“Spotify: For the Record” Podcast: Ed Sheeran, Jon Batiste, Nina Nesbitt, and More

The latest episode of the “Spotify: For the Record” podcast hits podcast feeds and offers a behind-the-scenes look at Spotify Singles, featuring interviews with beloved artists including Ed Sheeran, Jon Batiste and Nina Nesbitt.

Created in 2016, the Spotify Singles program provides artists the opportunity to re-record one of their existing songs in a fresh new way, as well as cover a song of their choice by one of their own musical heroes. 

 In the latest podcast episode, titled “Spotify Singles: The Path to 5 Billion Streams,” Ed Sheeran discusses paying tribute to Britney Spears with his cover single and coming full-circle with Yo-Yo Ma while Jon Batiste talks about being inspired by Tupac and how the experience of creating a single can be creatively fulfilling in a different way than creating an album.

During the episode, Ed Sheeran commented on coming full circle with Yo-Yo Ma: “So I found it a weird full circle moment when Yo-Yo Ma covered ‘Shape of You’ because I used to learn cello when I was younger. [...] I would 100% perform with Yo-Yo Ma. I don’t know what we’d perform. Maybe I’d perform the beginning of the Bach “Master and Commander thing and then he takes over from there. I mean I was really bad.”

During the episode, Jon Batiste talked about the difference between creating a single versus an album.

“As artists, we like to create. Just to create is to live and exist and to express that existence," notes Batiste. "You evolve through making an album. But a single where you have one day to do it is just like a snapshot. It's a snapshot of who you are at that time and have the opportunity to do that in any context is wonderful. I love it.”

The most-streamed song in the entire Spotify Singles collection is “Girl Crush” by Harry Styles, with more than 165 million streams.Harry Styles’ “Girl Crush” is also the song most added to user playlists -- ahead of “When the Party’s Over” by Lewis Capaldi and “Dive” by Luke Combs.The artists who have been covered the most times by other artists are Bob Dylan and Post Malone, who have each had five different songs covered by other artists in the Spotify Singles studio.

Ed Sheeran has more than 80 million followers on Spotify, making him the most-followed artist on the platform, and his track “Shape of You” is the most-streamed track of all time on Spotify with more than 2.8 billion streams.

The episode also features interviews with William Garrett, Senior Producer of Spotify Singles, and Spotify’s Recorded Music Lead Michele Santucci, who discuss highlights from past recording sessions -- such as giving Elton John feedback and cramming a nine-piece band into the studio for Arcade Fire’s recording.

The episode also allows us to listen in on behind-the-scenes stories about recording with Wilco and Alanis Morissette, and learn about recordings coming up.

To date, there have been more than 630 Spotify Singles recordings from more than 300 artists across all genres, and in May the program crossed the major milestone of collectively hitting over 5 billion streams.

You can listen to the episode HERE.