Sweater Weather reaches five billion Spotify streams

The Neighbourhood's “Sweater Weather” crossed five billion Spotify streams on Monday, November 2, becoming only the third song to reach that threshold, Spotify confirmed to Billboard. The milestone gives a song first released in 2012 another major chapter long after its original run on radio and the charts.

Which songs are ahead of Sweater Weather?

Spotify's official twentieth-anniversary rankings, published April 23, already placed “Blinding Lights,” “Shape of You” and “Sweater Weather” in that order among its most-streamed songs. Those rankings reflected listening through April 2026. The November achievement adds a new numerical landmark to a position the band had already established near the top of the service's history. The official track pages provide a useful contemporary comparison. At approximately 5:10 p.m. Eastern on November 2, “Blinding Lights” displayed more than 5.66 billion plays and “Shape of You” more than 5.16 billion. “Sweater Weather” had also moved beyond five billion. The comparison places the three recordings within a very small group of songs with totals above that threshold. The three records have different performers and identities. Their appearance together at the top of Spotify's historical list shows that an all-time streaming ranking can bring songs from different careers into the same comparison. For The Neighbourhood, the distinction is especially striking because its signature single continues to accumulate plays well beyond its original chart breakthrough.

Where did The Neighbourhood begin?

Ticketmaster's artist biography places the band's formation in 2011 and identifies its origins in Newbury Park, California. The early track “Female Robbery” appeared in 2012, before the group released the EP “I'm Sorry…” that August. Its first studio album, “I Love You,” followed in April 2013. These steps put “Sweater Weather” within a developing body of work, rather than an isolated recording with no earlier musical context. The biography describes a sound combining indie rock with hip-hop-influenced beats and a deliberate monochrome visual identity. Those elements gave the group a recognizable presentation across its recordings and imagery. The same account recalls early festival appearances and a 2013 tour with Lovelife, The 1975 and JMSN. The streaming achievement arrives after a career that was already developing through releases and live performances during the single's first years. Billboard's separate August 12 report on the song's YouTube milestone supplies more early history. The debut album reached No. 25 on the Billboard 200, while “Sweater Weather” reached No. 14 on the Hot 100. An earlier independent video was later unlisted after the band signed with Columbia Records. The official video went online in March 2013, adding the visual identity through which many viewers encountered the recording.

What has the band recorded since its breakthrough?

Live Nation's November 3, 2025 announcement connects the band's more recent work with “ultraSOUND,” announced for release on Warner Records that November 14. The historical announcement named three advance tracks, “Private,” “OMG” and “Lovebomb.” It also described recording first at Conway Studios in Los Angeles with Justyn Pilbrow, followed by work at the Beehive in Van Nuys with producer Jono Dorr. The same announcement placed the newer album alongside “Wiped Out!” from 2015, the self-titled 2018 album and “Chip Chrome & the Mono-Tones” from 2020. It also documented a tenth-anniversary edition of “Wiped Out!” with 11 additional demos and remixes. These projects show several ways the group has extended its catalog: new studio recordings, revisiting an earlier album and preparing songs for the stage. Live Nation's accompanying tour announcement outlined performances in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia during 2026. That was a plan published in 2025, separate from the new Spotify record. The timeline puts the five-billion milestone in a period when listeners can encounter both the band's earliest hit and material created much later.

How does Zach Abels describe the song's staying power?

In Billboard's new November 2 interview, Abels recalled writing the song at his mother's home while he was in high school. He credited listeners with finding their own meaning in it and described the recurring autumn interest as something the band had not planned. His recollection provides an artist's perspective on a recording that has continued connecting across different stages of the band's career.

What do the playlist and stream figures measure?

Spotify also told Billboard that “Sweater Weather” appears on more than 103 million user-created playlists, the most of any song on the service. Spotify's own guidance says a song stream is counted after at least 30 seconds of listening. Its all-time total is an accumulated measure, while its release totals combine the streams of the recordings on a release. The service also explains that music-video streams may be included in its all-time song totals. These definitions matter when comparing a platform number with the separate view counter on another service. The official Spotify page also shows listeners exploring other parts of the band's catalog. On November 2, it displayed more than 2.24 billion plays for “Daddy Issues,” 1.77 billion for “Softcore” and 1.27 billion for “Reflections.” These recordings give listeners several routes into The Neighbourhood's work beyond its best-known single. They also show the scale of the gap: even other songs with more than a billion plays sit well below the five-billion total of “Sweater Weather.” The early hit anchors a catalog with more than one widely played recording.

What happened on YouTube, and what came after the debut?

Billboard separately reported earlier in 2026 that the “Sweater Weather” music video passed one billion YouTube views. The November Spotify story follows that earlier video milestone; it does not announce both thresholds as events that happened on the same day. Together, the two reports show the recording's sustained presence across listening and viewing, with each platform counted independently. The August report also described the song debuting on the Billboard Global 200 in 2020, more than eight years after its release, and reaching No. 134 on the chart dated November 7 that year. That later chart appearance adds another dated chapter between its initial success and the streaming milestones of 2026. A recording can reach new audiences without being a new single, and its chart history can continue long after the album that introduced it. NewsCubby's coverage of Taylor Swift's songwriting honor follows another kind of recognition built around a musical catalog. Our report on JISOO's “ADDICTED” video offers a different example of a platform-specific audience figure. Each number and honor belongs to its own story and timeframe.

What to watch next

Ticketmaster’s November 2 listings include The Neighbourhood at Dia de los Deftones in San Diego on November 7, followed by Atlanta on November 10 and Orlando on November 11. The listings connect the catalog story with upcoming opportunities to hear the band live. They are scheduled appearances rather than performances already completed, and the event pages provide the current dates and local arrangements. The next useful comparison will be how “Sweater Weather” continues to perform through the remainder of autumn and alongside the band's newer recordings. Updated official Spotify figures can show additional accumulated listening, while a future artist or platform announcement could provide more detail about audiences, playlists or another milestone. The November 2 total alone does not establish a new tour, release or social-media campaign. For now, the confirmed development is substantial on its own: a single released in 2012 has joined two of Spotify's biggest recordings above five billion plays. Abels' recollection of its beginnings supplies the human scale behind the number. More reporting on music, television and screen culture is available in NewsCubby's Entertainment section.

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*ARCHIVE PHOTO: Jesse Rutherford performing at Rock am Ring, June 2, 2018; not the November 2026 milestone. Photo: Sven Mandel / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/*

*NewsCubby articles are produced with AI assistance and reviewed by humans.*