Taylor Swift’s “august” recorded a 39 percent increase in U.S. streams during August 2021. The rise demonstrated that the song’s title and late-summer imagery could create a recurring seasonal listening pattern.
The track was released in 2020, but its popularity did not depend only on its first chart run. Each August, listeners returned to it, and social-media posts and memes helped reinforce the connection between the calendar month and the song.
This 39 percent figure refers specifically to the U.S. streaming gain reported for August 2021. It should not be confused with the much larger daily-stream increase reported during August 2022, which was 277 percent. Those figures measure different periods and use different descriptions of streaming activity.