Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter Crosses 1 Billion Plays on Spotify Just Two Months After Release

Photo Credit: Parkwood Entertainment

Beyonce’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ continues to climb to new heights, crossing 1 billion plays on Spotify just two months after release.The album broke the Spotify record for the most-streamed album in a single day in 2024 at the time of its release on March 29. Now, less than two months after its release, Cowboy Carter has tied its lasso around the 1 billion streams milestone on Spotify.

Spotify confirmed the album had become the platform’s most-streamed album in a single day shortly after its release, making it the first time this year that a country album held the title. Taylor Swift would break the record shortly thereafter with her latest effort, The Tortured Poets Department, though that album is arguably less “country” than Cowboy Carter.

On Wednesday, May 8, Parkwood Entertainment confirmed that Cowboy Carter had galloped across the 1 billion streams mark. But that’s only the latest milestone the 42-year-old superstar’s debut into country has garnered.The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, as well as the Top Country Album charts — the latter of which crowned Queen Bey the first Black woman to lead the list. Further, 23 of the album’s 27 tracks charted on the Billboard Hot 100, bringing Beyonce’s career total up from 85 songs on the chart to 108. That achievement makes her the 17th artist, and only the third woman, to have over 100 tracks on the Hot 100 throughout her career.

Before the album launched, Beyonce’s two singles from the project were already on the charts: “16 Carriages” and “Texas Hold ‘Em,” the latter of which debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100. The song also made the singer the first Black woman with a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.

Cowboy Carter, born out of an experience Beyonce had years ago, she says, in which she “did not feel welcomed… and it was very clear that I wasn’t,” has also brought the artist criticism for breaking into the genre. But Beyonce says the album, a sequel to her previous release, Renaissance, is an effort to “bend and blend genres together,” and is more than just a country record.

“This ain’t a country album. This is a Beyonce album,” she wrote on Instagram. “This is Act II: Cowboy Carter — and I am proud to share it with y’all!”