Spotify puts GTA 6 artwork on billboards in three US cities

Spotify has put the Grand Theft Auto VI artwork that musicians posted a day earlier onto its own billboards. On 16 September the company's verified X account published four photos of the boards with nothing in the caption but an eyes emoji. Each screen carries the Spotify logo and one of the new drawings: no Rockstar logo, no text and no date. GTA BOOM and RockstarINTEL locate the boards in New York, Los Angeles and Miami. By the morning of 17 September the post had passed 9.8 million views.

The photos show exactly which pictures went out onto the street. The two-screen board above the Seventh Avenue subway entrance at 34th Street in Manhattan switches between the bow of a yacht, the image PinkPantheress and the duo CA7RIEL and Paco Amoroso posted, and the purple platform heels from Travis Scott's post. The other two boards carry the rear of a purple Coquette with a Leonida plate reading VCE BBY, the picture Future and Metro Boomin shared, and the two sun loungers by a pool from Morgan Wallen's account.

Neither company has said what the campaign is for. Rockstar's Newswire has nothing on it, and Spotify has announced no playlist, no deal and no in-game feature. Dork put it plainly: the link is suggestive rather than a confirmed partnership. What Spotify already runs is an official Grand Theft Auto playlist on its own account, the obvious home for a soundtrack if one is coming.

Two months before 19 November the music campaign now has two visible parties, the artists and Spotify, and the studio is still silent. Travis Scott's "Phase 1" remains the only hint that a next step is on the way.