Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” Is 40 Years Old (And Is Of Course Seeing A Spike In Views Right Now)

Massively successful R&B/funk band Earth, Wind & Fire’s hit song “September” may be turning 40 this year, but its spiking popularity on YouTube proves that it’s nowhere near over the hill.

The song’s official music video has received more than 225 million views since it was uploaded in January 2013. Its view count unsurprisingly surges around Sept. 1 each year. In 2017, it garnered 447,000 views that day alone.

This year, according to internal Tubefilter data, Earth, Wind & Fire’s VEVO channel (where “September” is the most popular video) saw a jump in view counts between Aug. 30 and Sept. 1. The channel increases from 657,511 views on Aug. 29 to 906,630 on Aug. 30. Then it saw another jump to to 979,431 views on Aug. 31 and stayed relatively constant with 976,510 views on Sept. 1.

There’s still time left this month, though, and last year, the video set a record high viewership late in September, snagging more than 797,000 views on Sept. 21 — a 286% increase over its average daily views that year.

Most of the video’s lifetime viewership comes from Earth, Wind & Fire’s home country – the U.S. (70 million views) – but it’s also popular in Mexico (23.7 million), France (13.5 million views), the UK (9.3 million), and Brazil (8.95 million).

The channel’s other top videos also have view counts that are far from shabby: 163 million views for ‘Boogie Wonderland’ and 91 million for ‘Let’s Groove.’

Photo by Chris Hakkens.