The Weeknd wins 2020’s IFPI Global Digital Single Award for Blinding Lights according to IFPI’s recently published Top 10 Global Digital Singles of 2020 chart. The IFPI Global Digital Single Award is presented to the world’s best-selling single of the year across all digital formats including single track downloads, and streams on both paid subscription services and ad-supported platforms.
Blinding Lights was the second single from The Weeknd’s fourth studio album After Hours, which was released in March 2020. A critical and commercial triumph, Blinding Lights peaked at #1 in more than 30 countries across the globe, fuelled a viral TikTok dance challenge, and shattered records for the most weeks in both the top 10 and top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. Overall, the track delivered 2.72 Bn subscription stream equivalents globally.
IFPI has changed its chart measuring metrics from Track Equivalent Units to Subscription Stream Equivalents. It does this by measuring digital downloads and streams from both subscription and free, ad-supported platforms. The free, ad-supported streams are converted into subscription stream equivalents in line with the relative value of each format in each region to come up with a combined total reflecting the difference between paid for and free streams.
The Weeknd has appeared in the top 10 of IFPI’s Global Artist Chart in four of the last five years, and landed at #4 in this year’s chart, his best performance to date. Blinding Lights was joined in the top three by Tones and I’s Dance Monkey, which spent a second successive year in the top ten and improved its chart position versus last year, a feat only matched by Ed Sheeran’s Perfect in 2018. Roddy Ricch’s The Box, which spent 11 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped charts across the world as well as being the top streaming track of 2020 on Apple Music, took #3 in the chart. Roddy Ricch also featured on the #8 track, ROCKSTAR with fellow chart debutant DaBaby, making him the only artist to appear twice in the top 10.
Elsewhere in the top 10, Chinese superstar Xiao Zhan landed at #7, following the outstanding success of Made to Love in his home country, where it broke records for digital download sales. BTS landed their first appearance in the IFPI Global Digital Single chart with Dynamite. Last year’s #1, Billie Eilish’s bad guy spent a second year in the top 10 landing at #9.
