Taylor Swift thinks it must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero, but one billion streams may say otherwise.
“Anti-Hero” recently surpassed a billion listens on Spotify, proving that no matter how much she worries about her fans one day getting sick of her in the lyrics of her Midnights lead single, they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. The pop star celebrated the news by reposting it to her Instagram Story Monday (July 24), writing: “Thanks a billion guys” alongside a head-exploding emoji.
The addition of “Anti-Hero” to the streaming platform’s billion-streams club marks Swift’s fourth song to hit the milestone, which has been achieved by a total of 449 tracks (according to Spotify’s own playlist). It follows her 1989 singles “Blank Space” and “Shake It Off,” as well as her Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack collaboration with Zayn, “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever.”
It was only a matter of time before “Anti-Hero” made the cut. Following its release in October 2022, the synth-pop ode to self-loathing became Swift’s longest-running No. 1 with an eight week reign atop the Billboard Hot 100. It’s her ninth No. 1 song on the chart.
And though it’s one of her most successful songs to date, Swift never anticipated that “Anti-Hero” would be such a hit. Midnights co-writer and producer Jack Antonoff even recalled her saying before the track’s release that “we shouldn’t expect it to ever go No. 1” because the lyrics were so “strange and personal.”
“Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism/ Like some kind of congressman?” sings Swift on “Anti-Hero,” which was accompanied by a self-directed music video. “I wake up screaming from dreaming/ One day I’ll watch as you’re leaving.”
“I struggle a lot with the idea that my life has become unmanageably sized,” Swift explained of the song in a clip on Instagram, posted before Midnights dropped Oct. 21, 2022. “Not to sound too dark, but I just struggle with the idea of not feeling like a person — don’t feel bad for me, you don’t need to. But this song really is a real guided tour through all the things I tend to hate about myself; we all hate things about ourselves.”
Listen to “Anti-Hero” below:
