In late November 2023, some social media posts suggested that Beyoncé had less monthly listeners on Spotify than Canadian singer, dancer and actress Tate McRae. "C'mon, gays, don't do this to bey," one post captioned screenshots from the artists' Spotify profiles, allegedly proving that McRae had more monthly Spotify listeners than Beyoncé. "This is real?" one user asked, while another added, "Is Tate Mcrae becoming the new Taylor Swift Stale Topic?"
C'mon, gays, don't do this to bey ?
byu/Tobias-Tawanda inpopheadscirclejerk
The most viral post on the topic was shared on X (formerly Twitter). It reached over 17 million views as of this writing, and in the post below, its author added, "Beyonce is still the queen of the music industry don’t get it twisted."
Oh that's not- pic.twitter.com/AFkK0JyRF8
— Laila ♡ (@SeekingSza) November 20, 2023
We accessed the Spotify's app on Nov. 22, 2023, and found out that Tate McRae had 51.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify, while Beyoncé had 46.8 million. Because of that we have rated this claim as "True."
(Spotify App)
While some comments under the viral post doubted the veracity of the claim, others underscored that the statistics were understandable, as Beyoncé had not recently released new music, while Tate McRae had released songs in 2023:
Beyonce hasn't released new music (apart from remixes and features) in over a year. Greedy has been the top streamed song on Spotify for a few weeks.
Beyonce is a 42 year old who now makes highly sequenced dance pop albums that draw primarily from 80s ballroom culture, whereas Tate McRae is a young, pretty, upcoming artist who makes extremely basic, on-trend music engineered to maximise appeal to mainstream audiences.
What is there to get lol
"Ya'll let tate have her moment?? she has 2 hits rn while Beyoncé hasn't released nothing in months," another X user commented in a similar tone. Billboard's article published on Nov. 21, 2023, underscored that McRae's songs were gaining more and more popularity:
It’s been quite a past week for Tate McRae in the Billboard realm — in a span of about five days, she made her first-ever appearances on the cover of Billboard magazine, on stage as a Billboard Music Awards performer, and in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.