Seven songs, that is all. Seven songs from a man who has been dead since 2009, who has released no new music in 25 years, who cannot give an interview or post on social media or accept a booking or announce a tour or do anything at all to promote his work because he is no longer alive to do it. Seven songs on Spotify’s all-time top 100 most streamed tracks in the history of the platform.
I want to show you what those seven songs are generating in daily streams right now. And then I want to put those numbers next to three specific artists. Not their worst albums. Their entire catalogs. Every song they have ever released. Every track from every album from every era of their careers added together into a single combined daily stream count.
And I want to show you what happens when you compare Michael Jackson’s seven songs to Drake’s entire discography, to The Weeknd’s entire discography, to Beyoncé’s entire discography, because the number that comes out of that comparison is not what you expect. And the reason it is not what you expect tells you something about what Michael Jackson built that no streaming chart and no Forbes list and no box office report can fully capture on its own.
Stay with me. Because in part four, I am going to show you the one number that sits above all three of these comparisons. The number that makes the Drake comparison and the Weeknd comparison and the Beyoncé comparison look like warm-up acts for the main event. Let’s start with the seven songs. Billie Jean, currently at number one on the Spotify global daily chart. 5.
189 million streams in a single day at its peak. Now settled into an elevated daily baseline following the biopic surge generating approximately 4 to 5 million streams per day. Total accumulated Spotify streams 2.863 billion. Currently generating approximately 2.71 million daily streams. Total accumulated streams 1.8 billion. Smooth Criminal.
Approximately 1.7 million daily streams. Total accumulated streams 1.2 billion. They don’t care about us. Approximately 1.68 million daily streams. Total accumulated streams approximately 900 million. Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough. Approximately 1.1 million daily streams. Total accumulated streams approximately 800 million. Man in the Mirror.
Approximately 900,000 daily streams and climbing. Total accumulated streams approximately 750 million. Black or White. Approximately 800,000 daily streams. Total accumulated streams approximately 700 million. Seven songs. Combined daily streams at current baseline approximately 13.5 million per day. Combined total accumulated streams across all seven approximately 9 billion now.
Drake. Drake is the most streamed rapper in the history of Spotify by total accumulated streams across his entire discography including featured appearances Drake has generated approximately 126 billion streams across his career. His current monthly listener count on Spotify is 97 million. He is, by the most comprehensive available metric of streaming success, the most commercially dominant rap artist in the history of the platform.
Drake has released 15 studio albums, multiple mixtapes, hundreds of singles, collaborations with virtually every major artist in popular music across 15 years of active releasing. His catalog contains more than 600 individual tracks. When you add all of those tracks together and calculate the daily stream count that his entire combined catalog is generating right now, you arrive at a number.
That number is approximately 12.5 million daily streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams. Drake’s entire 600-plus track catalog, 12.5 million daily streams. Seven songs against 600, and the seven songs are generating more. I want to stay with that for a moment before we move on to The Weeknd.
Because the specific comparison between seven tracks and 600 tracks generating the same daily stream volume is not a statement about Drake’s commercial success. Drake is one of the most commercially successful artists in the history of recorded music. His catalog is extraordinary, and his daily streaming numbers are extraordinary.
The comparison is not designed to diminish what Drake has built. It is designed to show what Michael Jackson built. Seven songs, not 600. Seven. And those seven are generating as many daily streams as an artist who has released 15 albums and hundreds of singles, and who has been the predominant commercial presence in rap music for 15 consecutive years.
Now, The Weeknd. The Weeknd is, by current monthly listener count on Spotify, the most listened to artist on the platform after Justin Bieber. 113 million monthly listeners. He has held the number one position on the monthly listeners chart multiple times, becoming the first artist in history to reach 100 million monthly listeners in February 2023.
He is, by Spotify’s own metrics, the most globally listened to active musical artist on the planet. His catalog contains 25 songs in Spotify’s Billion’s Club. Songs that have each individually accumulated more than 1 billion streams. No other artist has as many tracks in the Billion’s Club. Blinding Lights, his most streamed song, has accumulated approximately 4.
9 billion streams, making it the most streamed song in the history of Spotify, and one of the most significant commercial achievements in the platform’s 18-year existence. The Weeknd has built the most impressive streaming catalog of any artist in the modern era of music distribution. What his entire catalog, every song across every album from Trilogy through Hurry Up Tomorrow, generates in combined daily streams is approximately 14 million.
Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams. The Weeknd’s entire catalog, approximately 14 million daily streams. The gap between Michael Jackson’s seven songs and The Weeknd’s complete body of work is approximately 500,000 daily streams. The most listened to active artist on Earth. With 25 billion dollar songs and a catalog that spans more than a decade of consistent releasing is generating approximately 500,000 more daily streams than Michael Jackson’s seven tracks.
500,000 streams out of 14 million. A 3 and 1/2% difference between seven songs and everything The Weeknd has ever released. The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights alone has 4.9 billion accumulated streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs combined have 9 billion accumulated streams. The most streamed song in Spotify history is outpaced by the combined total of seven songs from an artist who died before the platform existed.
Now, Beyoncé. Beyoncé is the most Grammy awarded artist in the history of the Recording Academy. 32 Grammy Awards. Her catalog spans from Destiny’s Child through Cowboy Carter, encompassing more than 30 years of recorded music across multiple genres. She is, by critical consensus, one of the most significant artists in the history of popular music.
Her cultural influence is documented across every form of creative expression. And her commercial footprint is global and sustained. Her current monthly listener count on Spotify is 62 million. Her catalog generates approximately 7 million daily streams across all the platforms. Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams.
Beyoncé’s entire catalog, approximately 7 million daily streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs are generating nearly twice the daily streams of Beyoncé’s complete body of work. Every song she has ever recorded, from her earliest Destiny’s Child recordings through her most recent releases, combined into a single daily stream number, is approximately half of what seven Michael Jackson songs are generating every day.
Before we get to all three together, I want to add one more name because this comparison would not be complete without it. Kendrick Lamar, the most critically acclaimed rapper of his generation, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2018, the first non-classical and non-jazz musician to receive it, winner of multiple Grammy Awards, the artist behind To Pimp a Butterfly, which multiple critical institutions have named the most important album of the decade, the artist whose 2024 Super Bowl Halftime performance
drew 127 million viewers and generated the most talked-about cultural moment in live television that year. The artist whose diss track Not Like Us generated more Spotify streams in a single week than most artists generate in a year. Kendrick Lamar’s current monthly listener count on Spotify is 69 million. His catalog, spanning from Section 80 through GNX, contains hundreds of individual tracks across more than a decade of critically celebrated releasing.
His combined daily stream count across his entire discography is approximately 5 million streams per day. Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams. Kendrick Lamar’s entire critically celebrated catalog, approximately 5 million daily streams. The artist who won the Pulitzer Prize, the artist whose Super Bowl performance was the most watched halftime show in recent years, the artist who the critical establishment has consistently placed at the top of the conversation about what rap music is capable of achieving at its highest level.
His entire catalog is generating approximately 5 million daily streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs are generating 2.7 times what Kendrick Lamar’s entire body of work generates. Not one of Michael Jackson’s songs, all seven combined, but still 2.7 times against everything Kendrick has ever made. Now, all three together.
Drake, 12.5 million daily streams from his entire catalog. The Weeknd, 14 million daily streams from his entire catalog. Beyoncé, 7 million daily streams from her entire catalog. Combined, 33.5 million daily streams from three of the most significant catalogs in the history of popular music.
Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams. The three catalogs combined are generating 33.5 million daily streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs are generating 13.5 million. The three combined outpace the seven, but the specific way they outpace them is the thing that makes the comparison extraordinary. Drake has released more than 600 tracks.
Dead Since 2009 — Michael Jackson’s 7 Songs Are Still Beating Entire Catalogs
Seven songs, that is all. Seven songs from a man who has been dead since 2009, who has released no new music in 25 years, who cannot give an interview or post on social media or accept a booking or announce a tour or do anything at all to promote his work because he is no longer alive to do it. Seven songs on Spotify’s all-time top 100 most streamed tracks in the history of the platform.
I want to show you what those seven songs are generating in daily streams right now. And then I want to put those numbers next to three specific artists. Not their worst albums. Their entire catalogs. Every song they have ever released. Every track from every album from every era of their careers added together into a single combined daily stream count.
And I want to show you what happens when you compare Michael Jackson’s seven songs to Drake’s entire discography, to The Weeknd’s entire discography, to Beyoncé’s entire discography, because the number that comes out of that comparison is not what you expect. And the reason it is not what you expect tells you something about what Michael Jackson built that no streaming chart and no Forbes list and no box office report can fully capture on its own.
Stay with me. Because in part four, I am going to show you the one number that sits above all three of these comparisons. The number that makes the Drake comparison and the Weeknd comparison and the Beyoncé comparison look like warm-up acts for the main event. Let’s start with the seven songs. Billie Jean, currently at number one on the Spotify global daily chart. 5.
189 million streams in a single day at its peak. Now settled into an elevated daily baseline following the biopic surge generating approximately 4 to 5 million streams per day. Total accumulated Spotify streams 2.863 billion. Currently generating approximately 2.71 million daily streams. Total accumulated streams 1.8 billion. Smooth Criminal.
Approximately 1.7 million daily streams. Total accumulated streams 1.2 billion. They don’t care about us. Approximately 1.68 million daily streams. Total accumulated streams approximately 900 million. Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough. Approximately 1.1 million daily streams. Total accumulated streams approximately 800 million. Man in the Mirror.
Approximately 900,000 daily streams and climbing. Total accumulated streams approximately 750 million. Black or White. Approximately 800,000 daily streams. Total accumulated streams approximately 700 million. Seven songs. Combined daily streams at current baseline approximately 13.5 million per day. Combined total accumulated streams across all seven approximately 9 billion now.
Drake. Drake is the most streamed rapper in the history of Spotify by total accumulated streams across his entire discography including featured appearances Drake has generated approximately 126 billion streams across his career. His current monthly listener count on Spotify is 97 million. He is, by the most comprehensive available metric of streaming success, the most commercially dominant rap artist in the history of the platform.
Drake has released 15 studio albums, multiple mixtapes, hundreds of singles, collaborations with virtually every major artist in popular music across 15 years of active releasing. His catalog contains more than 600 individual tracks. When you add all of those tracks together and calculate the daily stream count that his entire combined catalog is generating right now, you arrive at a number.
That number is approximately 12.5 million daily streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams. Drake’s entire 600-plus track catalog, 12.5 million daily streams. Seven songs against 600, and the seven songs are generating more. I want to stay with that for a moment before we move on to The Weeknd.
Because the specific comparison between seven tracks and 600 tracks generating the same daily stream volume is not a statement about Drake’s commercial success. Drake is one of the most commercially successful artists in the history of recorded music. His catalog is extraordinary, and his daily streaming numbers are extraordinary.
The comparison is not designed to diminish what Drake has built. It is designed to show what Michael Jackson built. Seven songs, not 600. Seven. And those seven are generating as many daily streams as an artist who has released 15 albums and hundreds of singles, and who has been the predominant commercial presence in rap music for 15 consecutive years.
Now, The Weeknd. The Weeknd is, by current monthly listener count on Spotify, the most listened to artist on the platform after Justin Bieber. 113 million monthly listeners. He has held the number one position on the monthly listeners chart multiple times, becoming the first artist in history to reach 100 million monthly listeners in February 2023.
He is, by Spotify’s own metrics, the most globally listened to active musical artist on the planet. His catalog contains 25 songs in Spotify’s Billion’s Club. Songs that have each individually accumulated more than 1 billion streams. No other artist has as many tracks in the Billion’s Club. Blinding Lights, his most streamed song, has accumulated approximately 4.
9 billion streams, making it the most streamed song in the history of Spotify, and one of the most significant commercial achievements in the platform’s 18-year existence. The Weeknd has built the most impressive streaming catalog of any artist in the modern era of music distribution. What his entire catalog, every song across every album from Trilogy through Hurry Up Tomorrow, generates in combined daily streams is approximately 14 million.
Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams. The Weeknd’s entire catalog, approximately 14 million daily streams. The gap between Michael Jackson’s seven songs and The Weeknd’s complete body of work is approximately 500,000 daily streams. The most listened to active artist on Earth. With 25 billion dollar songs and a catalog that spans more than a decade of consistent releasing is generating approximately 500,000 more daily streams than Michael Jackson’s seven tracks.
500,000 streams out of 14 million. A 3 and 1/2% difference between seven songs and everything The Weeknd has ever released. The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights alone has 4.9 billion accumulated streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs combined have 9 billion accumulated streams. The most streamed song in Spotify history is outpaced by the combined total of seven songs from an artist who died before the platform existed.
Now, Beyoncé. Beyoncé is the most Grammy awarded artist in the history of the Recording Academy. 32 Grammy Awards. Her catalog spans from Destiny’s Child through Cowboy Carter, encompassing more than 30 years of recorded music across multiple genres. She is, by critical consensus, one of the most significant artists in the history of popular music.
Her cultural influence is documented across every form of creative expression. And her commercial footprint is global and sustained. Her current monthly listener count on Spotify is 62 million. Her catalog generates approximately 7 million daily streams across all the platforms. Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams.
Beyoncé’s entire catalog, approximately 7 million daily streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs are generating nearly twice the daily streams of Beyoncé’s complete body of work. Every song she has ever recorded, from her earliest Destiny’s Child recordings through her most recent releases, combined into a single daily stream number, is approximately half of what seven Michael Jackson songs are generating every day.
Before we get to all three together, I want to add one more name because this comparison would not be complete without it. Kendrick Lamar, the most critically acclaimed rapper of his generation, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2018, the first non-classical and non-jazz musician to receive it, winner of multiple Grammy Awards, the artist behind To Pimp a Butterfly, which multiple critical institutions have named the most important album of the decade, the artist whose 2024 Super Bowl Halftime performance
drew 127 million viewers and generated the most talked-about cultural moment in live television that year. The artist whose diss track Not Like Us generated more Spotify streams in a single week than most artists generate in a year. Kendrick Lamar’s current monthly listener count on Spotify is 69 million. His catalog, spanning from Section 80 through GNX, contains hundreds of individual tracks across more than a decade of critically celebrated releasing.
His combined daily stream count across his entire discography is approximately 5 million streams per day. Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams. Kendrick Lamar’s entire critically celebrated catalog, approximately 5 million daily streams. The artist who won the Pulitzer Prize, the artist whose Super Bowl performance was the most watched halftime show in recent years, the artist who the critical establishment has consistently placed at the top of the conversation about what rap music is capable of achieving at its highest level.
His entire catalog is generating approximately 5 million daily streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs are generating 2.7 times what Kendrick Lamar’s entire body of work generates. Not one of Michael Jackson’s songs, all seven combined, but still 2.7 times against everything Kendrick has ever made. Now, all three together.
Drake, 12.5 million daily streams from his entire catalog. The Weeknd, 14 million daily streams from his entire catalog. Beyoncé, 7 million daily streams from her entire catalog. Combined, 33.5 million daily streams from three of the most significant catalogs in the history of popular music.
Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams. The three catalogs combined are generating 33.5 million daily streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs are generating 13.5 million. The three combined outpace the seven, but the specific way they outpace them is the thing that makes the comparison extraordinary. Drake has released more than 600 tracks.
Dead Since 2009 — Michael Jackson’s 7 Songs Are Still Beating Entire Catalogs
Seven songs, that is all. Seven songs from a man who has been dead since 2009, who has released no new music in 25 years, who cannot give an interview or post on social media or accept a booking or announce a tour or do anything at all to promote his work because he is no longer alive to do it. Seven songs on Spotify’s all-time top 100 most streamed tracks in the history of the platform.
I want to show you what those seven songs are generating in daily streams right now. And then I want to put those numbers next to three specific artists. Not their worst albums. Their entire catalogs. Every song they have ever released. Every track from every album from every era of their careers added together into a single combined daily stream count.
And I want to show you what happens when you compare Michael Jackson’s seven songs to Drake’s entire discography, to The Weeknd’s entire discography, to Beyoncé’s entire discography, because the number that comes out of that comparison is not what you expect. And the reason it is not what you expect tells you something about what Michael Jackson built that no streaming chart and no Forbes list and no box office report can fully capture on its own.
Stay with me. Because in part four, I am going to show you the one number that sits above all three of these comparisons. The number that makes the Drake comparison and the Weeknd comparison and the Beyoncé comparison look like warm-up acts for the main event. Let’s start with the seven songs. Billie Jean, currently at number one on the Spotify global daily chart. 5.
189 million streams in a single day at its peak. Now settled into an elevated daily baseline following the biopic surge generating approximately 4 to 5 million streams per day. Total accumulated Spotify streams 2.863 billion. Currently generating approximately 2.71 million daily streams. Total accumulated streams 1.8 billion. Smooth Criminal.
Approximately 1.7 million daily streams. Total accumulated streams 1.2 billion. They don’t care about us. Approximately 1.68 million daily streams. Total accumulated streams approximately 900 million. Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough. Approximately 1.1 million daily streams. Total accumulated streams approximately 800 million. Man in the Mirror.
Approximately 900,000 daily streams and climbing. Total accumulated streams approximately 750 million. Black or White. Approximately 800,000 daily streams. Total accumulated streams approximately 700 million. Seven songs. Combined daily streams at current baseline approximately 13.5 million per day. Combined total accumulated streams across all seven approximately 9 billion now.
Drake. Drake is the most streamed rapper in the history of Spotify by total accumulated streams across his entire discography including featured appearances Drake has generated approximately 126 billion streams across his career. His current monthly listener count on Spotify is 97 million. He is, by the most comprehensive available metric of streaming success, the most commercially dominant rap artist in the history of the platform.
Drake has released 15 studio albums, multiple mixtapes, hundreds of singles, collaborations with virtually every major artist in popular music across 15 years of active releasing. His catalog contains more than 600 individual tracks. When you add all of those tracks together and calculate the daily stream count that his entire combined catalog is generating right now, you arrive at a number.
That number is approximately 12.5 million daily streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams. Drake’s entire 600-plus track catalog, 12.5 million daily streams. Seven songs against 600, and the seven songs are generating more. I want to stay with that for a moment before we move on to The Weeknd.
Because the specific comparison between seven tracks and 600 tracks generating the same daily stream volume is not a statement about Drake’s commercial success. Drake is one of the most commercially successful artists in the history of recorded music. His catalog is extraordinary, and his daily streaming numbers are extraordinary.
The comparison is not designed to diminish what Drake has built. It is designed to show what Michael Jackson built. Seven songs, not 600. Seven. And those seven are generating as many daily streams as an artist who has released 15 albums and hundreds of singles, and who has been the predominant commercial presence in rap music for 15 consecutive years.
Now, The Weeknd. The Weeknd is, by current monthly listener count on Spotify, the most listened to artist on the platform after Justin Bieber. 113 million monthly listeners. He has held the number one position on the monthly listeners chart multiple times, becoming the first artist in history to reach 100 million monthly listeners in February 2023.
He is, by Spotify’s own metrics, the most globally listened to active musical artist on the planet. His catalog contains 25 songs in Spotify’s Billion’s Club. Songs that have each individually accumulated more than 1 billion streams. No other artist has as many tracks in the Billion’s Club. Blinding Lights, his most streamed song, has accumulated approximately 4.
9 billion streams, making it the most streamed song in the history of Spotify, and one of the most significant commercial achievements in the platform’s 18-year existence. The Weeknd has built the most impressive streaming catalog of any artist in the modern era of music distribution. What his entire catalog, every song across every album from Trilogy through Hurry Up Tomorrow, generates in combined daily streams is approximately 14 million.
Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams. The Weeknd’s entire catalog, approximately 14 million daily streams. The gap between Michael Jackson’s seven songs and The Weeknd’s complete body of work is approximately 500,000 daily streams. The most listened to active artist on Earth. With 25 billion dollar songs and a catalog that spans more than a decade of consistent releasing is generating approximately 500,000 more daily streams than Michael Jackson’s seven tracks.
500,000 streams out of 14 million. A 3 and 1/2% difference between seven songs and everything The Weeknd has ever released. The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights alone has 4.9 billion accumulated streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs combined have 9 billion accumulated streams. The most streamed song in Spotify history is outpaced by the combined total of seven songs from an artist who died before the platform existed.
Now, Beyoncé. Beyoncé is the most Grammy awarded artist in the history of the Recording Academy. 32 Grammy Awards. Her catalog spans from Destiny’s Child through Cowboy Carter, encompassing more than 30 years of recorded music across multiple genres. She is, by critical consensus, one of the most significant artists in the history of popular music.
Her cultural influence is documented across every form of creative expression. And her commercial footprint is global and sustained. Her current monthly listener count on Spotify is 62 million. Her catalog generates approximately 7 million daily streams across all the platforms. Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams.
Beyoncé’s entire catalog, approximately 7 million daily streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs are generating nearly twice the daily streams of Beyoncé’s complete body of work. Every song she has ever recorded, from her earliest Destiny’s Child recordings through her most recent releases, combined into a single daily stream number, is approximately half of what seven Michael Jackson songs are generating every day.
Before we get to all three together, I want to add one more name because this comparison would not be complete without it. Kendrick Lamar, the most critically acclaimed rapper of his generation, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2018, the first non-classical and non-jazz musician to receive it, winner of multiple Grammy Awards, the artist behind To Pimp a Butterfly, which multiple critical institutions have named the most important album of the decade, the artist whose 2024 Super Bowl Halftime performance
drew 127 million viewers and generated the most talked-about cultural moment in live television that year. The artist whose diss track Not Like Us generated more Spotify streams in a single week than most artists generate in a year. Kendrick Lamar’s current monthly listener count on Spotify is 69 million. His catalog, spanning from Section 80 through GNX, contains hundreds of individual tracks across more than a decade of critically celebrated releasing.
His combined daily stream count across his entire discography is approximately 5 million streams per day. Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams. Kendrick Lamar’s entire critically celebrated catalog, approximately 5 million daily streams. The artist who won the Pulitzer Prize, the artist whose Super Bowl performance was the most watched halftime show in recent years, the artist who the critical establishment has consistently placed at the top of the conversation about what rap music is capable of achieving at its highest level.
His entire catalog is generating approximately 5 million daily streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs are generating 2.7 times what Kendrick Lamar’s entire body of work generates. Not one of Michael Jackson’s songs, all seven combined, but still 2.7 times against everything Kendrick has ever made. Now, all three together.
Drake, 12.5 million daily streams from his entire catalog. The Weeknd, 14 million daily streams from his entire catalog. Beyoncé, 7 million daily streams from her entire catalog. Combined, 33.5 million daily streams from three of the most significant catalogs in the history of popular music.
Michael Jackson’s seven songs, 13.5 million daily streams. The three catalogs combined are generating 33.5 million daily streams. Michael Jackson’s seven songs are generating 13.5 million. The three combined outpace the seven, but the specific way they outpace them is the thing that makes the comparison extraordinary. Drake has released more than 600 tracks.
