Some people thought the track didn’t match the vibe of the championship game, but it saw a huge spike in listeners
No one really knew what to make of Justin Bieber‘s pared-down performance at the 2026 FIFA World Cup halftime show, especially the confusing song selection “Everything Hallelujah.” On Sunday afternoon, Bieber dove into the head-scratcher on an acoustic guitar after he was introduced by Jason Sudeikis in character as Ted Lasso. But, as it turns out, the strange choice paid off: the 2025 song just saw a 240 percent spike in global streams on Spotify, according to data shared with Rolling Stone.
It’s not that surprising of a development. “Justin Bieber song hallelujah” and “Justin Bieber hallelujah song” are the top two queries under the musician’s name on Google Trends. Maybe folks were turning to Spotify to confirm that the Swag II was, in fact, part of Bieber’s discography and not some obscure Christian rock track.
The streaming hike also comes after some viewers criticized Bieber’s decision to perform “Everything Hallelujah” on acoustic guitar, which didn’t seem to fit into such a big spectacle sports moment. Some people thought he’d one of his recent hits like “Yukon” or pop classics like “Baby.” “Justin Bieber saw people having fun and said let me doing a boring song and ruin the vibe for everyone,” wrote one X user.
Earlier this year, Bieber also saw a huge streaming surge following his headlining performance at Coachella 2026. The star experienced his biggest streaming day of the year at that point on Spotify on April 12 with 24.6 million streams. Nearly a month after the music festival, Bieber was still experiencing a streaming bump, amassing 140 million listeners in just a few short weeks.
