RIAA: Post Malone & Swae Lee’s ‘Sunflower’ Passes Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’ To Become Highest-Certified Song in History

At the height of its popularity, Post Malone and Swae Lee‘s ‘Sunflower’ (found aboard the soundtrack of 2018’s animated film ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’) not only topped the Hot 100 but entered history books for becoming one of the longest-running top 10 hits of all time.

Racking up a whopping 33 weeks in the chart territory (a record for a soundtrack single), the only duet to have enjoyed a longer stay there overall was The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber‘s 2021 smash ‘Stay‘ (which lasted 47 weeks).

The Malone and Lee song’s impressive commercial performance was also evidenced by its 11x Platinum certification at the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of 11 million in the United States by November 2020.

Two years later, the enduring success of ‘Sunflower’ sees it planted in the record books of the RIAA as well. Look inside to see how.

Taking to press Monday (November 14), the RIAA announced a slew of new certifications for Malone including a report that ‘Sunflower’ had met its threshold for 17x Platinum status – a measure that denotes sales of 17 million in the United States alone.

With the update, he and Lee now own the highest-certified song in history – a title that previously belonged to Lil Nas X for his gargantuan 2019 hit, ‘Old Town Road’ (which now sits at 16x Platinum).

‘Sunflower’ isn’t the only big Posty song enjoying a major certification upgrade, however.

His 2015 single, ‘White Iverson,’ and 2018 single, ‘Psycho’ (featuring Ty Dolla $ign), became his fourth and fifth songs to achieve Diamond status (for sales of 10 million in the United States) as the previously Diamond-certified ‘Congratulations‘ (featuring Quavo) saw its status pushed up to 14x Platinum.

While Post is the first rapper to own as many Diamond plaques, the overall record for most Diamond plaques belongs to Bruno Mars (6). Look below to see the full list of Malone’s updates.

17x Platinum

‘Sunflower’ (Single)

14x Platinum

‘Psycho’ (Single)

10x Platinum aka Diamond

‘White Iverson’ (Single)

9x Platinum

‘Circles’

8x Platinum

‘Wow’ (Single)

6x Platinum

‘Go Flex’

1x Platinum

‘Allergic’ (Single)

‘I’m Gonna Be’ (Single)

‘Blame It On Me’ (Single)

‘Sugar Wraith’ (Single)

‘Staring at the Sun’ (Single)

‘Up There’ (Single)

‘A Thousand Bad Times’ (Single)

‘Otherside’ (Single)

[main photo source: Getty Images/Twitter]