Rihanna's Only Girl (In The World) passes two billion Spotify streams

Rihanna's 2010 single Only Girl (In The World) has crossed two billion streams on Spotify. It is the eighth song in her catalogue to reach that number, which gives her more two-billion tracks than any other female artist.

The list around it reads like a run of singles chart entries rather than a streaming-era catalogue: We Found Love, This Is What You Came For, Umbrella, Love The Way You Lie, Love On The Brain, Stay, Diamonds and now Only Girl. Most of them predate Spotify's dominance by years.

That is what makes the number unusual. Rihanna's last full-length release was ANTI in 2016, and a decade without an album has done nothing to slow the streaming figures. The catalogue has kept accumulating plays without a new record to push it.

She has been clearing other milestones on the same terms. Earlier this year the 38-year-old became the first female artist to pass 200 million certified singles in the United States, a Recording Industry Association of America figure that counts sales and streams together.

Whether R9 arrives to change the arithmetic is still open. A$AP Rocky has said Rihanna is back in the studio, which is the closest thing to a status update her audience has had in a while. Until then the older pop and rnb-soul records are doing the work on their own, as they have since A$AP Rocky first said she was working on new music and since her live appearances shrank to guest spots like the Yankee Stadium show where Jay-Z brought her out with Beyonce.