In less than one full week, Ed Sheeran’s new album ÷ (“Divide”) has already set a number of records in terms of online listenership. According to a release distributed by YouTube, the 16 tracks featured on Sheeran’s latest album have already been played well over 1 billion times on the world’s most popular video site. The lyric video for the same song now counts just under 400 million plays. Including a live rendition of the track he performed alongside Stormzy at the BRIT Awards last month, “Shape Of You” has about 700 million plays on YouTube alone. The lyric video for “Castle” has earned 164 million plays, while the official music video now has just under 100 million, bringing that song’s total to over a quarter of a billion.

Source: Forbes March 07, 2017 20:40 UTC