The Weeknd hit a major milestone in his home country of Canada. The superstar is the first Canadian artist to achieve seven diamond-certified singles, following the RIAA certifications of 'Save Your Tears' and 'Die For You'. He is also the third artist overall to score seven diamond tracks, which mark at least 10 million equivalent sales units.
Plus, his collaboration with Madonna and Playboi Carti, “Popular,” just got a lot more popular: The song has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. According to the RIAA, platinum certification for a song recognizes 1 million units certified in the US for a song, and one unit equals either one permanent download sold or 150 on-demand audio and/or video streams.
“Popular” was released just over a year ago, on June 2, 2023, via XO and Republic Records as the second single from the soundtrack album The Idol, Vol. 1 from The Weeknd's HBO drama series The idol. The official music video for “Popular” debuted exclusively in February during the Fortnite festival, during The Weeknd's takeover of Season 1 of the event.
The song peaked at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 14 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. With “Popular,” Madonna joined the elite group of artists who have scored Hot 100 hits on the charts in five different decades. Madonna's most recent song to go platinum was the Justin Timberlake collaboration “4 Minutes,” which was released in 2008 and certified platinum in June of that year. Also this week, Madonna's 1986 single “Papa Don't Preach” was certified platinum.
“We've had a different version of that song before, so I've had those vocals for a while and I've kind of worked around it and then kept it for a bit. But now it was time. And it felt right,” the “Blinding Lights” hitmaker (real name Abel Tesfaye) told Apple Music 1's Zane Lowe in an interview last June. “[Madonna is] the ultimate co-sign for this song, for this album, and for this TV show.” With “Popular” — as well as new diamond certifications for his singles “Save Your Tears” and “Die For You” — Tesfaye becomes the first Canadian artist to earn seven RIAA diamond certifications and the third overall to score as many, joining Rihanna and Drake, with Post Malone alone at the top with nine diamond discs.
Tesfaye also received platinum certifications for 2023 The idol hit “One of the Girls” with BLACKPINK's Jennie and Lily-Rose Depp. The accolade also makes Jennie the first female solo K-pop artist to earn a platinum single from the RIAA and marks Depp's first platinum certification.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/the-weeknd-first-canadian-artist-seven-diamond-singles-1235699679/
