I want to show you a list, not a chart from 1983, not a legacy ranking compiled by music journalists looking back at history, a live list, a list that updates in real time based on what people are actually streaming today in 2026. The all-time most streamed songs across every major platform simultaneously. I want to show you how many songs on that list belong to one artist, an artist who has been dead for 16 years.
An artist who released his last studio album of original material in 2001. An artist who has not given an interview, posted on social media, gone on tour, released a single, or done anything at all to promote his music since June 24th, 2009, the last night of his life. The answer is going to stop you, and then I am going to show you what it looks like when you put it next to the numbers for every living artist on that same list.
Because that comparison is the thing most coverage of this story has been completely avoiding. Stay with me because in part four, I am going to show you something about one specific song on that list that changes how you understand everything else on it. Let’s start with the list itself and what it actually measures.
The all-time streaming charts on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music measure cumulative stream counts since those platforms launched. Spotify launched in 2008. Apple Music launched in 2015. Every stream of every song since those launch dates has been counted and ranked. The songs at the top of those lists are the songs that have generated the most total listening time across the entire history of streaming.
This is not a chart that measures what is popular right now. It is a chart that measures what has been popular consistently enough across enough years to accumulate a total that no single week or month of popularity can match. To be at the top of an all-time streaming chart, a song needs to have been listened to millions of times, not just in one moment, but across every moment since streaming began.
It is, in other words, a chart that measures staying power, not a hit, a permanent presence. Michael Jackson has seven songs in the all-time Spotify top 100 most streamed songs of all time. Seven songs in a list of 100 from an artist who died in 2009, 4 years before Spotify became a mainstream platform, and who has released no new music since then.
I want to go through those seven songs one by one, because each one tells a different part of the same story, and because the comparison at the end of that list is the thing that makes the overall number impossible to dismiss. Billie Jean. The song I covered in detail in my last video. 3.4 billion streams on Spotify alone.
All-time position in the top 15 most streamed songs in the history of the platform, released in 1983, still accumulating streams at a daily rate that would be the envy of most current releases. The Shazam activity in the week after the biopic opened increased by 173%, meaning new listeners are still finding this song for the first time in 2026.
3.4 billion. That number alone would place any artist among the most streamed in history. It is one of seven songs Michael Jackson has in the top 100. Thriller. 2.1 billion streams on Spotify. All-time top 40. The title track of the best-selling album in history, which I covered in detail previously, still generating daily stream counts that reflect a global audience that has never stopped returning to it.
The music video, which revolutionized the format in 1983, has been watched over 800 million times on YouTube, a number that continues to grow. 2.1 billion on Spotify is a compliment to a total consumption figure that, when all formats are counted, is beyond any reasonable comparison to any other song released in the same era. Beat It, 1.
8 billion streams on Spotify, all-time top 50. The song that brought Eddie Van Halen into a Michael Jackson recording session, that put a rock guitar solo on a pop record at a moment when those two categories were considered separate universes, that proved the same song could be number one on the pop chart and the rock chart simultaneously. 1.
8 billion streams from a song that was revolutionary in a way that has not been replicated since. Smooth Criminal, 1.6 billion streams on Spotify, all-time top 60. The song built around the anti-gravity lean, a physical movement so physiologically improbable that scientists at the Canadian Medical Association published a study in 2018 attempting to explain how Michael Jackson performed it without falling over.
The study concluded that he had developed a unique ability to engage his ankle muscles in a way that allowed him to achieve angles impossible for a normal human body. The song that produced that movement has been streamed 1.6 billion times. Black or White, 1.2 billion streams on Spotify, all-time top 80.
Released in 1991 as the lead single from the Dangerous album. It debuted at number one in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and 10 other countries simultaneously. The music video, which featured a groundbreaking morphing sequence that was among the first uses of that technology in mainstream entertainment, was watched by an estimated 500 million people in its first 24 hours of broadcast. 1.
2 billion streams in the streaming era from a song that generated 500 million viewers on television before streaming existed. Don’t stop till you get enough. 1.1 billion streams on Spotify all-time top 85. The first single from Off the Wall in 1979. Michael Jackson’s first number one as a solo adult artist. The song that announced 47 years ago that the child performer from Gary, Indiana had become something that the music industry did not yet have a category for. 1.
1 billion streams from a song that is 47 years old. Man in the Mirror. 980 million streams on Spotify approaching 1 billion. All-time position just outside the top 100. Close enough that the post biopic streaming surge in April and May of 2026 may push it across that threshold before this video is finished being watched.
A song about personal accountability and social change that has been used in graduation ceremonies, memorial services, political rallies, and moments of collective reflection across four decades and in dozens of countries. 980 million streams and still climbing. Seven songs. Seven entries in the all-time top 100 most streamed songs in the history of a platform that launched four years before Michael Jackson died and has been running for 18 years since.
Combined streaming total across those seven songs on Spotify alone, approximately 12 billion streams. 12 billion streams from seven songs by one artist. Now, I want to put that number next to the living artists on the same list because this is part four and this is the comparison I promised you. Drake has the most songs in the all-time Spotify top 100 of any currently active artist. The number is four.
God’s Plan, One Dance, Hotline Bling, and In My Feelings. Four songs. Combined streaming total for those four songs, approximately 7 billion streams. Drake is by streaming metrics one of the most consumed artists in the history of the platform. He has released music consistently for 15 years. He has the full infrastructure of modern music promotion working for him every single week.
Four songs, 7 billion streams combined. Michael Jackson, seven songs, 12 billion streams combined from an artist who has been dead since 2009. Ed Sheeran has three songs in the all-time top 100. Shape of You, Thinking Out Loud, and Perfect. Combined streaming total approximately 8 billion streams. Ed Sheeran is one of the best-selling artists of the streaming era and has maintained a level of commercial consistency that almost no other artist has managed across a 15-year career.
Three songs, 8 billion streams combined. Michael Jackson, seven songs, 12 billion. The Weeknd has three songs in the all-time top 100. Blinding Lights, Starboy, and Can’t Feel My Face. Combined streaming total approximately 7.5 billion streams. Blinding Lights alone spent the longest consecutive run in the history of the Billboard Hot 100.
A record that stands as one of the most extraordinary commercial achievements in the history of popular music. Three songs, 7.5 billion streams. Michael Jackson, seven songs, 12 billion. Taylor Swift has two songs in the all-time top 100, Shake It Off and Blank Space. Combined streaming total approximately 5 billion streams.
Taylor Swift is by many measures the most commercially successful active artist of the current era. Her Eras Tour is the highest-grossing concert tour in history. Her catalog sales and streaming numbers are without parallel among currently recording artists. Two songs, 5 billion streams combined. Michael Jackson, seven songs, 12 billion.
I want to pause on that comparison for a moment before I continue. Taylor Swift, the most commercially successful active artist on the planet. The person currently holding the record for the highest-grossing concert tour in history. Two songs in the all-time top 100 with a combined total of 5 billion streams.
Michael Jackson, seven songs, 12 billion streams. From an artist who has been dead for 16 years and has released no new music in 25. The gap between those two numbers is not a small gap. It is not the gap between a great artist and a very good one. It is the gap between something that operates according to normal rules and something that does not.
Bad Bunny has one song in the all top 100, Dakiti, recorded with Jhay Cortez, approximately 2.8 billion streams. Bad Bunny has been the most streamed artist on Spotify globally for multiple consecutive years. He dominates Latin streaming in a way that no other artist has managed. He represents in the current streaming landscape the peak of what consistent global popularity looks like.
One song, 2.8 billion streams. Michael Jackson, seven songs, 12 billion. What you are looking at when you look at those numbers is not a comparison between an older artist and newer ones. It is not a generational comparison or a format comparison or a reflection of when these artists were active. It is a comparison between a catalog built from something that does not expire and catalogs built from something that, however excellent, follows the normal rules of popular music where songs peak and fade and are replaced by new songs that peak and fade
in turn. Michael Jackson songs do not follow that pattern. They peaked, they stayed, and 16 years after his death and 44 years after the oldest of them was recorded, they are still accumulating streams at daily rates that most current releases cannot match in their best weeks. 12 billion streams from seven songs, the most entries in the all-time top 100 of any artist in the history of streaming.
More than Drake, more than Ed Sheeran, more than The Weeknd, more than Taylor Swift, more than any living artist who has had the full power of the modern music industry working for them every day for the last decade, and the list is not finished growing. Man in the Mirror is at 980 million and still climbing.
The post-biopic streaming surge added to the daily totals of every song on the list. The generation of new listeners that the biopic introduced to the catalog in April and May of 2026 is still streaming. The Shazam numbers that spiked in those weeks are converting to regular listeners who are working their way through a catalog they are discovering for the first time.
12 billion today, 13 billion by the end of the year, 14 billion by the end of next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. There is no ceiling visible in the data. There is no point at which the daily stream count is declining towards zero. The baseline established by the biopic is higher than the baseline that existed before it.
And Japan, which has not yet seen the film, will push those numbers again when it opens. 12 billion streams from seven songs, still climbing, still finding new listeners, still doing something that the music industry has been trying to replicate with every tool available to it for 40 years, still not replicable. If this video gave you something to think about, hit that like button and subscribe for more breakdowns like this one. Drop a comment below.
Which of those seven songs is your favorite? We read every single one.
Dead Since 2009 — Michael Jackson Still Has More Streaming Hits Than Any Living Artist
I want to show you a list, not a chart from 1983, not a legacy ranking compiled by music journalists looking back at history, a live list, a list that updates in real time based on what people are actually streaming today in 2026. The all-time most streamed songs across every major platform simultaneously. I want to show you how many songs on that list belong to one artist, an artist who has been dead for 16 years.
An artist who released his last studio album of original material in 2001. An artist who has not given an interview, posted on social media, gone on tour, released a single, or done anything at all to promote his music since June 24th, 2009, the last night of his life. The answer is going to stop you, and then I am going to show you what it looks like when you put it next to the numbers for every living artist on that same list.
Because that comparison is the thing most coverage of this story has been completely avoiding. Stay with me because in part four, I am going to show you something about one specific song on that list that changes how you understand everything else on it. Let’s start with the list itself and what it actually measures.
The all-time streaming charts on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music measure cumulative stream counts since those platforms launched. Spotify launched in 2008. Apple Music launched in 2015. Every stream of every song since those launch dates has been counted and ranked. The songs at the top of those lists are the songs that have generated the most total listening time across the entire history of streaming.
This is not a chart that measures what is popular right now. It is a chart that measures what has been popular consistently enough across enough years to accumulate a total that no single week or month of popularity can match. To be at the top of an all-time streaming chart, a song needs to have been listened to millions of times, not just in one moment, but across every moment since streaming began.
It is, in other words, a chart that measures staying power, not a hit, a permanent presence. Michael Jackson has seven songs in the all-time Spotify top 100 most streamed songs of all time. Seven songs in a list of 100 from an artist who died in 2009, 4 years before Spotify became a mainstream platform, and who has released no new music since then.
I want to go through those seven songs one by one, because each one tells a different part of the same story, and because the comparison at the end of that list is the thing that makes the overall number impossible to dismiss. Billie Jean. The song I covered in detail in my last video. 3.4 billion streams on Spotify alone.
All-time position in the top 15 most streamed songs in the history of the platform, released in 1983, still accumulating streams at a daily rate that would be the envy of most current releases. The Shazam activity in the week after the biopic opened increased by 173%, meaning new listeners are still finding this song for the first time in 2026.
3.4 billion. That number alone would place any artist among the most streamed in history. It is one of seven songs Michael Jackson has in the top 100. Thriller. 2.1 billion streams on Spotify. All-time top 40. The title track of the best-selling album in history, which I covered in detail previously, still generating daily stream counts that reflect a global audience that has never stopped returning to it.
The music video, which revolutionized the format in 1983, has been watched over 800 million times on YouTube, a number that continues to grow. 2.1 billion on Spotify is a compliment to a total consumption figure that, when all formats are counted, is beyond any reasonable comparison to any other song released in the same era. Beat It, 1.
8 billion streams on Spotify, all-time top 50. The song that brought Eddie Van Halen into a Michael Jackson recording session, that put a rock guitar solo on a pop record at a moment when those two categories were considered separate universes, that proved the same song could be number one on the pop chart and the rock chart simultaneously. 1.
8 billion streams from a song that was revolutionary in a way that has not been replicated since. Smooth Criminal, 1.6 billion streams on Spotify, all-time top 60. The song built around the anti-gravity lean, a physical movement so physiologically improbable that scientists at the Canadian Medical Association published a study in 2018 attempting to explain how Michael Jackson performed it without falling over.
The study concluded that he had developed a unique ability to engage his ankle muscles in a way that allowed him to achieve angles impossible for a normal human body. The song that produced that movement has been streamed 1.6 billion times. Black or White, 1.2 billion streams on Spotify, all-time top 80.
Released in 1991 as the lead single from the Dangerous album. It debuted at number one in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and 10 other countries simultaneously. The music video, which featured a groundbreaking morphing sequence that was among the first uses of that technology in mainstream entertainment, was watched by an estimated 500 million people in its first 24 hours of broadcast. 1.
2 billion streams in the streaming era from a song that generated 500 million viewers on television before streaming existed. Don’t stop till you get enough. 1.1 billion streams on Spotify all-time top 85. The first single from Off the Wall in 1979. Michael Jackson’s first number one as a solo adult artist. The song that announced 47 years ago that the child performer from Gary, Indiana had become something that the music industry did not yet have a category for. 1.
1 billion streams from a song that is 47 years old. Man in the Mirror. 980 million streams on Spotify approaching 1 billion. All-time position just outside the top 100. Close enough that the post biopic streaming surge in April and May of 2026 may push it across that threshold before this video is finished being watched.
A song about personal accountability and social change that has been used in graduation ceremonies, memorial services, political rallies, and moments of collective reflection across four decades and in dozens of countries. 980 million streams and still climbing. Seven songs. Seven entries in the all-time top 100 most streamed songs in the history of a platform that launched four years before Michael Jackson died and has been running for 18 years since.
Combined streaming total across those seven songs on Spotify alone, approximately 12 billion streams. 12 billion streams from seven songs by one artist. Now, I want to put that number next to the living artists on the same list because this is part four and this is the comparison I promised you. Drake has the most songs in the all-time Spotify top 100 of any currently active artist. The number is four.
God’s Plan, One Dance, Hotline Bling, and In My Feelings. Four songs. Combined streaming total for those four songs, approximately 7 billion streams. Drake is by streaming metrics one of the most consumed artists in the history of the platform. He has released music consistently for 15 years. He has the full infrastructure of modern music promotion working for him every single week.
Four songs, 7 billion streams combined. Michael Jackson, seven songs, 12 billion streams combined from an artist who has been dead since 2009. Ed Sheeran has three songs in the all-time top 100. Shape of You, Thinking Out Loud, and Perfect. Combined streaming total approximately 8 billion streams. Ed Sheeran is one of the best-selling artists of the streaming era and has maintained a level of commercial consistency that almost no other artist has managed across a 15-year career.
Three songs, 8 billion streams combined. Michael Jackson, seven songs, 12 billion. The Weeknd has three songs in the all-time top 100. Blinding Lights, Starboy, and Can’t Feel My Face. Combined streaming total approximately 7.5 billion streams. Blinding Lights alone spent the longest consecutive run in the history of the Billboard Hot 100.
A record that stands as one of the most extraordinary commercial achievements in the history of popular music. Three songs, 7.5 billion streams. Michael Jackson, seven songs, 12 billion. Taylor Swift has two songs in the all-time top 100, Shake It Off and Blank Space. Combined streaming total approximately 5 billion streams.
Taylor Swift is by many measures the most commercially successful active artist of the current era. Her Eras Tour is the highest-grossing concert tour in history. Her catalog sales and streaming numbers are without parallel among currently recording artists. Two songs, 5 billion streams combined. Michael Jackson, seven songs, 12 billion.
I want to pause on that comparison for a moment before I continue. Taylor Swift, the most commercially successful active artist on the planet. The person currently holding the record for the highest-grossing concert tour in history. Two songs in the all-time top 100 with a combined total of 5 billion streams.
Michael Jackson, seven songs, 12 billion streams. From an artist who has been dead for 16 years and has released no new music in 25. The gap between those two numbers is not a small gap. It is not the gap between a great artist and a very good one. It is the gap between something that operates according to normal rules and something that does not.
Bad Bunny has one song in the all top 100, Dakiti, recorded with Jhay Cortez, approximately 2.8 billion streams. Bad Bunny has been the most streamed artist on Spotify globally for multiple consecutive years. He dominates Latin streaming in a way that no other artist has managed. He represents in the current streaming landscape the peak of what consistent global popularity looks like.
One song, 2.8 billion streams. Michael Jackson, seven songs, 12 billion. What you are looking at when you look at those numbers is not a comparison between an older artist and newer ones. It is not a generational comparison or a format comparison or a reflection of when these artists were active. It is a comparison between a catalog built from something that does not expire and catalogs built from something that, however excellent, follows the normal rules of popular music where songs peak and fade and are replaced by new songs that peak and fade
in turn. Michael Jackson songs do not follow that pattern. They peaked, they stayed, and 16 years after his death and 44 years after the oldest of them was recorded, they are still accumulating streams at daily rates that most current releases cannot match in their best weeks. 12 billion streams from seven songs, the most entries in the all-time top 100 of any artist in the history of streaming.
More than Drake, more than Ed Sheeran, more than The Weeknd, more than Taylor Swift, more than any living artist who has had the full power of the modern music industry working for them every day for the last decade, and the list is not finished growing. Man in the Mirror is at 980 million and still climbing.
The post-biopic streaming surge added to the daily totals of every song on the list. The generation of new listeners that the biopic introduced to the catalog in April and May of 2026 is still streaming. The Shazam numbers that spiked in those weeks are converting to regular listeners who are working their way through a catalog they are discovering for the first time.
12 billion today, 13 billion by the end of the year, 14 billion by the end of next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. There is no ceiling visible in the data. There is no point at which the daily stream count is declining towards zero. The baseline established by the biopic is higher than the baseline that existed before it.
And Japan, which has not yet seen the film, will push those numbers again when it opens. 12 billion streams from seven songs, still climbing, still finding new listeners, still doing something that the music industry has been trying to replicate with every tool available to it for 40 years, still not replicable. If this video gave you something to think about, hit that like button and subscribe for more breakdowns like this one. Drop a comment below.
Which of those seven songs is your favorite? We read every single one.
