New Delhi, Oct. 3 -- Taylor Swift's much-anticipated album The Life of a Showgirl went live at midnight on Friday, and within minutes, the overwhelming rush of listeners reportedly left Spotify struggling to stay online.

The 13-track record, hyped heavily in the run-up to release, triggered an immediate surge of traffic as fans, known as Swifties, flocked to stream the songs. According to outage tracker DownDetector, more than a thousand users reported problems as the platform froze, crashed, or failed to load altogether. Both mobile and desktop users across the world were affected during the peak rush.

Spotify had amplified the frenzy by promoting the album on its official X account, encouraging fans to tune in the moment it dropped. T...