The top spots for the most played 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” (2019) had surpassed Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” (2017) 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. Already in 2020 it could be guessed that the song 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” surpassed Drake’s “One Dance” and held that position until recently.
Chart Data, which tracks chart positions, prices and business news in the pop landscape, tweeted: “The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’ is now the most streamed song in Spotify history, surpassing ‘Shape Of You’ by Ed Sheeran (…)”
.@the weekend“Blinding Lights” by is now song no. 1 most streamed in Spotify history, surpassing @Ed Sheeranof “Shape of You” (3.332 billion).
— chart data (@chartdata) 31 December 2022
Issue #1 including the music video can be found here:
Here’s how The Weeknd reacted to the success
Just before the new year, the same musician released an excerpt from the Spotify charts with the words “For the new year???”, which confirmed the first place of “Blinding Lights”:
FOR NEW YEAR ??? 🥳🥳🥳 https://t.co/Gk6vgDMfOG
— The Weeknd (@theweeknd) 31 December 2022
The next day, The Weeknd gave official confirmation that the projections were correct: “Happy New Year to ‘Blinding Lights’, the most played song of all [bisherigen] Times on Spotify.” In the post, The Weeknd also shared images from the music video of the winning number:
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:
