What is the most-streamed song from the 1970s?
Identifying the biggest band in the 1970s feels like something of an unanswerable proposition, because this might just be the most decorated era of music of all time.
It was a decade when music knew no bounds and burgeoning musicians were profiting off the freedom that The Beatles’ chart domination in the 1960s had afforded. But unlike the ‘60s and The Beatles, it was a landscape that made room for more than one band.
In fact, it felt as though there was endless room for all bands, of all different sounds and styles. Rock and roll was no longer one defined concept; it was psychedelic rock, heavy metal, prog rock, punk rock and a whole lot more, so the question of who was the biggest band of the era becomes overwhelmingly difficult to answer.
There’s a case to be made for several bands, most notably the likes of The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, who really, if anyone, picked up the torch The Beatles left behind. The Stones were by the side the whole way through the ‘60s, biding their time, while Zeppelin powerfully emerged during the year of their break-up, to fill the void left by The Fab Four.
Together, they redefined stadium rock in the ‘70s and spearheaded the live show experience for rock and roll. But what about records sold? Well, then there was a host of other bands in the frame whose one-of-a-kind studio projects seemed to capture the zeitgeist in an entirely new way. Fleetwood Mac redefined storytelling with Rumours, while Pink Floyd essentially mastered the art of psychedelic rock with The Dark Side of the Moon, and this isn’t even mentioning the myriad solo artists who all contributed to this wildly diverse musical scene.
So again, with the question of how to separate these icons, in keeping with the digital age we now live in, trapped in looking back at the ‘70s through analogue nostalgia, the only option really is streaming figures, and reframing the query to which artist created the song that has endured so many decades that now, in 2026, we still listen.
What 1970s song now has the most streams of all time?
Unsurprisingly, Fleetwood Mac is high on the list, but more surprising is the fact that it’s not for a song that was released in the 1970s. Their ‘78 hit ‘Everywhere’ sits above ‘Dreams’, which acts as the second most-streamed song of the ‘70s.
And both songs fall behind one truly iconic song from the decade, which is Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, surpassing 273 million streams in the UK. At the time of its release, it was a bold and brazen track that innovated the concept of rock opera, but it’s undergone something of a renaissance in its later years.
The sheer drama of the song lent itself to the developing platform of music video, and with every passing decade, Queen’s song became an epic of cross-platform brilliance, celebrated in dramatic big-screen interpretations, thus thrusting the song into the consciousness of a new audience.
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