[5] Selling more than 25 million copies in the first two days after its release, the single was one of the most streamed songs of 2020 and broke the Guinness World Record for the fastest-selling digital track in China.

[6] Its lyrics are in Chinese and English,[7] and its production involved people from North America, Northern Europe, Spain, and the Netherlands.

At midnight on April 25, 2020, Xiao Zhan updated his Weibo, shared the single's cover art, and wrote: "I'll bear everything that has happened in mind.

[1] It was reported that on April 25, "Xiao Zhan's worldwide fan club" was the biggest buyer on QQ Music, with 9,088,000 digital album purchases.

[11][6] The mass-purchasing campaign was controversial enough that Xiao Zhan's agency posted on Weibo reminding fans to focus on their other priorities in life.

[6] On April 26, 2022, it was reported that after the single's release, its rating on Douban reached 7.5 out of 10; it "received praise from critics in the music industry and got a bumper harvest in both sales and word of mouth".

Opponents say that "Spotlight" is a typical example of an assembly-line product of the idol industry, that its melody is comfortable but has no personality, and that the lyrics are cliched.