Taylor Swift, Drake and Kendrick Lamar album releases linked to more deadly car crashes, study finds

“Jam session” just took on a whole new meaning.A recent study found a link between major album releases and deadly car crashes in the US, with traffic fatalities spiking on the day hit records landed on streaming services.The increase came with a star-studded soundtrack, including music from Taylor Swift, Drake and Kendrick Lamar, with the effect particularly pronounced among younger drivers.In the study, researchers at Harvard University compared accident statistics on the release days of the 10 most-streamed albums between 2017 and 2022 with those from the 10 days before and after each release.The albums included Taylor Swift’s “Midnights,” “Red (Taylor’s Version)” and “Folklore”; Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy,” “Scorpion” and “Her Loss” with 21 Savage; Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti”; Kendrick Lamar’s “Mr.Morale & the Big Steppers”; Harry Styles’ “Harry’s House”; and Kanye West’s “Donda.”Using Spotify data, the researchers found an average of 123.3 million streams on the major album release days, compared with 86.1 million on the surrounding days.The difference was striking on the roads, too.

The researchers estimated an average of 139.1 traffic fatalities on album release days, compared with 120.9 on the surrounding days — an increase of 18.2 deaths.Taken together, traffic fatalities were about 15% higher on the 10 release days, amounting to an estimated 182 excess lives lost.But the effect varied by album.Drake’s three records appeared to be linked to the largest jumps in deadly car accidents, while the uptick associated with Taylor Swift’s three albums was comparatively smaller.The release of Kanye West’s “Donda,” meanwhile, appeared to have essentially no effect on the fatality rate.

The researchers offered several possible explanations for the increase, including drivers handling their phones to stream new music, cranking up the volume and missing sounds they would normally hear, or ...