Even Top Artists Don’t Stay Big Forever

As we all know only too well, fame is elusive. Everyone may get their 15 minutes sooner or later, but some are lucky enough to keep it going way longer than that. That said, even those that reach a superstar level don’t stay there forever, and a good example of this is Ed Sheeran.

He’s reach some unprecedented heights, according to this Trading Platforms report, such as:

• The 408 Ed Sheeran tracks listed on Kworb, including solo songs, features, acoustic versions, and live performances, have amassed 60.53 billion streams, generating approximately $242.13 million in revenue.
  
• Ed Sheeran’s top-streamed song is ‘Shape of You’, with 4.61 billion streams generating $18.44 million in revenue. It ranks as the second most-streamed song on Spotify globally, behind The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’, which has just over 5 billion streams and $20 million in revenue.
  
• The songs ‘Perfect’ and ‘Photograph’ rank second and third among Ed Sheeran’s most-streamed tracks, generating 3.68 billion and 3.15 billion streams, respectively, and earning approximately $14.71 million and $12.61 million. ‘Photograph’ was released in 2014, while ‘Perfect’ came out in 2017, a year that proved to be one of Sheeran’s strongest, also seeing the release of ‘Shape of You’, along with two other top-10 hits, ‘Castle on the Hill’ and ‘Galway Girl’.

60 BILLION streams for $242 million! Don’t forget he’s splitting this with his label, management, producer, and who knows how many others fingers in the pie, but he’s still coming out pretty well from just Spotify.

The Train Doesn’t Always Keep Rolling

You would think with such amazing popularity that everything he releases would be an instant hit, but that’s not the case with his new album. Again, according to Trading Platforms, “Ed Sheeran’s new album ‘Play’ is off to a slow start on Spotify. Among his most-streamed tracks, ‘Azizam’ is currently ranked 42nd with 322,296 streams, ‘Camera’ 169th with 30,374 streams, ‘Symmetry’ 266th, ‘The Vow’ 274th, and ‘A Little More’ 291st.

Although all five tracks were released in 2025, with ‘Symmetry’ debuting on October 17th, their streaming performance remains considerably lower than Sheeran’s longstanding hits.

Contrast this to Taylor Swift, whose new track ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ amassed 35 million streams in its first 24 hours. Everything she touches continues to turn to gold, but even Taylor may have peaked with her latest tour, album and movie, as she’s reached a peak that will be tough to every duplicate.

So what does this have to with the average artist struggling to make it?

We never know when we’re at our popularity peak. It could be a video going viral with a few million streams. It could be playing in a band that’s reached regional notoriety. Or it could be playing solo in a coffee house one night to a rousing ovation.

These moments, no matter how big or small, are easy to let slip by. Learn to enjoy them when they arrive, and while you strive for something more, know that they might never come around again.