So my mom is a huge Taylor Swft fan and she is always telling me how Taylor Swfit has done something that many artist can’t do and that’s to be making hits for the longevity she has been. She thinks Taylor Swift will be in the same conversation as the big 3: The Beatles, Elvis, and Michael Jackson.

Now I bring that up, because when I say The Weeknd has a chance to do that too she automatically shuts me down saying “there are so many artists that were huge in the 80s and 90s that no one really remembers today”. That’s true, but how does that apply to The Weeknd? I’m going to say why I think she’s not only wrong, but that his career will be more legendary and remembered than most people think.

The Weeknd has only been in the mainstream since 2015, and has only become a global megastar in the upper echelon stratosphere since 2020. He has not been in the mainstream game nearly as long as Taylor Swift, yet he is already in her status music wise. In such a short time, he has accumulated so many hits, and I don’t mean normal hits. We’re talking massive hits. This isn’t Drake who has a bunch of hits that no one really talks about or listens to years later, these are legendary hits.

The Weeknd has a few hits in my opinion that are bigger than anything Taylor Swift has made. Taylor Swift’s biggest song is either Shake it Off or Anti Hero, and I want to say Taylor Swift obviously has a lot of big hits, I’m just saying that The Weeknd has bigger. But I’ll list the songs I think are bigger than both those songs.

1. Blinding Lights. The one is obvious. Named Billboard’s biggest hit of all time, most streamed song of all time, and is still played on the today’s pop radio after being released in 2019. If Billboard didn’t have the rule of if after a year your song falls below the chart position of #25 you get kicked off, Blinding Lights would still be on the charts today. So a generational hit. Something that will be recognized in music for a very long time.

2. Save Your Tears. Obviously not as big as Blinding Lights, but it’s still bigger than anything Taylor Swift has made. If Dua Lipa didn’t make the song Levitating, Save Your Tears would have been Billboard’s #1 song of the year for the year 2021. If you combine the streams of the original and the remix, you get over 3 billion streams. There are not a lot of songs with over 3 billion streams. And this isn’t even his biggest song. This is a career defining song for a massive artist and it might not even be The Weeknd’s 2nd biggest song he’s made.

3. Starboy. Another song with over 3 billion streams. Insane stuff. Legendary stuff. The fact that this song was so massive in 2016 and 2017 and has become a hit again is almost unthinkable to me. This song was huge when it came out, went number 1 on billboard. And society decided to bring it back. It’s just insane. The Weeknd has the most popular song of 2016, 2020, and 2021. I don’t know any artist in my lifetime that has done anything like that. Not to mention he has The Hills which is the 2nd biggest song of 2015.

4. Die For You. The song blew up late, and I coul be wrong, but if I remember correctly this song has 3 billion streams when you combine the original and the remix. Just another career defining song that is just another hit for Abel.

5. The Hills. I’m just not going to say anything, y’all get the point.

These are all songs that I believe are bigger than Taylor Swift has made. And he’s been in the mainstream half as long as her. Who knows what this next album will bring and what his career will bring as Abel Tesfaye.