“Blinding Lights” shatters historic milestones in 2020
The Weeknd and Rosalía have teamed up for a remix of “Blinding Lights” to celebrate the one year anniversary of the certified smash released that appeared on The Weeknd’s fourth studio album After Hours. Rosalía joined The Weeknd for the “Blinding Lights” remix while also recording the upcoming follow-up to her groundbreaking El Mal Querer album. The duo also released a behind the scenes lyric video for the track directed by Dylan Coughran (Travis Scott, NAV).
“Blinding Lights”, which reached RIAA platinum certification in less than four months, has broken the record for the most weeks in both the Billboard Hot 100 Top 5 (33 Weeks) and Top 10 (41 weeks) and has spent an astonishing 52 weeks on the Hot 100 chart, earning the crown from Billboard for “Top Hot 100 Song of 2020.” This year the single was also the top streamed song globally at Spotify and remains No. 1 at Top 40 radio – spending its seventh week in the position – and making it the longest running Top 10 in Mediabase Chart history – 39 weeks and counting. In addition, “Blinding Lights” was the No. 1 Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Song of 2020, the No. 1 Billboard Hot R&B Song of 2020 and spent most weeks ever on top of the chart (34), the #1 Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Digital Song Sales of 2020 and was the No. 1 Billboard R&B Streaming Song of 2020.
“Under the most challenging circumstances imaginable, the timing of The Weeknd’s After Hours release and the impact it’s made around the world is of historic proportions. Subsequently, ‘Blinding Lights’ has earned the respect of the global music community and will forever be recognized as one of the most important songs of a generation,” says Monte Lipman, Chairman and CEO of Republic Records
After making the decision to continue on with the release of After Hours during such an uncertain time in the world, the album went on to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200, where it remained for four weeks. Upon release, the album broke the debut streaming record for an R&B album and has since gone to become the most-streamed R&B album of 2020. It was also the first album to remain No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Chart for four consecutive weeks since 2018. The Weeknd also becomes first artist to simultaneously lead the Billboard 200, Billboard Hot 100, Billboard Artist 100, Hot 100 Songwriters and Hot 100 Producers with the release of After Hours.
“Blinding Lights” dominated radio in 2020 and racked up countless other accolades and records. In addition to becoming the longest running Top 10 in the Mediabase chart history, the single tied for the longest run at No. 1 on the Top 40 chart in 2020 and the longest running 20 weeks at No. 1 at Hot AC – the longest for a solo male artist in Mediabase chart history. Additionally, on the iHeart network and app alone the record hit an incredible 2.1 billion total audience spins, making it America’s most listened-to song, yet was still snubbed by the GRAMMYs.
