The top spots for the most-streamed songs of all time (so far) on Spotify don’t change that often. However, on the evening of December 31, 2022, Chart Data announced that The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” has overtaken Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” to become the most-streamed song in Spotify history.
Appearing on the fourth studio album AFTER HOURS, “Blinding Lights” was self-produced by Oscar Thomas Holter, Max Martin and The Weeknd. As early as 2020, one could guess that the track would bring great success, since it was already the best-selling single of the year.
“Blinding Lights” vs. “Shape Of You”
As of Monday (January 2), Blinding Lights has 3,332,163,962 streams and Shape Of You has 3,332,016,196 streams. In September 2017, Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” passed Drake’s “One Dance” and held that position until recently.
Chart Data, which tracks chart positions, prices and economic news across the pop landscape, tweeted: “The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’ is now the most-streamed song in Spotify history, surpassing Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape Of You’ (…)”
.@theweeknd‘s “Blinding Lights” is now the #1 most streamed song in Spotify history, surpassing @edsheeran‘s “Shape of You” (3.332 billion).
— chart data (@chartdata) December 31, 2022
The number 1 number including the music video can be found here:
This is how The Weeknd reacted to the success
Shortly before the New Year, the musician himself posted an excerpt of the Spotify charts with the words “For the new year???”, which confirmed the first place of “Blinding Lights”:
FOR NEW YEARS??? ??? https://t.co/Gk6vgDMfOG
— The Weeknd (@theweeknd) December 31, 2022
A day later, The Weeknd gave official confirmation that the projections were correct: “Happy New Year to ‘Blinding Lights’, the most streamed song of all [bisherigen] Times on Spotify.” In the post, The Weeknd also shared images of the winning number’s music video:
December also released The Weeknd’s contribution to the Avatar: The Way Of Water soundtrack, Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength). You can hear it here: