This last Friday was full of new music releases, as artists scramble to release music before Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” comes out Oct. 3. The album is likely to dominate the charts. This week alone saw releases from Doja Cat, Olivia Dean, Tate McRae and Mariah Carey — not to mention Ed Sheeran’s latest album, “Play,” which came out only a couple weeks ago on Sept. 12.
“New Music Friday” is the term that refers to this pattern of artists releasing music at 12 a.m. on Fridays. While Spotify and Apple Music have capitalized on this by curating playlists of the top new music each week, which generates attention to their platforms, it is interesting to take a step back and look at why music is released in this way.
“Interestingly, the share of weekly on-demand audio streams grows from Monday through Friday, reaching its peak at the end of the work week, as Friday represents an average 15.3% of on-demand audio streams,” Marketing Charts explains. This could suggest that as we become tired of work toward the end of the week, we turn to music. Such a hypothesis would be supported by looking at the peak times of the day that we listened to music on weekdays, as, in theory, music-listening would increase later in the afternoon. Sure enough, Edison Research found that “music listening peaks in the 3 p.m. – 4 p.m. hour on weekdays.” While fatigue is one possible reason that music listening peaks on Fridays, we must also consider that causation could go the opposite direction, meaning that the existence of new releases drives up listeners.
Artists capitalize on the Billboards by matching their releases with the tracking periods. Inside the Industry notes, “The first week is crucial to making a Billboard chart. Without solid numbers (streaming, sales, radio), the chances of your song making even the top 50 of the Hot 100 are slim. … You have to significantly impact all three components of the Billboard calculation within that first tracking week: or it’s a long, uphill battle to the top five, ten or even number-one position.”
Swift already holds many Billboard titles for her resume, and Billboard suggest that “The Life of a Showgirl” offers her the opportunity to break a few more including “Most No. 1 Albums on the Billboard 200 Among Solo Artists,” “Most Consecutive Calendar Years at No. 1 on the Billboard 200” and “Only Artist to Sweep the Top 10 of the Hot 100 Three Times.”
From her appearance on the “New Heights” podcast for the album release and the subsequent information that has been provided on Spotify and Instagram, we know that the main collaborators on the album are Max Martin and Shellback. These are the same people responsible for helping her create some of the largest hits from her “Red” and “1989” eras including “22,” “Blank Space” and “Shake it Off.”
Swift is no stranger to having number-one hits, and other artists know this. While Swift gears up for the release of this album by getting fans to the movie theater, other artists hurry to release their music and give it a chance on the charts before Swift dominates them.
The small tracklist of 12 songs on “The Life of a Showgirl” promises a more chart-curated approach to music than we saw with the roll out of Swift’s 11th studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” This furthers the possibility for her to dominate in the charts in the coming weeks, but also sets the stage for a potential sweep in the award shows come spring 2026.
Swift has set her billboard aspirations high through the release of numerous vinyl variants for pre-order. While some artists have come under fire in the past for the wastefulness of them, vinyl variants undoubtedly increase sales and therefore remain a key component of what goes into Billboard rankings. Until Billboard changes the way vinyls count toward rankings, it does not seem that variants are going anywhere.
