Billie Eilish began 2024 with a major achievement as her song “Birds of a Feather” became the most-streamed track on Spotify for the year.
The song, featured on her third album Hit Me Hard and Soft, amassed a staggering 1,775,172,881 streams in 2024, surpassing Sabrina Carpenter’s hit “Espresso” by almost 650,000 streams. Carpenter’s summer anthem wrapped up the year with 1,774,525,704 streams.
Released in May, “Birds of a Feather” has been another success for Eilish, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The track has also earned several Grammy nominations, including Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance, set to compete in these categories at next month’s awards.
Following the album’s release, Eilish spent a significant portion of the autumn on her headlining tour. The tour began in Canada and toured the U.S., concluding with five shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California.
At the tour’s final performance, she embraced the holiday season with a rendition of “O Holy Night,” explaining to the audience, “I’m not really religious. I just love Christmas so much. I also grew up in a choir, so that’s just my schtick.” (Read our full concert review here.)
Finneas, Eilish’s co-writer, producer, and brother, recently spoke, admitting he didn’t expect “Birds of a Feather” to become as successful as it did.
“In some ways, I’m extra-mistrustful when people tell me that they think something’s going to be a big hit because it feels like jinxing it — or because usually, people say that about songs that sound like something that’s already out there,” he explained.
“Nobody said that about ‘Bad Guy’ before it came out, and I think the reason nobody said that is because it sounded fresh. That being said, every time we played ‘Birds of a Feather’ for the label or close friends, they’d totally freak out.”