Bigger hit: Uptown Funk or Blinding Lights

[phieaglesfan712]

It’s pretty obvious that Uptown Funk and Blinding Lights are the two biggest hits of the streaming era (and possibly even all time).

In real stats, Uptown Funk is the highest certified song (it’s on pace to be 2x diamond at the end of 2022/early 2023). It spent 14 weeks at #1 on the Hot 100 and was well rounded on all metrics (13 weeks at #1 on sales, as well as 12 weeks at #1 on both streaming and radio). In addition, this song was so strong, it caused Billboard to add the 25/52 rule. Otherwise, it would have spent about 20 more weeks on the chart. Still, Uptown Funk ranked #5 on Billboard’s all time chart.

Blinding Lights holds the record for most weeks on the Hot 100 (as well as most weeks in the Top 4, Top 5, Top 10, Top 15, Top 20, Top 25, Top 40, and Top 50). On the radio songs chart, it holds the record for most weeks at #1, as well as most weeks on the chart. Blinding Lights was ranked as the #1 on Billboard’s all time chart. It also holds the record for most weeks on the United World Chart, where it ranks #2 all time.

[Private Dancer]

Uptown Funk. Uptown FUnk was a cultural reset and had memes, parodies etc.. made about it

[degen]

“Uptown Funk” was more wider reaching, Urban audiences were also here for it unlike BL. It was an event single at its peak, versus BL which was more of a sleeper hit.

[mikerivera]

I would argue Shape of You, Despacito and Old Town Road were all bigger hits than Blinding Lights. The latter two were much bigger “events,” the first two have way bigger streaming numbers and were arguably the two biggest global hits ever, and all three were long running, dominant number ones even despite much stiffer competition. Yes BL set all of those longevity records...at a time when most people weren’t driving and were disconnected from each other except through the internet. And music tastes had already been trending towards decentralization. What I’m saying is that all three of the songs I listed were completely inescapable. Blinding Lights, for reasons that were mostly out of its control, was not. It had the greatest chart run in Billboard history, but it’s not the biggest hit of all time. And truth be told, we’re probably in an era where songs aren’t inescapable anymore. Even the biggest events songs like WAP and Drivers License can be ignored, and eternal songs like Levitating and Heat Waves can be avoided by just listening to your own playlists instead of the radio.

[Gary]

What is a bigger hit depends on how you measure it

Personally I like uptown funk better as that is a bigger hit to me

[phieaglesfan712]

Apr 26, 2022 22:11:37 GMT -5 mikerivera said:

I would argue Shape of You, Despacito and Old Town Road were all bigger hits than Blinding Lights. The latter two were much bigger “events,” the first two have way bigger streaming numbers and were arguably the two biggest global hits ever, and all three were long running, dominant number ones even despite much stiffer competition. Yes BL set all of those longevity records...at a time when most people weren’t driving and were disconnected from each other except through the internet. And music tastes had already been trending towards decentralization. What I’m saying is that all three of the songs I listed were completely inescapable. Blinding Lights, for reasons that were mostly out of its control, was not. It had the greatest chart run in Billboard history, but it’s not the biggest hit of all time. And truth be told, we’re probably in an era where songs aren’t inescapable anymore. Even the biggest events songs like WAP and Drivers License can be ignored, and eternal songs like Levitating and Heat Waves can be avoided by just listening to your own playlists instead of the radio.

Would you consider Stay to be bigger than Blinding Lights? Stay feels completely inescapable, and at this point, is a bigger hit than Shape of You (at least in my opinion). Stay remains everywhere in Week 42. By the time SoY got to that point, it had already faded a bit.

[mikerivera]

Apr 28, 2022 7:18:14 GMT -5 phieaglesfan712 said:

Apr 26, 2022 22:11:37 GMT -5 mikerivera said:

I would argue Shape of You, Despacito and Old Town Road were all bigger hits than Blinding Lights. The latter two were much bigger “events,” the first two have way bigger streaming numbers and were arguably the two biggest global hits ever, and all three were long running, dominant number ones even despite much stiffer competition. Yes BL set all of those longevity records...at a time when most people weren’t driving and were disconnected from each other except through the internet. And music tastes had already been trending towards decentralization. What I’m saying is that all three of the songs I listed were completely inescapable. Blinding Lights, for reasons that were mostly out of its control, was not. It had the greatest chart run in Billboard history, but it’s not the biggest hit of all time. And truth be told, we’re probably in an era where songs aren’t inescapable anymore. Even the biggest events songs like WAP and Drivers License can be ignored, and eternal songs like Levitating and Heat Waves can be avoided by just listening to your own playlists instead of the radio.

Would you consider Stay to be bigger than Blinding Lights? Stay feels completely inescapable, and at this point, is a bigger hit than Shape of You (at least in my opinion). Stay remains everywhere in Week 42. By the time SoY got to that point, it had already faded a bit.

Absolutely not. Stay is definitely not inescapable, for the same reason that BL wasn’t. If you swap out the radio with your own playlists, you can go without hearing it at all. Which has become true for a larger portion of the population every year. Stay is only as high on the charts as it is because individual songs themselves are less popular than ever before. And Stay sure as hell isn’t bigger than Blinding Lights, which had longevity that I doubt any other song ever will. Like, let’s just compare the weekly peaks of the following songs

Uptown Funk: 24.5m streams/365k sales/170m radio (80k points) in its 5th week at #1
Closer: 40.5m streams/199k sales/91m radio (66k points) in its 4th week at #1
Shape of You: 50.8m streams/163k sales/160m radio (85k points) in its 7th week at #1
Despacito: 69.4m streams/140k sales/125m radio (90k points) in its 6th week at #1
God’s Plan: 101.7m streams/81k sales/76m radio (95k points) in its 5th week at #1
Old Town Road: 143m streams/124k sales/28.8m radio (125k points) in its 2nd week at #1
Blinding Lights: 29m streams/22k sales/97.7m radio (41k points) in its 2nd week at #1
Stay: 31.7m streams/13.7k sales/63.4m radio (35k points) in its 4th week at #1

And that’s just for the songs’ peaks. Stay is beaten handily by every song. I know the argument is gonna be longevity, but here’s the thing. The radio refuses to let go of old songs anymore. And that’s all Stay has at this point. People are not actively seeking the song out anymore. And they listen to the radio less than ever. As opposed to every other song except BL, which faced much stronger competition and faster radio rotation, and *still* put up crazy longevity numbers. I’m not picking on Stay; people don’t actively consume individual songs at anywhere close to the same rate they did just a few years ago. 35k points would have made Stay one of the weakest #1 from 2013-2019, yet it’s a strong peak by this decade’s standards. That just goes to show how diffuse music tastes are this decade and how centralized they were in the previous one. Even comparing right now to a year ago, the biggest songs are listened to by less people. 

My final thought is this. When we talk about a song being the biggest hit, we mean it was listened to the most times by the most people. It’s not subjective. Longevity stats on Billboard don’t mean as much as they used to for the reason I’ve been repeating. They only tell you how strong a song is in comparison to its contemporaries; not how strong it is compared to every other song that’s ever charted. The sooner people recognize the inherent limitations of Billboard and focus on the actual consumption numbers, the better this convo will be.

[Gary]

In fact --- any song is not inescapable -- especially when most listen to their own playlists now.

A "hit" is always subject to the person defining it

The two songs in the thread title - both big hits - which is bigger is a matter of opinion.

The stats and chart points and such that is coming up feels like I guess the real question might be are we validating the Billboard formula again?

[✨ 𝑔𝓋 ✨]

The very first thing I thought when I saw this thread is "aw, man it's two of my all-time favorites and insanely successful songs" (it even features two of my favorite musicians as well)

While I would enjoy listening to these two songs any time of the day, I'll give my vote to "Blinding Lights" with the reason being I tend to revisit that song more often compared to "Uptown Funk!"

EDIT: In terms of personal preference, I'll go with "Blinding Lights", but in terms of chart performance I'll give it to "Uptown Funk!" as it while it lacks the Top 10/Hot 100 longevity "Blinding Lights" had and its #1 performance being outshone years later by "Despacito" and "Old Town Road", it makes up for the huge number in the components and certifications

[SPRΞΞ]

radio isn't all what Stay has left. It's #6 on streaming in the US and #5 globally. That's insane. I'm not surprised at all it's #7 all-time. Might even peak at #3 all-time.

[JukeboxJacob]

Apr 26, 2022 12:54:28 GMT -5 Private Dancer said:

Uptown Funk. Uptown FUnk was a cultural reset

Not really. Mark & Bruno were just capitalizing off the already surging funk revival

OP answer: Blinding Lights b/c it stayed relevant FOREVER

[JukeboxJacob]

Apr 26, 2022 22:11:37 GMT -5 mikerivera said:

I would argue Shape of You, Despacito and Old Town Road were all bigger hits than Blinding Lights. The latter two were much bigger “events,” the first two have way bigger streaming numbers and were arguably the two biggest global hits ever, and all three were long running, dominant number ones even despite much stiffer competition. Yes BL set all of those longevity records...at a time when most people weren’t driving and were disconnected from each other except through the internet. And music tastes had already been trending towards decentralization. What I’m saying is that all three of the songs I listed were completely inescapable. Blinding Lights, for reasons that were mostly out of its control, was not. It had the greatest chart run in Billboard history, but it’s not the biggest hit of all time. And truth be told, we’re probably in an era where songs aren’t inescapable anymore. Even the biggest events songs like WAP and Drivers License can be ignored, and eternal songs like Levitating and Heat Waves can be avoided by just listening to your own playlists instead of the radio.

Truly sad times for us pop culture lovers

[Private Dancer]

May 10, 2022 22:50:18 GMT -5 JukeboxJacob said:

Apr 26, 2022 12:54:28 GMT -5 Private Dancer said:

Uptown Funk. Uptown Funk was a cultural reset

Not really. Mark & Bruno were just capitalizing off the already surging funk revival

OP answer: Blinding Lights b/c it stayed relevant FOREVER

Regardless of the fact if they were trying to capitalize off of the funk revival, it still is the bigger hit. Uptown Funk was extremely huge and everyone felt how huge it was. It was used in commercials, had countless parodies of it, and was referred to a lot during its time. Uptown Funk was also played on the radio a lot, I remember turning from it and it being on three stations at one time. It was a moment and a cultural reset. Blinding Lights, however, did not feel huge to many people. It may have had the best chart run of all time, but in today's time that does not necessarily make it bigger. Radio was still huge in 2015 and probably is the reason why it is still well remember and why it felt huge. In today's climate, radio listeners has drastically decrease and streaming has increased. With that being said, many people today do not listen to the radio. They get in their cars and play what they want to hear off of their own playlists. That is probably why Blinding Lights did not feel bigger than UTF to many people. BL is well known, but not bigger than UTF. BL was escapable, whereas Uptown Funk was very inescapable. 

[phieaglesfan712]

Since when did Uptown Funk lose its relevancy? Last time I checked, it’s doing well on streaming. It’s still in the Top 50 of Daily YouTube, and one of the Top 10 videos all-time on the platform. I get it wasn’t as big worldwide as it was here in the US, but it gets on the Global 200 every once in a while. Sometimes, it does appear on the US recurrent chart. Not to mention, I still hear this song a couple of times per week on the radio.

Uptown Funk would still be a hit in 2022. About Damn Time’s rise up the charts proves that.

[toomuchboy]

I don't like either of these songs very much, tbh. But I like Bruno Mars generally, which makes UF more bearable.

[tim]

While I much prefer "Blinding Lights", I would have to give the edge to "Uptown Funk".

[Ling-Ling]

It's way too early to call this. Uptown Funk has had an afterlife that most songs don't get, but it's also had the gift of time. "Blinding Lights" is still so fresh and who knows how it will be looked at 5-10 years from now. The jury is out, but I'm leaning towards "UF."