David Bowie Reaches One Billion Steams on Spotify

Variety.com reports that the music of David Bowie has reached its billionth stream on Spotify. The top-streamed song is the 1977 track "Heroes," which was originally recorded in English, French and German.

The announcement comes just weeks away from the Sept. 29 release of the third and latest installment in Parlophone's series of David Bowie's boxed sets covering the late artist's career from 1969. "A New Career in a New Town" compiles his material from 1977 through 1982, arguably the most experimental years of his career. The 11-CD/13-LP set includes the so-called "Berlin trilogy" of albums - "Low," "'Heroes'" and "Lodger" - as well as "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)," the live album "Stage," the 1981 "Baal" soundtrack, and assorted B-sides and singles. The series completes Bowie's enormously influential catalog originally released on RCA Records, which covers his pioneering glam-rock era (on the "Five Years 1969-73" set), his R&B years ("Who Can I Be Now? 1974-76") and, with the new set, his more angular and experimental work. While the era that followed included Bowie's biggest-selling album, 1983's "Let's Dance," most fans feel that his influence and the quality of his work waned during the 1980s and 1990s, recovering some of its vitality with albums like "Hours" (1999) and "Heathen" (2002) before finishing with a blaze of jazz-inflected creativity on "Blackstar," which was released just three days before his death from cancer on Jan. 10, 2016.

Bowie's top ten most streamed solo tracks:

"Heroes"
"Let's Dance"
"Space Oddity"
"Life on Mars"
"Starman"
"Rebel Rebel"
"Moonage Daydream"
"Changes"
"Ziggy Stardust"
"Modern Love"

David Bowie was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a leading figure in popular music for over five decades, acclaimed by critics and other musicians for his innovative work. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influencing popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales estimated at 140 million albums worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, releasing eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and nine gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

PHOTO CREDIT: David Bowie's Official Facebook Page

To post a comment, you must register and login.