The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’ hits an unprecedented 5 billion streams on Spotify

Spotify has its first five-billion-play song, and it belongs to The Weeknd. On August 31, 2025, the platform confirmed that Blinding Lights crossed the 5,000,000,000 stream mark—nearly six years after the single arrived on November 29, 2019. The record caps a long run of milestones for the synth-pop juggernaut that reshaped the streaming era and rewrote chart history along the way.

The single, lifted as the second release from the After Hours album, didn’t just surge—it stuck. It spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, then kept returning, ultimately setting new benchmarks: the first song ever to remain in the Hot 100’s Top 10 for a full year, and the all-time record for most weeks on the chart overall. It’s certified diamond by the RIAA in the U.S., a rare badge for modern singles.

On Spotify, the climb has been relentless. The track became the platform’s most-streamed song in January 2023 when it overtook Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You, which had held the crown since 2017. By January 2024 it crossed four billion streams. The sprint from four to five billion in about 19 months shows how durable its audience has been across new markets, new playlists, and a steady flow of listeners discovering it for the first time.

Credit the sound. Co-produced by Max Martin and Oscar Holter alongside The Weeknd, with contributions from Belly and DaHeala, the track blends arena-sized hooks with neon 1980s textures. It’s a clean, fast hit: a jumpy drum pattern, a laser-cut synth riff, and a chorus you can sing cold. That formula travels—across languages, across ages, and across borders.

The momentum wasn’t just studio magic. The song exploded on TikTok in early 2020 via a mass dance challenge, flooded radio during one of the most dominant airplay runs of the past decade, and got another boost from The Weeknd’s Super Bowl LV halftime performance in 2021. Stadium dates on his After Hours Til Dawn tour kept it front of mind, with the hook echoing from São Paulo to Stockholm.

This milestone also sits in a bigger story: The Weeknd’s footprint on streaming. He became the first artist to hit 100 million monthly Spotify listeners in February 2023. Today, he stands at about 110.7 million monthly listeners, a number very few artists have approached. For a catalog cut approaching its sixth birthday to keep compounding streams like this is unusual—and telling.

Spotify marked the 5B moment on its socials, a rare public nod that underscores how singular the achievement is. The platform counts a stream after 30 seconds of listening; the 5B tally reflects plays of the main track on Spotify, not a bundle of remixes and live versions. It’s a clean headline number, and no other song on the service has reached it.

By the numbers, Blinding Lights’ reign looks like this:

• No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks, with record-long stays in the Top 10 and on the chart overall (spanning 90 weeks).
• Most-streamed song in Spotify history since January 2023.
• From 4B streams (January 2024) to 5B (August 2025) in under two years.
• Diamond certification from the RIAA in the United States.

The producers behind the record matter here. Max Martin’s pop architecture—tight structure, melodic lift, ruthless editing—meets The Weeknd’s cool, cinematic delivery. Oscar Holter’s glossy synth design gives it that retro sheen without leaning into nostalgia cosplay. The result: it feels familiar on first listen and fresh on the tenth.

The cultural footprint is just as important as the math. The song’s beat is instantly recognizable, which helps it thrive in short-form media where the first few seconds decide everything. It’s the kind of track that soundtracks a treadmill run, a night drive, a wedding dance, and a highlight reel. That everyday utility keeps old songs new in the streaming economy.

Why this record matters for the streaming business

Five billion streams on one platform is more than a flex—it’s a map of how listening works now. Catalog dominates on-demand audio, and songs that age well can outrun most new releases. Industry reporting over the past few years shows catalog taking well over two-thirds of U.S. on-demand streams, and this is a textbook case: a 2019 single still growing fast in late 2025.

Global reach is another key piece. As Spotify expands deeper into Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and parts of Africa, big, melody-led pop tracks gain new life. A song built on universal hooks—and not tied to a specific local trend—travels faster through editorial and algorithmic playlists in these markets.

The money question always comes next. Spotify doesn’t pay a flat per-stream rate; it uses a revenue-share model, so payouts vary by country, subscription type, and total platform streams in a given period. Industry estimates often translate to a few tenths of a cent per play. At billions of streams, that adds up to many millions of dollars to rights holders over time, split among labels, publishers, producers, and the artist under their deals.

There’s a competitive angle too. Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You set the modern streaming pace back in 2017. Post Malone and Swae Lee’s Sunflower and Harry Styles’ As It Was showed how movie tie-ins and global pop can rack up colossal numbers fast. But crossing five billion on Spotify was still out of reach—until now. The Weeknd’s run re-draws the ceiling.

Timing also worked in its favor. After Hours landed as lockdowns reshaped listening in 2020, when people spent more time with headphones and screens. The TikTok wave turned catchy intros into rocket fuel, and radio held the door open as touring paused. Once stadiums came back, the song graduated from earbuds to choruses shouted by 60,000 people a night.

The business takeaway: a blockbuster single can be an annuity. With the right sound, syncs, playlist momentum, and live reinforcement, consumption curves flatten more slowly than they did in the download era. That means longer revenue tails for labels and more leverage for artists who can make a global evergreen.

For The Weeknd, 5B is another marker in a run that already includes a Super Bowl headliner, tens of millions of albums moved across formats, and a steady grip on top-tier streaming real estate. The title of “most-streamed song in Spotify history” isn’t just trivia—it’s positioning. And now, everyone else is chasing his taillights.