Recently, Spotify released a statement apologizing to users for a data reporting error. The platform was forced to correct its ad just hours after falsely claiming that rapper Drake’s song Make them cry had landed the biggest music debut of 2026.
According to Spotify’s official press release, the platform has seen a huge increase in traffic to Drake’s album Iceman on May 15th. Amid explosive growth in streaming numbers, the system initially confirmed this Make them cry it had become the highest charting debut track of the year. However, after online users raised suspicions about the numbers, Spotify conducted an internal review.
Spotify said: “May 15th Iceman became the most streamed album on Spotify in a single day in 2026, while Drake became the most streamed artist in a single day this year. The initial stream verification process was conducted manually, which resulted in the streams of two different songs from the album being incorrectly combined. Drake still holds the record for the most streamed artist and album in a single day in 2026. We apologize for this issue and have implemented updated verification procedures to prevent similar incidents in the future.
The mistake not only interrupted Drake’s explosive successes, but also sparked intense debates across multiple social media platforms.
Previously, Drake shocked the music industry by releasing three new studio albums simultaneously. The sheer volume of songs released immediately reportedly put such great pressure on streaming systems that both Spotify and Apple Music suffered temporary outages. Thanks to the bold strategy, the rapper officially set a new record as a male artist with the biggest streaming day in Spotify history, reaching 250 million streams.
A total of 43 songs were released simultaneously, creating major challenges for both automated tracking systems and manual verification processes. Among them, Make them crythe opening track from Icemandebuted with 13.2 million streams on Spotify, becoming the highest-performing song among all 43 newly released tracks.
One of the most talked about moments of the release was Drake’s direct reference to BTS Make them cry. The rapper wrote: “I feel like BTS because it took me my whole career to get discovered.” The text quickly became a trending topic online. Through the joke, Drake seemed to recognize similarities between his journey and BTS’s rise to global fame. Both artists spent years steadily building their careers before achieving global stardom.
After Spotify corrected all the data to reflect the real numbers, the true 2026 record holder remained unchanged. The song with the biggest streaming debut of the year is still BTS SWIMwhich reached more than 14.6 million streams within the first day of release.
SWIM is the title track of BTS’ album ARIRANGreleased in March this year. Successfully holding the record against a streaming powerhouse like Drake once again demonstrated BTS’s enduring global popularity. Even after many years in the industry, the group continues to maintain enormous influence and a firm position at the top of the global music scene.
Sources: kenh14
