Beyond one billion streams for Sarah Aarons and 'The Middle'

Sarah Aarons joins The 1,000,000,000 list with her song ‘The Middle’, performed by Zedd, Grey & Maren Morris.

The song was also nominated at the 2019 Grammy Awards in Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.

The 1,000,000,000 list takes into account streaming numbers from all major services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, Vevo, Amazon and Google Play.

National treasure Sarah Aarons was honoured for the streaming success of the Zedd, Maren Morris and Grey global smash hit 'The Middle,' which she is a songwriter on, and awarded with a place on The 1,000,000,000 List at the Global APRA Music Awards Los Angeles (26 February). The award is given to songwriters in recognition of more than one billion streams for a song.

Co-written with Jordan Johnson, Anton Zaslavski, Kyle Trewartha, Stefan Johnson, Michael Trewartha and Marcus Lomax, ‘The Middle’ was released in January 2018, and won Most Played Australian Work and Dance Work of the Year at the 2019 APRA Awards. Sarah also went home with the APRA Songwriter of the Year honours and the Rock Work of the Year for her collaboration with The Rubens' Elliott Margin and Sam Margin.

‘The Middle’ marked Sarah's first trip to the Grammy Awards, with the song receiving nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. The track soared up the Billboard Hot 100 peaking at #5, and reached the top ten in the UK, Australia, Canada and Belgium, among others.

Congratulations to Sarah's publisher, Sony/ATV Music Publishing Australia, who first spotted Sarah's talent when she cold emailed an MP3 to Joint Head of A&R Maree Hamblion. Managing Director Damian Trotter was at the awards to accept the publisher's award.

"I want to thank Maree Hamblion for signing me," Sarah said when accepting her award. And she added, "I'm just trying to be as good as Joel Little."

The 1,000,000,000 List takes into account streaming numbers from major services Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube. It is the first award of its kind to recognise a songwriter’s achievement.