
To the surprise, it’s none other than the legendary singer Alka Yagnik. She has surpassed the viewers of BTS, Taylor Swift, Drake, and Beyonce and is now the world’s most streamed artist for the year 2022.
Guinness World Record for Three Times in Row
Alka Yagnik has surpassed the listeners of some of the world famous singers like Taylor Swift, Drake and Beyonce, and the most popular Korean bands like BTS and BLACKPINK.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Alka Yagnik’s songs hit 15.3 billion streams, with an average of 42 million streams per day. These insane stats come after she had recorded 17 billion streams in 2021 and 16.6 billion in 2020.
Second to her on the list is Bad Bunny with 14.7 billion streams. The rest three on the list are all Indian singers: Udit Narayan (10.8 billion), Arijit Singh (10.7 billion) and Kumar Sanu (9.09 billion).
Alka Yagnik’s 2022 streams were 80% from India, she was also the most streamed artist in Pakistan with 683 million streams. BTS (7.95 billion) and BLACKPINK (7.03 billion) both made the top ten, while The Weeknd (5.7 billion) took13th spot; Taylor Swift (4.33 billion) was 26th; and Drake (2.9 billion) was 50th.
Also Read: Veteran Singer Vani Jairam, Recipient of Padma Bhushan, Singer of Over 10,000 Songs, Passes Away
Alka Yagnik’s Career
56-year-old Alka Yagnik, a leading Bollywood playback singer who was actively famous in the 90s with hundreds of songs. She did playback singing for Madhuri Dixit, Juhi Chawla, Sridevi and others. Some of her biggest hits include Pardesi Pardesi, Gazab Ka Hai Din, Taal Se Taal Mila and the most recent, Agar Tum Saath Ho.
In an earlier interview with a leading press Alka had said, “Playback singing is not as easy as it seems. You are singing for a character and your song should make it easy for the actor to emote and shouldn’t make it difficult for them. It is also a challenge for a playback singer to adapt to the different style of each composer. But then having achieved that, nothing compares to the happiness of a composer telling you that your singing perfectly adapts to their styles.”
She has been in the music industry for four successful decades as a playback singer in Bollywood; she has recorded over 8000 songs. In her prestigious list of awards, she has won several awards including seven Filmfare Awards out of a record of thirty-six nominations, two National Film Awards and two Bengal Film Journalists’ Association Awards.
