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With over 500M plays, Major Lazer & DJ Snake’s Lean On is Spotify’s biggest song ever

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Step aside, Mr. Sheeran.

EDM specialists Major Lazer & DJ Snake now have Spotify’s most streamed song with Lean On. The ear worm, which has 526 million plays on the service and counting according to Billboard, just surpassed Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud to take the title spot.

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The hit single was a collaborative effort: Major Lazer wrote and recorded the track with guest stars DJ Snake, Danish singer MØ, French house producer Martin Bresso, and Jr. Blender.

Initially released in March 2015, Lean On has had a massive year commercially. After a fairly slow start stateside, it reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100 in August, and continued to spend 10 consecutive weeks in the top 10. The song also cleaned up globally, charting in nearly 40 countries including the U.K., Germany, Canada, Australia, and Brazil.

That’s especially impressive considering the track’s humble beginnings, released primarily through LA producer/Major Lazer band member Diplo’s Mad Decent label.

“We wrote this song with MØ very early from an instrumental Jr. Blender created in some sessions in Trinidad,” said Diplo in a Facebook post.

“It was a strong hook. Very big to me but the production was lacking an attitude we needed. A year later I remixed the song at a completely different tempo and asked DJ SNAKE for a signature post chorus. After he did his thing me, MØ and Blender rewrote the song at the new tempo in Las Vegas and made something very unique that became our album’s lead off single.”

Major Lazer are currently in the midst of a global tour, and will perform at the Latin Grammys on November 19. The group will re-release the LP for Lean On, Peace is the Mission, with DJ Snake on November 27 with five new tracks.

Chris Leo Palermino
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Chris Leo Palermino is a music, tech, business, and culture journalist based between New York and Boston. He also contributes…
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