Bruno Mars’ ‘Just The Way You Are’ Hits 3 Billion Streams on Spotify, Now 21× Platinum

‘Just The Way You Are’ by Bruno Mars officially surpassed 3 billion streams on Spotify as of November 22, becoming just the 39th song in the platform’s history to reach the milestone. It also marks his highest streaming song.

In October the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) officially certified “Just the Way You Are” at 21× Platinum, making it the highest-certified single in RIAA history and surpassing Post Malone & Swae Lee’s “Sunflower.”

Released in 2010 as the lead single from Doo-Wops & Hooligans, the track was already one of the defining hits of the 2010s. It topped charts worldwide, became 2011’s best-selling digital single with more than 12.5 million copies sold, and earned Mars a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Elsewhere the song has achieved extraordinary commercial status, earning multi-platinum certifications around the world, including 7× platinum in Australia and New Zealand, diamond in Canada.

Written by Mars along with Philip Lawrence, Ari Levine, Khalil Walton, and Needlz, and produced by the Smeezingtons and Needlz, the song is a pop, R&B, and soft-rock ballad that focuses on praising a woman’s natural beauty. Inspired by classic love songs like Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” and Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” the track originated from a hook created by Walton and Needlz before Mars developed it into his own single.

Its music video, directed by Ethan Lader and featuring Nathalie Kelley, blends live action and stop-motion animation using cassette tape imagery and has accumulated over 1.9 billion YouTube views.

Bruno Mars performed the song on major shows including Saturday Night Live, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the Today Show, the Brit Awards, and the NBA All-Star festivities, and it has been included in all of his tours since 2010. He closed the Super Bowl XLVIII halftime show with it as a tribute to the U.S. Armed Forces and later performed a Spanish version for the “Somos Una Voz” hurricane relief event. The track has been widely covered by artists such as The Wanted, Pierce the Veil, Karlos Rosé, Johnny Mathis, Jamie Miller, and the cast of Glee, and has appeared in films like Pitch Perfect.

Fans can still catch Mars performing the history-making single live during his Las Vegas Dolby Live residency, with two final shows scheduled for December 30 and 31.