Alka Yagnik is most streamed singer in the world; beats Taylor Swift, BTS by a mile

Alka Yagnik has featured on the Guiness Book of World Records for a third year in a row. She was the most streamed singer of 2022, beating even the world’s biggest singers like Taylor Swift, Drake and Beyonce. Her number of streams are legions ahead of others.

As per a report on the Guiness Book of World Records, Alka’s songs recorded 15.3 billion streams, an average of 42 million streams per day. And she achieved this feat in the last two years as well. She had 17 billion streams in 2021 and 16.6 billion in 2020.

Second to her on the list is Bad Bunny with 14.7 billion streams. The rest three on the list are all Indian singers: Udit Narayan (10.8 billion), Arijit Singh (10.7 billion) and Kumar Sanu (9.09 billion).

The list would come as a surprise for not even millionaire singers have been able to record such numbers. BTS (7.95 billion) and BLACKPINK (7.03 billion) both made the top ten, while The Weeknd (5.7 billion) took13th spot; Taylor Swift (4.33 billion) was 26th; and Drake (2.9 billion) was 50th.

Alka was a leading Bollywood playback singer in the 90s with hundreds of songs to her credit. She did playback singing for the likes of Madhuri Dixit, Juhi Chawla, Sridevi and others. Her biggest hits include Pardesi Pardesi, Gazab Ka Hai Din, Taal Se Taal Mila and more recently, Agar Tum Saath Ho.

In an earlier interview with Hindustan Times, Alka had said, “Playback singing is not as easy as it seems. You are singing for a character and your song should make it easy for the actor to emote and shouldn’t make it difficult for them. It is also a challenge for a playback singer to adapt to the different style of each composer. But then having achieved that, nothing compares to the happiness of a composer telling you that your singing perfectly adapts to their styles.”