Van Halen’s “Jump” Exceeds One Billion Streams on Spotify

I don’t know about you, but whenever I think of this modern age of streaming, I sure as shit don’t think about old school hard rock and glam metal as being part of that equation. It’s not that stuff like this isn’t streamed—obviously it is, considering the title of this damed article—but I still associate and long for the days when we could only listen to stuff like this on tapes or 8-traks or whatever the hell your parents probably used to partake in the music of the time. But now, Van Halen has taken streaming and essentially made it their bitch, because they’ve transcended a normal amount of stats by hitting one billion streams on Spotify with their classic single “Jump.”

The band’s drummer and partial namesake, Alex Van Halen, excitedly posted on Instagram: “Thanks to all the fans for listening!”

Apparently, there’s something called the Billions Club. It’s a Spotify playlist that first started in 2020, including—you guessed it, tracks that have hit one billion streams or more. Once you make the playlist, you get some sort of Billions Club plaque.

Van Halen aren’t the only old heads who made the list. They’re amongst Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City,” and three Metallica singles: “Nothing Else Matters”, “Enter Sandman” and “Master Of Puppets.” Of somewhat newer songs, Papa Roach’s lyrically incidental emo track “Last Resort,” and Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life.”

“Jump” was Van Halen’s biggest hit. Coming off their album 1984, it spent five weeks at the top of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum also ranks it as one of the “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.”

Congrats, guys. Now, I will proceed to have this song stuck in my head for the next one billion years.