The most popular song of all-time — that is, the best-selling song of all-time — is “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby. More than 50 million people have bought the 1942 holiday single, with “album and other sales taking the total above 100 million.” Bing’s closest competition: Elton John’s Princess Diana tribute “Candle in the Wind 1997,” with a meager 33 million.
It takes awhile to find a song released in the 2000s on the best-seller list. O-Zone’s “Dragostea din tei” went eight-times platinum, putting it ahead of Nelly and Kelly Rowland’s “Dilemma” (7.6 million) and “Lady Marmalade” (5.2 million). Makes sense: No one buys music anymore; streaming’s where it’s at, and in that sense, “Lean On” is the new “White Christmas.”
The Major Lazer and and DJ Snake banger has been played on Spotify a whopping 526 million times in only nine months. That’s a new record, besting the previous titleholder, “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran, the human runner-up/third wheel. “Lean On,” whose number of streams would triple if you included times it was used in commercials and movie trailers, was turned down by Rihanna and Nicki Minaj before Major Lazer recorded it themselves.
Meanwhile, “Nobody Else but You” from the A Goofy Movie soundtrack is only 525,765,471 streams away from first place. Look out, Major Lazer!
(Via the Guardian)
