Daniel DeSlover

Playboi Carti's new album garners unique Spotify status

By Chris Morgan | Last updated Mar 16, 2025 5:23 PM ET

After years of anticipation, and weeks of hype, Playboi Carti's third album "Music" finally arrived. It is the rapper's first album since "Whole Lotta Red" came out in 2020. In the world of hip hop, that's a pretty lengthy space between albums. "Music" is already proving a phenomenon, as the album is being spun, such as it is, with gusto on Spotify.

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Spotify asserted that the 30-track album from Playboi Carti "made history." That history is that "Music" became the service's most-streamed album in a single day...in 2025. You know, the year we aren't even three months into.

Yeah...that's not how history works. Individual years don't have "records." When "Barbie" made a ton of money in 2023, people weren't trying to claim it was "record breaking" solely by dint of being the highest-grossing film of the year.

"Music" has clearly proven exceedingly popular, but any claims of history making are just Spotify marketing ploys, and Spotify has been invested in the success of Carti's album for a while. It financed billboards for the album in Los Angeles and New York, and massive corporate entities don't do that kind of thing out of the goodness of its heart.

It is a notable takeaway that "Music" is the biggest album of 2025 so far. It is also a notable takeaway just how invested Spotify is in framing the success of "Music" for its own desires.

Chris Morgan

Chris Morgan is a Detroit-based culture writer who has somehow managed to justify getting his BA in Film Studies. He has written about sports and entertainment across various internet platforms for years and is also the author of three books about '90s television.

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