To say ‘Somebody I Used To Know’ by Gotye is a huge record would be something of an understatement. The release has reached number one in 23 countries and has had sales of over 7 million. Not bad for an artist that was relatively unknown outside of Australia until last year.
Added to eye watering sales, ‘Somebody I Used To know’ has also smashed all records at Shazam. Earlier in the year we announced that the record was the first ever to gain over 1 million tags in a week. We can now reveal that the record has broken another milestone to become the first ever record to be tagged over 10 million times! (Which is why he was our #1 pick for our Sounds of Summer predictions.)
The record has now reached 11.5 million tags worldwide. What’s more, the record’s popularity shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. ‘Somebody I Used To know’ is still the most tagged track in the USA this week and Top 10 in many European countries.
With Shazam fans purchasing music they have tagged at an average rate of 8%, it’s likely ‘Somebody I used To Know’ is also the first ever record to gain 1 millon sales directly through Shazam. Who knows, with all those sales Gotye may finally be able to buy himself some clothes and stop strutting around naked in his videos!
A few weeks ago Belgium born and Australian based singer-songwriter Gotye unveiled his latest single, ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’, and it has become a huge smash in Australia. For over a decade the musician, also a member of indie band The Basics, enjoyed a successful solo career that has just peaked thanks to this collaboration with New Zealand singer Kimbra in a duet that goes through some soul baring lyrics, telling the aftermath of a broken relationship and packing an instant emotional punch with the listener.
The track got luckily endorsed by celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Lily Allen, both using their twitter accounts to recommend it to their millions of followers. The video became a word of mouth sensation hitting two million YouTube views in record time. Unsurprisingly, ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ has ended Adele’s seven week residency on top of the Aussie charts, hitting platinum status. It doesn’t stop there, after recently reaching the top spot on Hype’s Machine global chart, it now looks like a strong candidate for an international crossover.
‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ is the second single from Gotye’s third studio album ‘Making Mirrors’, which was released this week.
