RIAA: The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’ Now at 7x Platinum, ‘Heartless’ at 2x Platinum

As if ‘Blinding Lights’ star The Weeknd doesn’t already have enough shiny Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) plaques to blind him, the GRAMMY winner’s added a slew of new ones thanks to continued Super Bowl-granted wins attributed to his hotly-selling 2020 album, ‘After Hours.’

Details below:

On March 9, the RIAA updated its logs to reveal The Weeknd (born Abel Tesfaye) will see his gargantuan hit, ‘Blinding Light,’ printed a-front a new 7x Platinum plaque – a mark that indicates sales equivalence of 7 million in the United States.

Easily 2020’s biggest hit, the ‘After Hours’ tune is one of many from the LP to see its status upgraded this week at the organization.  Following ‘Blinding’ is the era’s other Hot 100 #1 hit, ‘Heartless,’ which is now 2x Platinum.  Finally, Hot 100 top 20 hits ‘Save Your Tears’ and ‘In Your Eyes’ are Platinum.

Together, they push The Weeknd’s cumulative digital sales past Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Ed Sheeran and Lil Wayne to a whopping 83 million.

Making him only the 8th artist in history to have sold at least 80 million digital records or more, Tesfaye’s total is only bested by Drake, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Eminem, and Kanye West.

See all The Weeknd’s RIAA upgrades below:

7x Platinum

‘Blinding Lights’ (Single)

2x Platinum

‘After Hours’ (Album)

‘Heartless’ (Single)

1x Platinum

‘In Your Eyes’ (Single)

‘After Hours’ (Single)

‘Save Your Tears’ (Single)

‘Blinding Lights’ ranks as Tesfaye’s fifth-highest certified song to date and follows the success of previously released hits ‘The Hills’ (11x Platinum), ‘Starboy’ (8x Platinum), ‘Can’t Feel My Face’ (8x Platinum), and ‘Earned It’ (7x Platinum).

[source]