The fastest video to reach 1 billion views on YouTube is Adele's "Hello" (Official Music Video), which achieved the milestone in just 87 days (or about 87.4 days), setting the record in late 2015 and early 2016, though other videos like "Despacito" and "Shape of You" are close behind in music video records, with newer songs like ROSÉ & Bruno Mars' "APT." also hitting the mark quickly.
Surpassing "Flowers" later in 2023, the fastest to reach 1 billion overall is now the “explicit version” of “Seven” by Jung Kook (South Korea, b. Jeon Jung-kook) feat. Latto (USA, b. Alyssa Stephens), which reached the milestone on 30 October 2023, 109 days following its worldwide release on 14 July 2023.
The official music video on YouTube was released on Fonsi's channel on January 12, 2017, and amassed one billion views in 97 days, becoming the second-fastest video on the site to reach the milestone.
“Gangnam Style” by South Korean musician PSY became the first YouTube video to reach 1 billion views. By the end of 2012, the song had topped music charts in more than 30 countries around the world. #song4theweekend #PSY #GangnamStyle #musichistory #music.
According to an average estimated and published recently by Information Is Beautiful, YouTube may pay as little as $0.0006 for every view, which adds up to only $1.8 million for 3 billion plays.
As of early January 2026, The Weeknd is generally considered #1 on Spotify for monthly listeners, but Taylor Swift is the most-streamed artist in Spotify's history and often leads overall popularity, with Bruno Mars recently hitting a historic 150 million monthly listeners. The #1 spot can change daily, but The Weeknd currently leads in recent monthly listeners, while Bad Bunny remains a top contender, and Taylor Swift dominates overall historical streams.
Over the course of Elvis' life, he achieved some of the highest accolades in music and film. It is estimated that more than one billion Elvis records have been sold worldwide, more than anyone in record industry history.
“Die With A Smile” officially becomes the fastest song to surpass 2 billion streams in Spotify history.
The Tortured Poets Department — 6 days 2. The Life of a Showgirl — just over 8 days 3. Midnights — 10 days 4.
The following list contains the most-streamed artists on the audio streaming platform Spotify. As of December 2025, American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is the most-streamed artist, and Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny is the most-streamed male artist in Spotify's history.
Spotify holds a 32% global market share in music streaming with 713 million monthly users. Institutional investors own 67.8% of Spotify; founders Ek and Lorentzon control major voting power. Shares of Spotify can be bought through a brokerage account using market or limit orders.
Breaking News Cristiano Ronaldo SMASHED the record for the fastest YouTube channel to hit 1 million subscribers, achieving the feat five-and-a-half hours quicker than the previous record. YouTube Golden boy. #PrinceWZ.
The most viewed video on YouTube, and generally online, is "Baby Shark Dance" by Pinkfong, with over 16 billion views, followed by music videos like "Despacito" and kids' content like "Johny Johny Yes Papa". While "hottest" can imply trending or mature content, the all-time most-viewed videos are dominated by children's songs due to high repeat viewership, with "Despacito" being the top non-kids' song.
There's no single "number 1 artist of all time" as it's subjective, but Leonardo da Vinci often tops lists for visual art due to masterpieces like the Mona Lisa, while The Beatles are frequently cited as the best-selling music group ever, and Michael Jackson or Elvis Presley are often named as top solo music artists by sales and influence. Modern metrics like Spotify streams point to artists like Bad Bunny or Taylor Swift for recent dominance.
Taylor Swift is the highest-grossing live music artist of all time, collecting $3 billion according to Pollstar. U2, Coldplay, Bruce Springsteen, and Elton John also passed two-billion mark in concert revenue.
Garth Brooks is the artist with nine diamond-certified albums, a record for album sales (10 million+ units each), though Drake now leads in total Diamond certifications (albums and singles combined) with over 10, followed by Post Malone for singles. Brooks' nine diamond albums include classics like Double Live, The Ultimate Hits, and In Pieces, making him the sole artist with this many album awards from the RIAA.
Top artists globally
The answer is that when people are in the top 0.005% of all the listeners globally, they have listened to that song or artist more than 99.995% of all other Spotify users. Additionally, many users also ranked under the top 0.001% of all the listeners globally when they shared their top artists and songs.
To make $2,000 a month on YouTube from ad revenue, you generally need 400,000 to 1 million monthly views, depending heavily on your niche's CPM (cost per mille/thousand views) and RPM (revenue per mille), but many creators report needing 500,000 to 1 million+ views for a comfortable living, with high-value niches like finance potentially reaching it with fewer views and lower-value niches needing significantly more, plus other income streams like sponsorships.
TikTok pays creators between $0.02 and $0.04 per 1,000 views, which comes from the Creator Fund. This means that one million views could generate between $20 and $40. However, the actual payout can vary depending on TikTok's metrics and other factors such as engagement and audience retention.
If each of those one trillion views were just one second long, that would add up to over 30,000 years. If each view were a Minecraft block 12 inches square, you could build a stack that reached from the Earth to the sun and back -- with about seven million miles to spare. That's how big one trillion views is.