Abba lose out on most-streamed Eurovision song of all time to Dutch singer Duncan Laurence

Abba have lost out on the most-streamed Eurovision song of all time to Dutch singer Duncan Laurence.

RuPaul’s Drag Race star Michelle Visage announced during Radio 2’s Eurovision: The Official All-Time Most-Streamed that the Swedish pop group’s classic Waterloo, which won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, came in second place.

Laurence’s ballad Arcade came out on top as the most-streamed Eurovision track after it won the competition in 2019, securing a first Eurovision title since 1975 for the Netherlands.

The list comes ahead of the 66th edition of the competition, with two semi-finals across May 10 and 12 followed by the grand final in Turin, Italy, on May 14.

Think About Things by Dadi Freyr, which was due to be Iceland’s entry in the 2020 contest before the event was cancelled due to the pandemic, took third place on the list.

It had been considered one of the favourites to win before the cancellation but it later went on to become a viral hit through TikTok.

The group represented Iceland the following year with the song 10 Years, finishing in fourth place.

The winners of the 2021 competition – Italian rock band Maneskin – came in fifth for their hit track Zitti E Buoni.

Entries from the United Kingdom came further down the list, with Eurovision’s 1981 winning song Making Your Mind Up by Bucks Fizz coming in at number eight.

Ooh Aah Just A Little Bit by Gina G, the UK’s 1996 entry, placed at number 15, with last year’s entry of James Newman’s Embers at 17 overall.

Last year the UK was handed a crushing defeat as Newman was the only one to score zero points from both the jury and public vote, coming bottom on the leaderboard.

TikTok star Sam Ryder will represent the UK at this year’s competition, where he will perform the track Space Man.

Ryder found fame covering songs on TikTok during lockdown and has so far accumulated 12 million followers, making him the most-followed UK music artist on the platform, according to the BBC.

Presenter AJ Odudu has also been announced as the UK’s spokesperson for the event which will see her deliver the country’s results to the rest of the world from Salford for the first time.