Streaming changed everything. The chart game, the longevity of hits, the way songs build momentum. Five billion streams is an actual number now, not science fiction, and that changes how we talk about the biggest songs in history.
These aren’t just tracks that topped charts for a few weeks then vanished. These are songs that became permanent fixtures in playlists, commutes, gym sessions, and heartbreak soundtracks. Songs that refuse to disappear.
The most-streamed songs on Spotify represent a new kind of success, where a track can quietly accumulate plays for years, building towards numbers that would have seemed impossible a decade ago.
This ranking shifts constantly. New streams are added every second, old songs are rediscovered on TikTok, and the occasional new release storms up the list.
But the core of what makes these songs special stays the same: they connect with people repeatedly, across countries, across years, across contexts.
Some launched as instant global smashes. Others took months to catch fire. A few sat dormant for years before TikTok resurrected them into billion-stream behemoths.
What you’re looking at is essentially the most-listened-to music in human history, if we’re counting individual plays. The ranking updates daily as streams accumulate. These are the songs that defined the streaming era.
The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” sits at the top with over 5 billion streams, making it the first song to reach that milestone.
The track dropped at the end of 2019 and became the sound of lockdown, TikTok dance challenges, and every ’80s nostalgia playlist that followed. The synth work is ridiculous. Throwback but not dated. Nostalgic without feeling like pastiche.
It spent 90 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, which is genuinely crazy when you think about it. The song just refused to leave the rotation. Radio played it constantly, streaming never stopped, and even now it’s still racking up millions of plays per day. The track overtook Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” in early 2023, and it’s kept extending the lead ever since.
Speaking of “Shape of You”, that sits at number two with over 4.5 billion streams. Sheeran held the crown for over five years before The Weeknd toppled him. The song dominated 2017, became unavoidable for most of that year, and then just kept going.
It’s the kind of track that works everywhere: radio, playlists, random background music at shopping centres. The marimba hook is instantly recognisable, and apparently that’s enough to keep people hitting play.
The Weeknd appears again at number three with “Starboy” featuring Daft Punk. Over 4 billion streams for a track that captures a specific moment in mid-2010s pop.
The collaboration gave it credibility with multiple audiences, and the production still sounds sharp years later. It’s proof that The Weeknd dominated the streaming era in a way few artists managed.
Lewis Capaldi’s “Someone You Loved” has quietly accumulated over 4 billion streams, which is wild considering it’s essentially a piano ballad. No dance beat, no production tricks, just a massive chorus about missing someone.
The song connected with people during breakups, funerals, and quiet moments. It’s the kind of track that gets replayed when life gets heavy, and streaming data suggests that happens constantly.
Harry Styles’ “As It Was” hit 4 billion streams faster than almost anything else on this list. Released in 2022, it became inescapable within weeks. The opening vocal sample hooks you immediately, and the melancholy underneath the upbeat production gives it staying power.
It’s still climbing, still adding massive numbers weekly, and could feasibly challenge for higher spots in the ranking over the next year.
The Neighbourhood’s “Sweater Weather” tells one of streaming’s strangest success stories. The track originally came out in 2013 and did fine. Then TikTok got hold of it nearly a decade later, and suddenly it was everywhere again.
It’s now sitting above 4 billion streams, making it the most-streamed song by a band in Spotify history. The guitar riff that opens the track became TikTok’s unofficial soundtrack for moody autumn content, relationship nostalgia, and general vibe-posting.
This is what streaming does differently. Old songs don’t die anymore. They hibernate, then wake up to a billion new streams thanks to a viral moment years after release.
Post Malone and Swae Lee’s “Sunflower” from the Spider-Verse soundtrack has cleared 3.9 billion streams. It’s one of those songs that worked for the film but also functioned perfectly as a standalone hit. The melody is infectious, the vibe is summery, and it became the most-streamed song in US history. People just kept coming back to it.
Drake’s “One Dance,” featuring Wizkid and Kyla, sits at 3.8 billion streams. This was the track that properly introduced Afrobeats influences to the mainstream pop landscape. The Caribbean and African rhythms, the minimal production, the way it just grooves. Released in 2016, it spent months at number one and never really left playlists after that.
Heartbreak sells. Always has, probably always will. Half of these billion-stream songs are about relationships ending, missing someone, and trying to move on. Lewis Capaldi built his entire career on this, but he’s far from alone. The emotional weight keeps people returning to these tracks.
The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber’s “Stay” has 3.6 billion streams despite being relatively recent. The hook is simple, the production is bright, and it dominated 2021 completely. Sometimes a song just lands perfectly with the cultural moment, and “Stay” managed that.
Ed Sheeran appears again with “Perfect”, sitting at 3.6 billion streams. It’s the wedding song for an entire generation. Slow dance music that actually works, with lyrics that feel genuine rather than corny. The orchestral version added another layer of streaming success, giving people multiple versions to choose from depending on the occasion.
Imagine Dragons’ “Believer” and Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” both hover around 3.5 billion streams, representing very different paths to success.
“Believer” was an instant rock-pop crossover hit. “Heat Waves” took over a year to properly explode, slowly building from indie circles to mainstream dominance through TikTok and playlist inclusion. Both ended up in the same place: billions of streams and permanent playlist fixtures.
Billie Eilish and Khalid’s “Lovely” has quietly accumulated 3.4 billion streams. Dark, haunting, perfect for sad playlists and Netflix soundtracks. The song never had a massive chart moment, but it’s the kind of track that people return to repeatedly when they need something that matches their mood.
The Chainsmokers and Halsey’s “Closer” sits at 3.4 billion streams, representing peak 2016 pop. The spoken-word verses, the drop, the lyrics about mattresses and Rovers. It was everywhere that summer and refused to leave. The nostalgia factor keeps it streaming steadily years later.
James Arthur’s “Say You Won’t Let Go” cleared 3.4 billion streams by being the other wedding song. It’s competing with Sheeran’s “Perfect” for first dance supremacy, and both are winning. Arthur’s vocals sell the emotion completely, and apparently, millions of people need that exact energy for their special moments.
Beyond the top tier, songs like The Chainsmokers’ “Something Just Like This” with Coldplay, Tones and I’s “Dance Monkey”, Arctic Monkeys’ “I Wanna Be Yours”, and Coldplay’s “Yellow” all sit above 3.3 billion streams. These are generational hits mixed with TikTok resurrections mixed with rock classics that never stopped being relevant.
“Yellow” originally came out in 2000. It’s streaming at the same level as songs released two decades later. That’s the streaming era in a nutshell: old and new exist in the same space, competing on equal terms.
TikTok’s influence on this list can’t be overstated. The app has become a resurrection machine for older tracks. “Sweater Weather” exploded again in 2020. “Heat Waves” took 18 months to become a massive hit because TikTok kept pushing it. Arctic Monkeys’ “I Wanna Be Yours” from 2013 suddenly became Gen Z’s favourite song in 2022.
Blood Orange’s “Champagne Coast” from 2011 resurfaced in 2024 and hit the UK charts again, over a decade after its original release. The algorithm doesn’t care when something came out. It cares whether people are creating content with it.
This creates opportunities for songs to have second, third, even fourth lives. A track can be moderately successful on release, then explode years later when someone uses it in the right video. The traditional music industry trajectory no longer applies.
Looking at recent entries climbing the all-time list, Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” has already cleared 3 billion streams despite only dropping in 2024. The song has everything: a memorable melody, lyrics that feel personal, and production that sounds massive but doesn’t overwhelm the vocal. It’s adding hundreds of millions of streams in months, not years, and could feasibly break into the top 10 within the next year.
Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga’s “Die With a Smile” became the most viral song of late 2024, topping shares across social platforms. The collaboration brought together two massive fanbases, and the song delivered exactly what people wanted: classic pop vocals, emotional weight, and a chorus that sticks immediately. It’s climbing rapidly and could end up anywhere on this list given its momentum.
Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” dominated summer 2024, racking up 1.6 billion streams in months. The song is ridiculously catchy, quotes became TikTok captions, and it soundtracked every sunny day for half the year. Whether it has the longevity to join the 3 billion club depends on whether people keep returning to it the way they do with “Blinding Lights” or “Shape of You”.
Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” hit 1.5 billion streams and keeps climbing. The song has that emotional ballad energy that never goes out of style, the kind of track that becomes the go-to for anyone dealing with loss or fear of losing something good. The viral TikTok moment where Boone jumped off a piano definitely helped, but the song would have succeeded regardless.
Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” tells perhaps the strangest story on this list. The song came out in 2019, didn’t get released as a single initially, and then became one of the biggest hits of 2023 thanks to fans demanding it on tour.
It’s now sitting above 3 billion streams, proving that Swift’s catalogue has absurd long-tail power. Songs that weren’t even singles four years ago are becoming billion-stream behemoths because the fanbase never stops listening.
Nostalgia drives a significant portion of streaming behaviour. People return to songs from their teenage years, their university days, that one summer they can’t forget. The algorithm picks up on this and keeps serving these tracks to new audiences who then create their own nostalgic associations with the music.
This is why songs from 2015-2019 dominate the list. Those years represent peak streaming adoption combined with a specific sound that aged well. Tropical house, minimalist pop, hip-hop crossovers. The production still works, and the melodies are strong enough to survive changing trends.
Christmas songs operate on their own timeline. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has cleared 2 billion streams and gains hundreds of millions every December.
It’s not competing with these songs year-round, but for those crucial weeks, it absolutely dominates streaming numbers. The song has earned Carey an estimated £100 million since its release, most of that from streaming royalties in the last decade.
The list will keep evolving. “Blinding Lights” will eventually hit 6 billion streams. New songs will break through and start their climb. Some tracks currently sitting in the top 50 will accelerate and crack the top 20. Others will slow down as tastes shift.
But the core truth remains: these songs became permanent parts of how people experience music. They’re not just hits that had their moment. They’re the soundtrack to millions of daily routines, emotional moments, and random commutes. They’re the songs people return to repeatedly, adding another stream to totals that already seem impossible.
What makes a song evergreen in the streaming era comes down to a few factors. It needs an immediately recognisable hook. It needs to work in multiple contexts: gym, party, sad night alone, background music. It needs to sound good on repeat, which is harder than it seems. And it needs either immediate massive success or the ability to build slowly over time.
“Blinding Lights” had both. Instant global smash that then refused to stop growing. “Sweater Weather” had the second path: steady success that exploded years later. Both ended up in roughly the same place: billions of streams and permanent cultural presence.
The songs that make it here aren’t necessarily the best songs ever recorded. They’re the songs that connected with the largest number of people at the right time, then stayed relevant long enough to accumulate absurd streaming totals.
Sometimes that’s because they’re genuinely brilliant. Sometimes it’s because they soundtrack a specific emotion perfectly. Sometimes it’s because TikTok decided they were cool again.
The ranking shifts daily. Right now, “Blinding Lights” is adding about 10 million streams per week. “Shape of You” is adding 8 million. The gap stays roughly the same, but both keep climbing. In a year, “Blinding Lights” might be closing in on 6 billion while “Shape of You” might hit 5 billion.
Meanwhile, newer tracks like “Birds of a Feather” or “Die With a Smile” are adding streams faster than almost anything else on the platform. They could reshape the top 20 within months if the momentum continues.
This is the new music hierarchy. Not based on sales, not based on chart positions, but on how many times people actually pressed play. It’s democracy in its purest form: every stream counts equally, whether it’s someone discovering a song for the first time or playing it for the thousandth time.
The songs that win this game are the ones people can’t stop playing. That’s the only rule. Everything else is just noise.
