The Weeknd shocked after ‘Blinding Lights’ becomes Spotify’s most streamed song

Los Angeles, Jan. 3 (IANS): Canadian singer The Weeknd was left shocked after his 2019 track ‘Blinding Lights’ became the most streamed song on Spotify of all time.

The 32-year-old star, born Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, celebrated the news on his Twitter account on New Year’s Eve, reports aceshowbiz.com.

Reacting to the news that his track successfully surpassed Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape of You’, he wrote: “FOR NEW YEARS ???” adding a trio of face with party horn and party hat emojis.

Later, The Weeknd turned to Instagram to post photos from ‘Blinding Lights’ music video, including snapshots of him, clad in a blood-red suit, laughing with blood covering his mouth. In the caption, he wrote: “Happy new years to blinding lights. The most streamed song of all time tonight.”

The Weeknd first shared ‘Blinding Lights’ back on November 29, 2019 as the second single from his fourth studio album, ‘After Hours’.

The track debuted at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 but went on to spend four weeks at the top spot. It eventually became the first song to hold a spot in the top 10 on the chart for an entire year.

According to Spotify’s Daily Global chart, The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’ dethroned Ed’s ‘Shape of You’ by 918,000 filtered streams. Back in October, Ed discussed the possibility of ‘Blinding Lights’ passing his song on The Breakfast Club.

“‘Blinding Lights’ is about to take over ‘Shape of You’ as the most-streamed song of all time. And I don’t think that that debuted at #1,” Ed said at the time. “I think it debuted at like 11 or 12. And then it grew, and now it’s the biggest song of all time.”

In addition to ‘Blinding Lights’, The Weeknd ended 2022 as Spotify’s most-streamed artist of the year. He dropped his latest album, ‘Dawn FM’, back in January.

It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with 148,000 album equivalent units. It was supported by the singles, ‘Take My Breath’, ‘Sacrifice’, ‘Out of Time’ and ‘Less than Zero.’