The Weeknds Blinding Lights Is First Song to Pass 4 Billion Streams on Spotify

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The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” has become the first song to pass the 4 billion stream mark on Spotify, a rep for the company confirms to Variety. The song passed Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” as the all-time most-streamed song on the service just over a year ago, and it is one of two Weeknd songs in the top 10: his 2016 song “Starboy” is at No. 6, with nearly 2.5 billion streams.

So, what does all of that mean? Between $15.5 million and $17.5 million in royalties for the sound recording, with another $4.5 million or so in publishing, depending on which figures (and which online royalty calculators) one uses. While some services pay more than others and calculations vary widely, Spotify pays generally pays between $.003 and $.004 per stream.

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Either way, that’s $20 million-plus for one song on one streaming service (albeit the biggest song on the world’s biggest paid streaming service).

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Does the man also known as Abel Tesfaye pocket all that money himself? Of course not: He was joined by four cowriters on the song — Max Martin (the most successful songwriter/producer of the last 30 years), Oscar Holter, Ahmad Balshe (aka rapper Belly) and Jason “DaHeala” Quenneville — who each get a share known only to insiders, and two coproducers in Martin and Holter, who presumably receive “points” (a percentage) on the song as well. It’s possible that others may get a small percentage.

Judging by the “P&C” (copyright) line on the album, the Weeknd owns the master recordings and licenses them to Universal’s Republic Records, which means he collects the lion’s share of those royalties.

While streaming services generally do not post streaming numbers for all songs, Spotify’s “Wrapped” celebration included total 2023 numbers for several artists, including Taylor Swift, which enabled math-savvy reporters to estimate her earnings for the year from Spotify alone at around $130 million.

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