Post Malone breaks Apple Music’s single week streaming record

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.

This is the latest streaming victory for Malone, who racked up over 1 billion streams and four platinum singles from his debut album Stoney. Apple Music has a lengthy history of working with Post Malone, even before he got signed to Republic Records, Carl Chery, Apple Music’s head of artist curation tells me.

“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.”

Apple Music grabbed 56 percent of first week streams for Rockstar in the US

The team clearly enjoyed the track: “Rockstar” got prime placement on The A-List, It’s Lit, and #OnRepeat, three of Apple Music’s biggest hip-hop playlists.

The streaming service’s ability to galvanize its user base around a hit project has also proven to be second to none. Apple Music grabbed 56 percent of first week streams for “Rockstar” in the US, and 41 percent of the market share worldwide, the company tells me. That’s a massive accomplishment for a streaming service with only 27 million subscribers (133 million less than Spotify), and it’s not the first time Apple Music has done something like this.

Back in March when Drake released More Life on every streaming platform, the album set multiple records on Apple Music, beating Spotify by nearly 30 million streams in its first 24 hours, and grabbing 50 percent of worldwide market share in the album’s first week.

“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.

Apple will look to keep its streak going when Post Malone’s upcoming album Beerbongs & Bentleys is released later this year. As Chery told me, “Post has quietly become a streaming monster.”