Ed Sheeran's 'Thinking Out Loud' becomes first song to hit 500 million Spotify streams

Ed Sheeran can thank the Sheerios for helping him break yet another streaming record: "Thinking Out Loud" (off his 2014 album x) has just become the first song on Spotify to hit the 500 million stream mark.

Spotify Says Ed Sheeran Dominates the World's Sleep Playlists

Those half billion listens are just one indicator of Sheeran's Spotify dominance -- the service's most streamed artist of 2014, the British crooner can be found on the playlists of one in four Spotify users. Nineteen million people stream his music monthly, placing him just behind The Weeknd and Calvin Harris in the race to be Spotify's most popular artist.

"Chuffed to hear that 'Thinking Out Loud' has had half a billion plays on Spotify," Sheeran said of the news in a statement. "Being the first artist to hit that milestone is amazing. Thanks to all the people who use this as a wedding song, soundtrack to a date, and as a way to woo someone into a Netflix-and-chill situation."

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A study earlier this year showed that Sheeran dominated Spotify users' sleeping soundtracks, with "Thinking Out Loud" topping the list of most-streamed songs on the service's 2.8 million sleep-themed playlists. There are six more Sheeran songs in the top 20 as well.

Ed Sheeran is Spotify's Most-Streamed Act for 2014

Spotify also created an interactive graphic to show where Sheeran is the most popular, called the Sheerio Index. Denmark is home to the most Sheerios according to the map, where countries are color-coded based on the number of Sheeran streams per Spotify user, with Norway and Sweden not far behind.

See more Ed Sheeran in the gallery below!

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