When was the last time anyone cared that a song hit number one?

The Herald Scotland

5 days ago

Thanks to the streaming era, the metrics of old have become irrelevant. But ask the record companies, the streaming platforms, and anyone remaining in the mainstream music industry, and the lingering husk of chart positions and the race to the top is still a major factor in how everything plays out.
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Today's charts are not any real measure of popularity or success – instead, they now measure which record label has the most sophisticated gaming strategy. Power and influence have been taken from the listener, who once had to be motivated to buy a tangible product, and given over to the levers of the record industry, where they can pretty much make the rules as they like.
The Official Charts Company decrees that 100 streams equal one sale, and that 1000 streams equal one album sale.
But why these numbers? Besides being plucked from thin air, it is likely the simplest way for a changing industry to enter this new landscape, but it is also impossible to take a numbers game seriously where the rules have had such little thought or weight put behind them. Converting physical and digital purchases into streaming habits and behaviours is just too different and difficult to equate, but record and chart companies are still happy to do it and to be seen as legitimate tallying.
The other reason why the record industry still holds onto chart success in a streaming world – it is ridiculously easy to control and manipulate. Some of the manipulation is so blatant that it would make the payola scandals of the 1950s seem quaint.
The playbook is depressingly simple. First, secure prime real estate on Spotify's algorithmically generated playlists. This is an important step: major labels now treat playlist placements like medieval lords doling out farmland – so if you're in their stable, you eat; if not, prepare to starve.
Then release as many versions of the song as possible. Slow it down, speed it up, remix it ad nauseum. Disguise it as a service to fans while conveniently letting it all consolidate into one chart entry as per the rules.
And why not take advantage of the half of the internet that's just bots? In 2024, 49% of all internet traffic was bot traffic, so that is a lot of customers lying in wait. Why should it matter in the game that's been set up if there is a real user at the other end or not?
Last year, almost half of internet traffic came from bots (Image: Getty) This week saw heavy suspicion of bot use placed on rapper Travis Scott and his label collective album JackBoys 2. People began to notice that unofficial fan uploads and different songs with the same title were seeing huge listening increases where their official equivalents weren't. It's now assumed that whatever bots were sent to juice the album's numbers were sent on the wrong path, and everyone could see the error in plain sight. Of course, JackBoys 2 is set to debut at number one on the Billboard album chart next week.
Even more egregious was in 2020 when Spotify users began to report that their accounts were magically playing the new single from rapper French Montana. Accounts were being hacked left and right to hit play on a single from a flailing rapper dependent on numbers, and all the rapper and his label had to do was deny any involvement. There is a real slimy, nefarious side to this game, and a lot of it has probably not revealed itself to the surface.
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Then there are the 'numbers people'. These are dedicated fans of an artist who need their favourite to win no matter what, whether that's Taylor Swift or the many fan armies backing K-pop artists. It doesn't matter how authentic the attention is if the horse being bet on reaches the top.
These fans are a record label's dream, setting up mass-streaming campaigns to inflate numbers, and replacing the weathervane of popularity with the gritty competition of sport. The 'numbers people' live in a loophole where outright botting is ostensibly not allowed, but leaving a song on repeat all night with the volume down? Stream away and bolster the illusion.
Because, in the end, that's all it is now. The record industry is happy to cling to the current chart system because it provides an illusion of success. But given how irrelevant a number one hit is now, and how little such an achievement makes a dent in our cultural milieu, it seems we all already know the truth.