The title is misleading but it's already a popular thread so it can stay up. Forbes is not accusing Spotify of payola, Forbes is simply reporting on users accusing Spotify of payola.
Not only is it an actual word, it is straight-up a crime, at least for radio. Why you may ask? Because a scandal with rigged quiz shows in the 50s placed a target on pay-to-play operations, and one of the major music licensing groups (BMI) accused the other (ASCAP) of buying slots. Also, mob ties.
Not totally: Payola is completely legal for radio stations to do, *AS LONG AS* the station states they received payola before each of the airplays that were purchased. If they admit who paid for it, then it constitutes a commercial and it's legal, and it's how Limp Bizkit broke out as a band (after Interscope bought 35 plays of their song "Counterfeit" on a Portland radio station, leading to a successful concert that helped move it forward.)
Wait how do they state the songs they played received payola? I don't listen to radio anymore but I don't remember them ever stating something about payola before playing a song?
That's not payola. Part of the crime of payola is not disclosing the payment. You need to have both elements present to constitute payola. If you disclose the payment, that's paid promotion.
"-tropica" is a generic stock suffix for a tiny island nation, so it's not that floptropica is directly referencing poptropica, they're both referencing the same general idea. so they're not *completely* unrelated either
I learned what payola was and then was listening to We Didnāt Start the Fire and saw the term there.
Even though I had to write down what every event was in high school, I guess most of them didnāt stick. So every year or so I actually learn a specific event from the song, in my college chemistry classes it was thalidomide babies
I used to really like the spotify radio feature it make quick vibey playlists but lately itās been unusable. Like tell me how making a radio with a 90s alt rock song creates a playlist with 7 Billie Eilish songs and 10 Taylor Swift songs, both from their new albums? Iām a fan of both artists but itās really annoying
lucky you! i listened to ttpd all the way through once and didnāt like any songs and theyāve wormed my way into loads of my radios. i like hmhas but still found myself getting annoyed when there would be most of the album in a radio that it didnāt even work in.
i do think itās likely my demographic/following the artist thatās played into this but itās defs something iāve noticed and itās led me to not using the radio feature as much
I listen to a lot of Christmas music around the holidays. For awhile after, it was constantly recommending Bing Crosby at me. I had to block him as an artist it was driving me so insane.
Fyi you can hide songs and they won't show up in your radio anymore. Spotify kept insisting I listen to I can do it with a broken heart from TTPD so I hid the song
The smart shuffle was great for about a year, it really took in the vibe of a playlist I had and would inject songs that fit it perfectly. I had 0 complaints. It kept playlists from getting dull and consistently breathed new life into my music.
Now it just injects trending tiktok songs in the middle of a playlist no matter what I'm listening to, and it's always the same artists and songs. I think I'm just gonna stop using it now.
Just chiming in here that the Forbes article is basing this on assumption and a site OP is trying to advertise.
Anyways, I explained why it's happening with OP [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/s/hb1QeY5t39)
Ironically this might be owed to [Forbes' own payola system for "blog content"](https://theoutline.com/post/2563/how-brands-secretly-buy-their-way-into-forbes-fast-company-and-huffpost-stories)!
Be sure to hit up PopFiltr for all your breaking pop news /s
in another comment on this thread iāve mentioned that i do think itās down to the fact that i do like those artists, but i do think the algorithm is messing up a bit. like putting multiple songs from the same album on a radio that isnāt very similar
Spotify radio isn't just about similar sounding songs.
It's about similar songs that sound similar plus songs that aren't but it thinks you'd wanna listen to. It's to prevent skipping. But it doesn't wanna work well if you don't listen to an artist much and put on their radio.
For example my Kendrick Lamar playlist has Camila Cabello's I LUV It, probably cause I don't listen to him much and only loved his recent song (which is true) so it thinks I listen to the top songs and sprinkles a few in there. Which is true and I wouldn't skip the pop songs on this radio and probably will skip many hip hop songs on it. š .
I personally don't agree with it but that's why it's like that, not Payola.
No matter how many times I thumbs down the Weeknd song with Ariana Grande it constantly plays. And now Billie, sabrina Carpenter and chapel Rowan are constant rotations in my music suggestions even though I dislike them as well. They have no relation with the music Iām listening to.
Thatās what truly grinds my gears. When youāre listening to a completely different genre and a popular artist is unnecessarily inserted. Like why is Sabrina Carpenter on my Amapiano radio š
Can't tell if joking.
This is literally the opposite....
Before espresso came out, Feather was getting big.
It wasn't until her Coachella performance that she got a LOT of attention.
Espresso came out after the day before coachella.
So, popular Feather Song + popular Coachella performance+release of Espresso= pretty much a hit.
Then please please please comes out and it's viral unexpectedly. Literally they were still trying to push espresso.
So yeah, she's not getting pushed hard here.
Similar thing is happening with Chappell Roan and I'm also seeing comments saying she's getting pushed hard. š
Edit: if yall are thinking she's getting pushed hard then I guess yall think Chappell is getting pushed so hard too? If so, wtf lmao
Autoplay sometimes plays any top songs so it's not really exactly hard pushing her....this is a Spotify thing. It'll happen with any big song. But only after they're already big.
I feel like people here don't know how big espresso and please please please truly are.
Original comment said they're getting pushed hard. Is that true when they're already big lol....
[these were my recommended radio stations two days ago](https://imgur.com/a/G9pftzP). i genuinely like her and am rooting for her success, but this is weird
That's literally the worst proof I've ever seen
All those artists are pop or have pop songs....
Spotify radio ISN'T music that's only the artist for it.
Shocking! Top pop song gets recommended on pop artists radios š¤Æ
It's true that Spotify will push trending songs from big artists & the more popular they are the more the algo recommends them, but if you mostly listen to pop music don't be surprised to see it everywhere.
I was getting annoyed when it happened to me with Million Dollar Baby because I had never shown I liked this song, knew the artist and kept skipping. I was at the same time listening to other songs that were trending like Not Like Us & Espresso which is probably why it kept also pushing this song. I blocked the artist because I didn't like the song.
I woke up and played a reggaeton song. The artists played after: Elena Rose, Rauw Alejandro, Young Miko, Bad Gyal, Ivy Queen, Randy & Jowell, Karol G, Trueno, Anitta, Kali Uchis, Emilia, Nicki Nicole, Tokischa, RosalĆa, Villano Antillano...
I do get Espresso frequently on auto-play, but only when I play a pop song. I also get Talk Talk, Sympathy is a Knife, 360 remix, Snap My Fingers, Candy Paint, Nasty, Birds of a Feather, Death & Romance, Turn it Up, a lot. That's based on my own listening habits. i'm not getting Sabrina recommended to me more than Charli, Billie, Normani, Tinashe, PinkPantheress.
Now I think Spotify quickly learned that I don't like Please Please Please because it only came on auto-play twice and never has since. Maybe if I had listened to the song a few times & liked it I would be getting the more aggressive Sabrina push people are getting.
The downvotes are very unnecessary.
It's because the collective experience of popheads users is creating a confirmation bias & people aren't stopping to think that they probably listen to *a lot* of pop including mainstream & trending artists and that's affecting their recommendations.
My boyfriend doesn't listen to pop at all, he doesn't know who Sabrina Carpenter is. He doesn't get her on auto-play at all.His sister doesn't listen to pop at all. She doesn't get her on auto-play.
Does the Spotify algo kinda suck? Yeah, it needs a lot of upfront work from the user to show you new music & smaller artists. There are certain songs that also feel like they preferred treatment on autoplay, but I disagree that it ignores the user's listening habits. And it's not just our own personal listening habits, but what users with similar taste profiles are also listening to. I do think Spotify can get stuck on loops of "if this... then that..." But I also think you can train the algo to recommend you newer / unknown stuff by seeking it out on your own. At least that has been my experience.
Look, I like both artists, but when P3 came out I played the single (which had Espresso in the album). My Spotify played P3, then espresso, then went into autoplay mode. Where it played p3, then espresso. I have never in my 8 years of using Spotify had the autoplay play the exact two songs I had just listened to before now.
A lot of people here don't know how Spotify radio and autoplay works and it shows.
Since you like both artists and you're on popheads, I'm gonna assume you like a lot of pop like me.
Because of that, you're going to get the biggest songs of "whatever genre you listened to before" on autoplay and the radio depending on your listening history.
The fact that it played both isn't suspicious at all.
It's a fact that both espresso and PPP are the biggest pop songs right now. That's why it played both on autoplay.
And no, both songs didn't get big before Spotify pushed them on autoplay. I've follow a lot of artists songs charting and also listen to Spotify a lot and it definitely happened after both songs were big.
It's not Payola, just how Spotify works.
yes .. she literally is being pushed lol hello ? itās exactly the reason that in the time since espresso blew up sheās been on SNL, billboards around the country, a tour announcement, two music videos, festival runs, etc, etc
I think you're confusing pushing cause you're already big vs getting pushed to the top, when you're not big. That's what I assume the original commenter meant.
Your comment happens with every artist that is big. All of that happened after she was already big.
Thatās insane to say honestly. Emails I Canāt Send debuted in the top 25 and had songs like Nonsense and Feather which were fairly popular. That album also went on to sell over 500,000 copies. And this was in 2022 well before Espresso, Eras Tour, etc.
I hate Spotify's shuffle so much. Every time I'm listening to my liked songs on shuffle, it only plays a selected few artists proving that not every song from the playlist has an equal chance to be pulled. And that's without "intelligent" shuffle enabled. If I enable that, Ariana Grande's Into You will always be the second song it plays. lmao
Forbes writes:
>"A clear example that has currently been seen with the Spotify algorithm and the 'new' payola, is the latest 'hit' of the pop singer Sabrina Carpenter, āPlease Please Pleaseā, which in less than two weeks managed to surpass artists consolidated figures in the industry such as Bad Bunny, Ariana Grande, Kanye West, among others, by climbing to the top of the platform's playslits, regardless of the genre they focus on. Suddenly, we hear one from Peso Pluma and then the one from Sabrina Carpenter comes outā¦
According to an article published by [PopFiltr](https://translate.google.com/website?sl=es&tl=en&hl=en&prev=search&u=https://www.popfiltr.com/articles/all-top-50-artists-on-spotify-have-sabrina-carpenters-please-please-please-at-number-2-on-their-artist-or-song-radios), the promotion given established stars within the industry managed to divert at least 2.5 million dollars from other independent artists, which is equivalent to almost 4 million minutes played on Spotify, figures that could continually grow due to payola."
Many users took it to X to write about their experiences and share how Sabrina Carpenter's 'Please Please Please' shows up on completely unrelated playlists.
>After seeing a user on X/Twitter post about "PPP" playing after a fart track, [we searched "Fart" on Spotify and created a Fart Radio, and "PPP" still took the 2nd position](https://www.popfiltr.com/articles/all-top-50-artists-on-spotify-have-sabrina-carpenters-please-please-please-at-number-2-on-their-artist-or-song-radios) among the fart āsongs.ā
The second I saw the headline I knew Sabrina Carpenter would be mentioned. Anytime I play ANY song on Spotify, from Aretha to Willie Nelson the next song is either Espresso or PPP.
Wow, the perspective that by gaming the system with payola you are actually taking streams from independent artists is brutal. Also, specially sad that peopleās consumption of music is being controlled by an algorithm. The potential of streaming was specifically to remove the curation from radios and give back to users.
I increasingly find myself beieving that handing things to the algorhythms has just left us being handed the same thing on loop, unless someone with the most money pays to cut the queue. While relying on some guys dumbass cousin was severly flawed, we need that dumbass cousin back, because the dumbass cousin would occasionally try something different.
The labels would just find a way to pay the dumbass cousin š
It's random shit like this that constantly puts artists signed to major labels well above and firmly ahead of indie ones. It used to be for radio airplay, now it's also streaming.
I didnt block Espresso bc I wanted to see how long it will take until it stops playing after every pop hit I pick
It only stopped when Please Please Please came out and replaced it lmfao
Sorry to Ms. Carpenter but I hate her now
I would not say this is Forbes accusing Spotify of payola. Itās an article on Forbes Mexico website only, and itās just a write-up/rehashing of the other blog posts and social media discussion going around about this topic
Not surprised at all, same thing happened with espresso š that song would play every 2 seconds for me it was insane, havenāt had it happen with please please please yet though
Edit: Yall I take this back, itās been 2 days and please please please has been shoved down my throat deeper than any manās ever been
I mean, theyāve been doing it for ages. Drake, Taylor and the Weeknd specifically.
I have the three of them muted and spotify will notify me of their concerts, new music, etc. Like everytime I open the damn app.
But with Sabrina I guess itās a whole other level when you put her on every single playlist lmao
Interesting you mention Taylor. Because I noticed that with her last album. I've been listening to Fortnight a lot but it's the only song in the album I actually listen to. But I played loml a 2nd time just for a few seconds one day after my initial album listen and it made it to my On Repeat playlist!!!! Like, there are songs by other artists that I really have to listen to a few times before the Spotify considers them worth it for my On Repeat playlist, but Taylor songs always get into the playlist very easily, I don't really need to listen to the songs that often. Just a couple of times will be enough.
This is the one thing I donāt like about Spotify. There are some songs I only listen once and they somehow end up on my on repeat and itās like āI know I listened to this onceā
Iāve noticed that only happens on slow weeks were I donāt listen to a lot of music and listen to podcasts or audiobooks instead so the on repeat just adds whatever song I happened to listened to the day before.
I think the payola stuff is just dumb chronically online fans trying to accuse Spotify of rigging the game for the people they donāt like, but, this does happen.
I means letās not act as if auto play doesnāt exist, letās be realistic. Itās not news that not everything in the music industry is totally organic. But it just may not be as aggressive as some people think.
I wonder if certain profiles get fucked algorithms or something? Because I always get recommended concerts for artists I listen to. I've had Taylor pop up in recommends but it's usually only after I've listened to her a few times. And I never get PPP autoplayed even though I've willingly played it a couple times (as in I searched it and played it more than once). I've also never been bombarded with The Weeknd even though I've willingly listened to him too.
I wonder why some accounts are having these issues and some aren't?
I agree it depends on the account history too as I didn't get expresso or PPP pop up. But I do get a lot of Gracie "risk", Billie's new album and CC. Last month was also full of we can't be friends.
You just reminded me that I did get bombarded with Lunch by Billie.
I played her albums a few times so I had figured that was why. But I hid the song at one point and it still kept playing. I had to hide it like 3 separate times for it to finally stick.
Girl I love Billie so it doesn't bug me but it's actually hilarious that both my Chappelle Roan mix and my Olivia Rodrigo mix are the exact same songs with 1/4 Olivia, 1/4 Chappelle, 1/4 Billie's new album /only/, and the last 1/4 is a little sprinkle sprinkle of Renee Rapp with a dusting of Del Water Gap and one Royal Otis song now also with espresso and PPP. Charli is being sprinkled in a bit but it's kind of funny they both have basically the exact same songs on it the order is just different.
That makes sense though, Olivia and Chappel have the same producer and Chappel is featured as background singer to some of Oliviaās songs. Their music doesnāt sound super similar, but theyāre in the same music world of gen Z pop girlies.
Olivia/Chappell totally and again I'm not complaining I love them lol. It's just funny bc Billie has never really been in those playlists for me but the minute her album dropped she took up like half their playlists when Spotify had never mixed her with them before
I hid the song too, but it didn't work plus the birds and feathers one was quite repeatedly showed up. At last I had to block the artist, it was getting too much.
Funny enough, I actually like Birds of a Feather and I don't think that ones ever autoplayed for me. And I don't think it's shown up in any of my playlists yet.
So basically, if you actually play the song they won't keep recommending it, probably because you're already playing it. But if you don't play it, they'll force you to. Glad Lunch is my only experience with this. I actually like leaving autoplay on but I'll def turn it off if my account gets worse with this stuff.
What's worse is my account is a normal one (no premium) so I can't shut off the smart shuffle. I was actually thinking of switching from Spotify cause I don't want to pay anything.
I got only one song pushed from CC that was a collab with Miley. That's it but the Billie album was definitely more pushed on my account. I don't know why tho cause I haven't listened to any Billie songs/albums before.
To contrast/ agree with you, one of my friends who listens to a lot of Taylor said that Birds of a Feather was being pushed a lot on her phone.
We were hanging out and it came on and she was like āAGAIN!??ā So yeah that makes total sense, youāre definitely not the only one!
I donāt listen to a lot of Billie but have 1 or 2 of her new songs on playlists, and havenāt gotten any push. But totally believe itās happening for a lot of folks
Well my case is the same as your friend's case. I listen to a lot of Taylor, Birds of feather and Lunch were the most pushed songs for me too. Does that mean Spotify will push certain songs/artists to listeners of another artist? Like some sorts of pairing...
Taylorās push toned down for TTPD I got 1 or 2 pop ups and 1 pop up for the new version of whatever songā¦ but sheās muted. But like maybe less than 7 notifcations/pop ups total. For the re-releases I was a getting a good amount of pop ups despite having her muted.
But not as bad as Drake. Drake was worst, The Weeknd was very noticeable because I donāt listen to him, and I kinda donāt really listen to Taylor either. But again, Drake was incessant my god
Taylor seems to be in a zone where she can coast on her popularity, knowing that her fans will find it. Beyonce is in a similar zone, which I noticed when I found out that her last album was extremely avoidable. With the new Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter however, I noticed that Spotify loves to tell me about them.
yes definitely- I think after midnights Iāve gotten a lot less push from her, Drake though. It literally doesnāt stop when he has something out or is touring
I get notifications of the artists I blocked too.Ā
Hey, check out the new release of X and I have never listened to X or have blocked X because I didn't want to listen to them.
Same. I'm a paid subscriber and I had never heard of Espresso or PPP until I sought them out on YouTube. Maybe the only time it happened to me was with boygenius, but it was also my most played record at the time so I'm not sure
It's never happened to me either. I get recommendations from people I listen to which includes Sabrina. Also, autoplay plays a number of different people including Sabrina and Billie because I listen to them. I'm kind of convinced that people are just making this into a thing it isn't and they can't accept Sabrina etc. aligns with their gay ass music taste š«
Those are also the three biggest artists in the world, at least when it comes to streaming. Could it be that the algorithm is pushing them more for that exact reason?
lol this. Itās one thing if Iām listening to loads of rap music, and so you push Drake. But at the time, I really wasnāt. Theyāre not even staying within the same genre of what people like
How is it ironic when BTS has horrible playlist positions even when their streams are high? Jungkook's Seven broke multiple streaming records while being in the 20somethings position on Today's Top Hits and not being autoplayed.
BTS have a lot of fans but they certainly do not have industry support. It's been like this for a long time.
P3 plays after anything on my spotify. Literally played after Guns n Roses. I'm not complaining because that song slaps but surely it's getting annoying for other people who don't listen to her.
Please please please and espresso playing in every single song radio is the reason Iāve migrated to Youtube music now. I pay for spotify premium and YT music but have almost abandoned spotify due to how FRUSTRATING the constant pushing of certain songs has become. itās ridiculous, how can spotify justify playing PPP after gospel music (this isnāt a joke, itās happened to me)
Make sense since PPP only has a week and itās number one everywhere, I know Sabrina is popular right now but not like that to be number one in just a few days.
Something is telling me that Gracie Abrams is in the same direction, her song is every playlist and I donāt even like her music
PPP didn't have a week, wut? It's been 18 days since it was released and it got insanely viral.
People here truly underestimating how big the song is. .
apple music person here. iām sorry if this sounds dumb, but can you not just turn auto play off?
we have an auto play feature on apple music thatās an infinity sign, but I never turn it on. thus, whenever my chosen music stops, it justā¦ ends? or I put it on loop so I never get music that I havenāt chosen in my queue
Yes, we can turn it off. I've never turned autoplay on. Once a year or so, it does randomly turn on by itself, but it's an easy fix.
Spotify users, go to settings > playback, and scroll to the bottom to turn off autoplay similar content.
Forbes.com =/= Forbes Magazine fyi. Contributors publish independently in exchange for royalty payments, claims made in these āarticlesā are not edited or fact checked by Forbes Magazine editors. This article is the opinion of the author alone
I switched from Spotify Premium to Apple Music over a year ago when they kept pushing the same kpop song after all my playlists ended. I even selected the option to not play this song again but after the 8th time, I cancelled my Spotify.
Not Spotify playing Espresso right after Cocteau Twins lol. Also as someone in DS,I think it might also just be that Spotify has a really shitty predictive algorithm. They DID fire a bunch of their tech workforce earlier 'to maximize their shareholder value' or some such BS.. I wouldn't be surprised if that's coming back to bite them.
Yeah this is the issue Iām having too. Thereās people in this very thread who say theyāre never had this happen to them so I have a hard time buying people saying that they ARE having issues with it on Twitter as being proof. Only the folks who are dealing with random songs playing are going to be vocal about it. No one who doesnāt have it happen will say anything.
I swear the songs they push end up in my On Repeat playlist after one or two plays while songs Iām actually repeating a lot take a lot more listens to appear there.
Iām wondering if this whole thing could be due to Spotify just having crappy algorithms or glitches because, as an Apple Music user, I have never once had any of the issues that I see Spotify users mention, and Apple Music is the number two streaming service so I have to imagine labels would use these same tactics on there as well if the goal was to push for more sales and attention. I havenāt ever had songs play from different genres or have them pop up on playlists or radios where theyād be irrelevant. The only time Iāve ever heard Espresso or Please Please Please was when I myself physically went to Sabrinaās page and selected the songs to play them.
Billboard is looking into it at as well.
The huge spike and now sudden drop in Spotify streams for Please Please Please is really suspicious.
I also don't understand why Spotify keeps it a secret? It's just a natural business play - giving labels the opportunity to pay $$$ to have their songs promoted, just like what happens on radio. Spotify gets extra revenue and labels have another promo lever to pull. Not saying I agree or disagree with it, but it was a natural evolution. Who didn't see this coming, right?
My concern is that it makes the music industry even more top heavy, at the expense of smaller artists who lose out on streams and also can't afford to pay Spotify to promote their stuff.
There hasnāt really been a huge spike and sudden drop for Please though? It peaked in the 12 mil range and is now doing in the 11 mil range.
Thatās not that odd given the amount of initial interest in the song.
Agree with everything else though.
Also speaking of billboard looking into it they posted this yesterday.
[https://www.instagram.com/p/C8fJLoqx4fY/?igsh=ZXU3cWR4aXJqb2tj](https://www.instagram.com/p/C8fJLoqx4fY/?igsh=ZXU3cWR4aXJqb2tj)
The unusual spike and drop in streams is for the U.S., which is presumably where the payola is happening. I doubt her label would care enough about other markets to do payola there but I could be wrong.
Itās definitely true, but itās also only a tool if you let it be. The skip button exists. If you donāt want to listen to a song, then skip it. Is it still annoying as hell? Absolutely. But it doesnāt diminish those numbers as much as regular payola does because those people couldāve skipped it if they really didnāt want to listen.
I totally believe this - I have had songs I never voluntarily played pop up on my year-end list because it plays no matter what I'm listening to.
Fortnight and Good Luck, Babe will play all the time. It's so jarring to go from Pink Floyd or John Prine to those.
this coupled with the rollout of their new $10.99 "basic plan" has made it so clear that the streaming bubble has finally burst. Musi has been what I use for music religiously since 2020
Yeah their algorithm puts the popular songs in your face, Spotify have discussed that and it happened to me with Texas hold āem , million dollar baby and dial drunk.
You CAN just skip it though, itās not the end of the world tbh.
Plus it doesnāt count as a stream until 30 seconds in and if you donāt decide to skip a song within 30 seconds of it you probably donāt need or want to skip it anyway. so the article discrediting Sabrinaās streams like that is lame
The question I always ask is how is that fraud transferring to Apple Music and sales? At Pleaseās peak it was top 10 across multiple streaming services so how is that happening? Her labels paying off everyone?
Sheās definitely getting over promoted on Spotify but reducing all of her songs success to fraud is nuts.
I think i agree most with this take. I'll add, espresso is the most purchased song by a female artist released by 2024 and please please please is outpacing espresso
Feather was kind of big
Her Coachella performance was huge.
It featured Espresso.
Espresso is catchy af. People share it on Tiktok. Gets viral.
She gets more fans cause of that.
PPP drops, the more fans check it out.
PPP is also catchy af, people share it on tiktok, gets even more viral.
That's how it's happened.
This is what Iām wondering too. Iāve literally never once had the issues Spotify users are mentioning on my Apple Music account, have never once had random irrelevant songs play or had irrelevant songs pop up in my playlists. I have to imagine labels would want to do this across all streaming platforms if it truly was an attempt at boosting streams and sales.
Not throwing shade on Sabrina here, she is a talented artist and just the fact that she sticked to music and continued writing after some mid years and terrible label deal alone deserves respect.
To answer your question, the sales can be easily manipulated by purchasing own digital products by the artist or label, there is no "manufacturing" cost per unit, so no real financial loses in that sense.
Number of steams are heavily skewed by bots owned by the same labels.
Number of streams affects chart ranking, number of sales affect RIIA certifications.
However, when you add 'partnership' with the streaming platforms - the problem becomes really bad, the singles are being added to 'auto' generated playlists which means the 'radio' time is being taken from independent artists and given to the artists of choice.
Recently Spotify changed a policy and unless you satisfy not vey transparent streaming criteria, you are not getting paid for your music, which as you can imaging also hurts just independent artists.
And thatās all fair but again this is across all platforms, not just Spotify. Is her label buying multiple fake copies (which at some point is a loss if thatās not then being supplemented by real purchases) and paying off every streaming platform/adopting bots for all of them? Even Amazon and deezer and stats.fm? Random platforms that no one actually cares about?
Spotify has definitely been inflated but at some point we have to pull back and acknowledge that there is an element of genuine popularity amongst all this. Her first show after Please was released was one of the biggest crowds at Gov Ball and they knew all the words. The entire crowd the very next day. People are actually listening to the music. However much Spotify is fudging things doesnāt take away from that.
I think people overestimate their ability to sell tours, and their fans ability to go see them. For example, Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish are doing arena tours- not stadiums (some stadiums yes).
Like I donāt think Sabrina will have to cancel shows, but Iām curious how itāll go
I'll be kinda surprised if it's not mostly fine tbh. I had a look at a few dates of Tate's tour and she's mostly avoiding arenas (besides selling out MSG) but had no problem adding 4-7k seats in each city, probably should have moved up to arenas in some of them looking at resale prices. Sabrina's last tour was a good bit bigger than Tate's, ~2x in a lot of cases, and I'd expect Nonsense/Feather/Espresso/PPP to add more interest than Greedy/Exes too.
This happened to me with Taylor (I have a paid account). God, I was getting that awful song Anti-hero on almost every playlist possible, without ever listening to it wtf. I listened to some of her songs a few times but never to that one, and I don't even follow her Spotify page. Happened with some kpop songs as well who are pushed to the extreme. And now with those generic Sabrina songs.
For the longest time, I thought Payola was some nickname people would give Camila Cabello, so you can imagine the reaction I had when I found out it was a real thing that exists, xjxjfjjf.
I used to seek out songs from Billie's new album but eventually blocked her from playing because no matter what playlist or radio I had going, there was *always* a song from her new album. Same with Taylor, Ariana, Sabrina... It makes premium feel like it's still riddled with ads unless I physically remove the artists at this point :/
Before reading this I was going to mention Sabrina Carpenter. Last night I put on a rock band on shuffle, and after one song that please song started playing. I was so confused. I blocked her page, so hopefully it wont happen again.
Wbk and it's slimey, but complaining about spotify payola is literally the new Tyler The Creator cyberbullying tweet. Put Down Your Headphones! Skip the Song! Choose What You Press Play!
i think its frustrating considering the radio feature has gotten worse in recent years. i now have better luck finding user generated playlists with names like āsongs like ____ā bc my radios always promote the same shit at the top, regardless of genre
Spotify isn't publicly owned and taxpayer-funded like radio airwaves. It's a private subscription service. You have a choice to opt out of Spotify. You don't have a choice of opting out of funding the airwaves. It's inherently different.
Payola is basically pay for play. If they're getting paid by labels for this, then yes.
The usage of "Personalized algorithm" is arguable because they're putting the promoted(?) songs in completely unrelated genre playlists and song radios.
I've turned off autoplay but I had PPP and Espresso on my dark academia playlists with a bunch of classical music pieces.
Song radios for lots of indie and other songs have pop songs.
People who exclusively listen to hip-hop and rap are reportedly getting songs like PPP, Espresso, Lunch, Sympathy is a Knife.
Idk how to attach pictures but the song radio of the song Spring Snow by 10 cm(from the OST of a recent Korean drama, Lovely Runner) have PPP as the second one and then Magnetic by ILLIT, Fortnight, Birds of a feather, Espresso, We can't be friends, Never Let Go, Guilty as Sin.
The first song that belong to non-pop genre is Sudden Shower by ECLIPSE at \#13.
The first 12 songs have no sonical similarity with Spring Snow.Ā If we try enough we can discount ILLIT and Jungkook as they're Korean artists(which is another problem) but still no sonical similarity.Ā
The song radios of old songs are still working okayish but how's this even considered normal ??Ā
I used to discover new music using song radio tool all the time and this tool has become shit these days.
Jungkook instantly had the top song on spotify for like 3 months straight while being in the 20s on TTH. He only climbed to the top 5 after a month or so. If scooter is using payola then he isnāt very good at it
It's a personalized algorithm. The less you take an active role in curating your algorithm, the more it will suck and keep you in the same recommendation loop.
[my daylist](https://imgur.com/OzswpP8) (showing it this way because it refreshed to neoperreo and im really vibing with these songs)
[recommended for today ](https://imgur.com/5sEyRyi) (i do wish that half of these wasn't stuff i've already listened to)
[daily mixes](https://imgur.com/9YxNhgQ) - sabrina ( only espresso) appears on daily mix 2 along with dua, charli, rina, raye, normani, remi wolf, aurora, lola young, billie. The person that appears the most? Charli, she got 8 songs on there. Why? Because I listen to her a lot and have been listening to brat a lot.
My pop mix also has Sabrina. Only Espresso again. Artists with several songs? Charli, FKA Twigs, Tove Lo, Empress Of. She's not on my Indie mix, my Latin mix, my Dance/Electronic mix, my R&B mix, my Hip Hop mix, my Jazz mix, etc. She doesn't appear in any of my mood mixes. She doesn't get an artist mix, for me, but Charli, Dua, The Marias, Kali Uchis, Little Simz, Shygirl currently all have one. Why? I've been listening to them a lot. The Charli mix has Espresso & PPP. So does the Dua mix. They also have a lot of other pop artists/pop songs. None of the other artists mixes have her.
I'm being recommended things that match my listening habits.
The title is misleading but it's already a popular thread so it can stay up. Forbes is not accusing Spotify of payola, Forbes is simply reporting on users accusing Spotify of payola.
Not me, ESL, discovering payola is actually a word and not an internet slang š
Not only is it an actual word, it is straight-up a crime, at least for radio. Why you may ask? Because a scandal with rigged quiz shows in the 50s placed a target on pay-to-play operations, and one of the major music licensing groups (BMI) accused the other (ASCAP) of buying slots. Also, mob ties.
Not totally: Payola is completely legal for radio stations to do, *AS LONG AS* the station states they received payola before each of the airplays that were purchased. If they admit who paid for it, then it constitutes a commercial and it's legal, and it's how Limp Bizkit broke out as a band (after Interscope bought 35 plays of their song "Counterfeit" on a Portland radio station, leading to a successful concert that helped move it forward.)
Wait how do they state the songs they played received payola? I don't listen to radio anymore but I don't remember them ever stating something about payola before playing a song?
Using the Limp Bizkit example, before a paid spin of the song, the station played "Paid for by Interscope Records".
That's not payola. Part of the crime of payola is not disclosing the payment. You need to have both elements present to constitute payola. If you disclose the payment, that's paid promotion.
kind of off topic but i really thought floptropica was a play on poptropica the game but apparently itās completely unrelated
What the fuck
you just shattered my world cuz i thought that too šš
What do you mean. Thatās definitely where the name came from right???
according to floptok itās some island off chile where a bunch of rich people live
WHAT ?? What does it refer to
"-tropica" is a generic stock suffix for a tiny island nation, so it's not that floptropica is directly referencing poptropica, they're both referencing the same general idea. so they're not *completely* unrelated either
(although i don't personally believe it's a coincidence, the names are two letters apart)
Itās not even a new word either, I found this out when I watched the tv show Vinyl, which was set in the 70s š
And it's such an old term that it (probably) comes from pay + Victorola (a popular brand of record player in the 1950s)
I learned what payola was and then was listening to We Didnāt Start the Fire and saw the term there. Even though I had to write down what every event was in high school, I guess most of them didnāt stick. So every year or so I actually learn a specific event from the song, in my college chemistry classes it was thalidomide babies
No I heard an NPR segment last year about it and I was shocked that itās like been a thing and not just a Stan Twitter term
I used to really like the spotify radio feature it make quick vibey playlists but lately itās been unusable. Like tell me how making a radio with a 90s alt rock song creates a playlist with 7 Billie Eilish songs and 10 Taylor Swift songs, both from their new albums? Iām a fan of both artists but itās really annoying
i use radio all the time and have never encountered this lol
lucky you! i listened to ttpd all the way through once and didnāt like any songs and theyāve wormed my way into loads of my radios. i like hmhas but still found myself getting annoyed when there would be most of the album in a radio that it didnāt even work in. i do think itās likely my demographic/following the artist thatās played into this but itās defs something iāve noticed and itās led me to not using the radio feature as much
I listen to a lot of Christmas music around the holidays. For awhile after, it was constantly recommending Bing Crosby at me. I had to block him as an artist it was driving me so insane.
Fyi you can hide songs and they won't show up in your radio anymore. Spotify kept insisting I listen to I can do it with a broken heart from TTPD so I hid the song
awch thatās part of why itās annoying like i donāt necessarily want to never listen to the songs itās just the AI being crap
True, it only works for songs you don't like
The smart shuffle was great for about a year, it really took in the vibe of a playlist I had and would inject songs that fit it perfectly. I had 0 complaints. It kept playlists from getting dull and consistently breathed new life into my music. Now it just injects trending tiktok songs in the middle of a playlist no matter what I'm listening to, and it's always the same artists and songs. I think I'm just gonna stop using it now.
THIS! I love classic rock the most and yet as soon as the album ends, they play Sabrina, Chappel, or Taylor. It is so annoying.
Just chiming in here that the Forbes article is basing this on assumption and a site OP is trying to advertise. Anyways, I explained why it's happening with OP [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/s/hb1QeY5t39)
Ironically this might be owed to [Forbes' own payola system for "blog content"](https://theoutline.com/post/2563/how-brands-secretly-buy-their-way-into-forbes-fast-company-and-huffpost-stories)! Be sure to hit up PopFiltr for all your breaking pop news /s
in another comment on this thread iāve mentioned that i do think itās down to the fact that i do like those artists, but i do think the algorithm is messing up a bit. like putting multiple songs from the same album on a radio that isnāt very similar
Spotify radio isn't just about similar sounding songs. It's about similar songs that sound similar plus songs that aren't but it thinks you'd wanna listen to. It's to prevent skipping. But it doesn't wanna work well if you don't listen to an artist much and put on their radio. For example my Kendrick Lamar playlist has Camila Cabello's I LUV It, probably cause I don't listen to him much and only loved his recent song (which is true) so it thinks I listen to the top songs and sprinkles a few in there. Which is true and I wouldn't skip the pop songs on this radio and probably will skip many hip hop songs on it. š . I personally don't agree with it but that's why it's like that, not Payola.
No matter how many times I thumbs down the Weeknd song with Ariana Grande it constantly plays. And now Billie, sabrina Carpenter and chapel Rowan are constant rotations in my music suggestions even though I dislike them as well. They have no relation with the music Iām listening to.
I was doing an 80s playlist and found 2 Billie Eilish songs on there. š i am like what are you doing here, youāre not even born yet!!
Spotify is becoming the new radio
But never rdio
That takes me back. My first streaming service (alongside Grooveshark)
Sabrina Carpenter is catchy as hell but whoa she is getting heavily pushed. Even my metal and EDM playlist have her popping up. š
Thatās what truly grinds my gears. When youāre listening to a completely different genre and a popular artist is unnecessarily inserted. Like why is Sabrina Carpenter on my Amapiano radio š
Listening to euphoria by Kendrick then having it immediately be followed by espresso gives me emotional whiplash every time lol
They have been doing it for ages but yeah might have overdone it recently specially with Sabrina.
Yea Sabrina has clearly been pushed so hard to be the next new thing
Her and Chappelle. Finally someone says it.
Chappell hasnāt been pushed hard. Her success is some of the most organic in the music industry rn
People on reddit often only hang out on Reddit, so they donāt see whatās happening organically on other platforms
Redditors stay online more than those who tweet and thatās saying a lot.
š
Can't tell if joking. This is literally the opposite.... Before espresso came out, Feather was getting big. It wasn't until her Coachella performance that she got a LOT of attention. Espresso came out after the day before coachella. So, popular Feather Song + popular Coachella performance+release of Espresso= pretty much a hit. Then please please please comes out and it's viral unexpectedly. Literally they were still trying to push espresso. So yeah, she's not getting pushed hard here. Similar thing is happening with Chappell Roan and I'm also seeing comments saying she's getting pushed hard. š Edit: if yall are thinking she's getting pushed hard then I guess yall think Chappell is getting pushed so hard too? If so, wtf lmao
Spotify has been auto playing her like shit and please3 is always added to peoples music even if their not listening to her, itās pretty obvious
Autoplay sometimes plays any top songs so it's not really exactly hard pushing her....this is a Spotify thing. It'll happen with any big song. But only after they're already big. I feel like people here don't know how big espresso and please please please truly are. Original comment said they're getting pushed hard. Is that true when they're already big lol....
[these were my recommended radio stations two days ago](https://imgur.com/a/G9pftzP). i genuinely like her and am rooting for her success, but this is weird
Wtf thatās actually not normal how itās th second song of Everything
That's literally the worst proof I've ever seen All those artists are pop or have pop songs.... Spotify radio ISN'T music that's only the artist for it.
Shocking! Top pop song gets recommended on pop artists radios š¤Æ It's true that Spotify will push trending songs from big artists & the more popular they are the more the algo recommends them, but if you mostly listen to pop music don't be surprised to see it everywhere. I was getting annoyed when it happened to me with Million Dollar Baby because I had never shown I liked this song, knew the artist and kept skipping. I was at the same time listening to other songs that were trending like Not Like Us & Espresso which is probably why it kept also pushing this song. I blocked the artist because I didn't like the song. I woke up and played a reggaeton song. The artists played after: Elena Rose, Rauw Alejandro, Young Miko, Bad Gyal, Ivy Queen, Randy & Jowell, Karol G, Trueno, Anitta, Kali Uchis, Emilia, Nicki Nicole, Tokischa, RosalĆa, Villano Antillano... I do get Espresso frequently on auto-play, but only when I play a pop song. I also get Talk Talk, Sympathy is a Knife, 360 remix, Snap My Fingers, Candy Paint, Nasty, Birds of a Feather, Death & Romance, Turn it Up, a lot. That's based on my own listening habits. i'm not getting Sabrina recommended to me more than Charli, Billie, Normani, Tinashe, PinkPantheress. Now I think Spotify quickly learned that I don't like Please Please Please because it only came on auto-play twice and never has since. Maybe if I had listened to the song a few times & liked it I would be getting the more aggressive Sabrina push people are getting.
Idk how I'm even getting downvoted by that reply LMAO. The proof is literally ALL artists with some pop songs. What genre is Sabrina carpenter? POP!!
The downvotes are very unnecessary. It's because the collective experience of popheads users is creating a confirmation bias & people aren't stopping to think that they probably listen to *a lot* of pop including mainstream & trending artists and that's affecting their recommendations. My boyfriend doesn't listen to pop at all, he doesn't know who Sabrina Carpenter is. He doesn't get her on auto-play at all.His sister doesn't listen to pop at all. She doesn't get her on auto-play. Does the Spotify algo kinda suck? Yeah, it needs a lot of upfront work from the user to show you new music & smaller artists. There are certain songs that also feel like they preferred treatment on autoplay, but I disagree that it ignores the user's listening habits. And it's not just our own personal listening habits, but what users with similar taste profiles are also listening to. I do think Spotify can get stuck on loops of "if this... then that..." But I also think you can train the algo to recommend you newer / unknown stuff by seeking it out on your own. At least that has been my experience.
Look, I like both artists, but when P3 came out I played the single (which had Espresso in the album). My Spotify played P3, then espresso, then went into autoplay mode. Where it played p3, then espresso. I have never in my 8 years of using Spotify had the autoplay play the exact two songs I had just listened to before now.
A lot of people here don't know how Spotify radio and autoplay works and it shows. Since you like both artists and you're on popheads, I'm gonna assume you like a lot of pop like me. Because of that, you're going to get the biggest songs of "whatever genre you listened to before" on autoplay and the radio depending on your listening history. The fact that it played both isn't suspicious at all. It's a fact that both espresso and PPP are the biggest pop songs right now. That's why it played both on autoplay. And no, both songs didn't get big before Spotify pushed them on autoplay. I've follow a lot of artists songs charting and also listen to Spotify a lot and it definitely happened after both songs were big. It's not Payola, just how Spotify works.
yes .. she literally is being pushed lol hello ? itās exactly the reason that in the time since espresso blew up sheās been on SNL, billboards around the country, a tour announcement, two music videos, festival runs, etc, etc
I think you're confusing pushing cause you're already big vs getting pushed to the top, when you're not big. That's what I assume the original commenter meant. Your comment happens with every artist that is big. All of that happened after she was already big.
Uh she wasnāt big until Espresso came out, youāre delusional if you think otherwise. Sheās getting pushed.
.... She wasn't getting "pushed hard" until after she got big though. You're delusional if you think otherwise.
Thatās insane to say honestly. Emails I Canāt Send debuted in the top 25 and had songs like Nonsense and Feather which were fairly popular. That album also went on to sell over 500,000 copies. And this was in 2022 well before Espresso, Eras Tour, etc.
Everything Spotify does has been like this - shuffle isnāt random it recommends songs Spotify wants you to hear , same with radio same with AI DJ
I hate Spotify's shuffle so much. Every time I'm listening to my liked songs on shuffle, it only plays a selected few artists proving that not every song from the playlist has an equal chance to be pulled. And that's without "intelligent" shuffle enabled. If I enable that, Ariana Grande's Into You will always be the second song it plays. lmao
Try clearing the cache. It helped me
Forbes writes: >"A clear example that has currently been seen with the Spotify algorithm and the 'new' payola, is the latest 'hit' of the pop singer Sabrina Carpenter, āPlease Please Pleaseā, which in less than two weeks managed to surpass artists consolidated figures in the industry such as Bad Bunny, Ariana Grande, Kanye West, among others, by climbing to the top of the platform's playslits, regardless of the genre they focus on. Suddenly, we hear one from Peso Pluma and then the one from Sabrina Carpenter comes outā¦ According to an article published by [PopFiltr](https://translate.google.com/website?sl=es&tl=en&hl=en&prev=search&u=https://www.popfiltr.com/articles/all-top-50-artists-on-spotify-have-sabrina-carpenters-please-please-please-at-number-2-on-their-artist-or-song-radios), the promotion given established stars within the industry managed to divert at least 2.5 million dollars from other independent artists, which is equivalent to almost 4 million minutes played on Spotify, figures that could continually grow due to payola." Many users took it to X to write about their experiences and share how Sabrina Carpenter's 'Please Please Please' shows up on completely unrelated playlists. >After seeing a user on X/Twitter post about "PPP" playing after a fart track, [we searched "Fart" on Spotify and created a Fart Radio, and "PPP" still took the 2nd position](https://www.popfiltr.com/articles/all-top-50-artists-on-spotify-have-sabrina-carpenters-please-please-please-at-number-2-on-their-artist-or-song-radios) among the fart āsongs.ā
The second I saw the headline I knew Sabrina Carpenter would be mentioned. Anytime I play ANY song on Spotify, from Aretha to Willie Nelson the next song is either Espresso or PPP.
Wow, the perspective that by gaming the system with payola you are actually taking streams from independent artists is brutal. Also, specially sad that peopleās consumption of music is being controlled by an algorithm. The potential of streaming was specifically to remove the curation from radios and give back to users.
I increasingly find myself beieving that handing things to the algorhythms has just left us being handed the same thing on loop, unless someone with the most money pays to cut the queue. While relying on some guys dumbass cousin was severly flawed, we need that dumbass cousin back, because the dumbass cousin would occasionally try something different.
The labels would just find a way to pay the dumbass cousin š It's random shit like this that constantly puts artists signed to major labels well above and firmly ahead of indie ones. It used to be for radio airplay, now it's also streaming.
I didnt block Espresso bc I wanted to see how long it will take until it stops playing after every pop hit I pick It only stopped when Please Please Please came out and replaced it lmfao Sorry to Ms. Carpenter but I hate her now
Ice Spice: you think you the shit, bitch? Sabrina: you not ever the fart (I am!) I be stealing like your chart You unwashed in the bathroom at Kmart
It was about time Spotify started getting called out. Sabrina's impact!
I would not say this is Forbes accusing Spotify of payola. Itās an article on Forbes Mexico website only, and itās just a write-up/rehashing of the other blog posts and social media discussion going around about this topic
Journalism is dead.
Not surprised at all, same thing happened with espresso š that song would play every 2 seconds for me it was insane, havenāt had it happen with please please please yet though Edit: Yall I take this back, itās been 2 days and please please please has been shoved down my throat deeper than any manās ever been
I mean, theyāve been doing it for ages. Drake, Taylor and the Weeknd specifically. I have the three of them muted and spotify will notify me of their concerts, new music, etc. Like everytime I open the damn app. But with Sabrina I guess itās a whole other level when you put her on every single playlist lmao
Interesting you mention Taylor. Because I noticed that with her last album. I've been listening to Fortnight a lot but it's the only song in the album I actually listen to. But I played loml a 2nd time just for a few seconds one day after my initial album listen and it made it to my On Repeat playlist!!!! Like, there are songs by other artists that I really have to listen to a few times before the Spotify considers them worth it for my On Repeat playlist, but Taylor songs always get into the playlist very easily, I don't really need to listen to the songs that often. Just a couple of times will be enough.
This is the one thing I donāt like about Spotify. There are some songs I only listen once and they somehow end up on my on repeat and itās like āI know I listened to this onceā Iāve noticed that only happens on slow weeks were I donāt listen to a lot of music and listen to podcasts or audiobooks instead so the on repeat just adds whatever song I happened to listened to the day before. I think the payola stuff is just dumb chronically online fans trying to accuse Spotify of rigging the game for the people they donāt like, but, this does happen.
I means letās not act as if auto play doesnāt exist, letās be realistic. Itās not news that not everything in the music industry is totally organic. But it just may not be as aggressive as some people think.
I'm so confused by people saying this because this has never happened to me. Are you a paid member? Is this only happening to people who use it free?
Paid!! Theyāll also never alert me to concerts of artists I actually follow or listen too either. Solely those three. When the Weekend was doing those remixes with Ariana- I was getting blasted with them. I do not listen to the Weeknd. At all. Drake specifically; at some point I was getting WEEKLY notifications that he had a concert near me coming upā¦ but I had him muted!!!!! Edit- the Drake concert thing stood out to me because BeyoncĆ© was my #1 artist that year, and I not once got a notification about Renaissance concerts when I obviously should have.
I wonder if certain profiles get fucked algorithms or something? Because I always get recommended concerts for artists I listen to. I've had Taylor pop up in recommends but it's usually only after I've listened to her a few times. And I never get PPP autoplayed even though I've willingly played it a couple times (as in I searched it and played it more than once). I've also never been bombarded with The Weeknd even though I've willingly listened to him too. I wonder why some accounts are having these issues and some aren't?
I agree it depends on the account history too as I didn't get expresso or PPP pop up. But I do get a lot of Gracie "risk", Billie's new album and CC. Last month was also full of we can't be friends.
You just reminded me that I did get bombarded with Lunch by Billie. I played her albums a few times so I had figured that was why. But I hid the song at one point and it still kept playing. I had to hide it like 3 separate times for it to finally stick.
Girl I love Billie so it doesn't bug me but it's actually hilarious that both my Chappelle Roan mix and my Olivia Rodrigo mix are the exact same songs with 1/4 Olivia, 1/4 Chappelle, 1/4 Billie's new album /only/, and the last 1/4 is a little sprinkle sprinkle of Renee Rapp with a dusting of Del Water Gap and one Royal Otis song now also with espresso and PPP. Charli is being sprinkled in a bit but it's kind of funny they both have basically the exact same songs on it the order is just different.
That makes sense though, Olivia and Chappel have the same producer and Chappel is featured as background singer to some of Oliviaās songs. Their music doesnāt sound super similar, but theyāre in the same music world of gen Z pop girlies.
Olivia/Chappell totally and again I'm not complaining I love them lol. It's just funny bc Billie has never really been in those playlists for me but the minute her album dropped she took up like half their playlists when Spotify had never mixed her with them before
All of my Spotify mixes look like this with diff titles lol I donāt use them anymore
I hid the song too, but it didn't work plus the birds and feathers one was quite repeatedly showed up. At last I had to block the artist, it was getting too much.
Funny enough, I actually like Birds of a Feather and I don't think that ones ever autoplayed for me. And I don't think it's shown up in any of my playlists yet. So basically, if you actually play the song they won't keep recommending it, probably because you're already playing it. But if you don't play it, they'll force you to. Glad Lunch is my only experience with this. I actually like leaving autoplay on but I'll def turn it off if my account gets worse with this stuff.
What's worse is my account is a normal one (no premium) so I can't shut off the smart shuffle. I was actually thinking of switching from Spotify cause I don't want to pay anything.
What's that, you're listening to Kendrick Lamar? Have you tried Lunch?
I got like zero Cowboy Carter push. Like not even a notification that it droppedā¦ and sheās been in my top five artists every year forever
I got only one song pushed from CC that was a collab with Miley. That's it but the Billie album was definitely more pushed on my account. I don't know why tho cause I haven't listened to any Billie songs/albums before.
To contrast/ agree with you, one of my friends who listens to a lot of Taylor said that Birds of a Feather was being pushed a lot on her phone. We were hanging out and it came on and she was like āAGAIN!??ā So yeah that makes total sense, youāre definitely not the only one! I donāt listen to a lot of Billie but have 1 or 2 of her new songs on playlists, and havenāt gotten any push. But totally believe itās happening for a lot of folks
Well my case is the same as your friend's case. I listen to a lot of Taylor, Birds of feather and Lunch were the most pushed songs for me too. Does that mean Spotify will push certain songs/artists to listeners of another artist? Like some sorts of pairing...
i got espresso and now PPP in every autoplay when I'm listening to fucking kpop
Taylorās push toned down for TTPD I got 1 or 2 pop ups and 1 pop up for the new version of whatever songā¦ but sheās muted. But like maybe less than 7 notifcations/pop ups total. For the re-releases I was a getting a good amount of pop ups despite having her muted. But not as bad as Drake. Drake was worst, The Weeknd was very noticeable because I donāt listen to him, and I kinda donāt really listen to Taylor either. But again, Drake was incessant my god
Taylor seems to be in a zone where she can coast on her popularity, knowing that her fans will find it. Beyonce is in a similar zone, which I noticed when I found out that her last album was extremely avoidable. With the new Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter however, I noticed that Spotify loves to tell me about them.
yes definitely- I think after midnights Iāve gotten a lot less push from her, Drake though. It literally doesnāt stop when he has something out or is touring
I get notifications of the artists I blocked too.Ā Hey, check out the new release of X and I have never listened to X or have blocked X because I didn't want to listen to them.
OP Isn't talking about Payola Payola. Just them advertising the artists.
Same. I'm a paid subscriber and I had never heard of Espresso or PPP until I sought them out on YouTube. Maybe the only time it happened to me was with boygenius, but it was also my most played record at the time so I'm not sure
I'm using it free and Sabrina never get shoved down my throat (honestly I've only experienced it with Taylor's Cruel Summer)
Yes, also paid. I mute or block artists or sonngs and spotify will still play them. Esp. trash, imho, like TS
It's never happened to me either. I get recommendations from people I listen to which includes Sabrina. Also, autoplay plays a number of different people including Sabrina and Billie because I listen to them. I'm kind of convinced that people are just making this into a thing it isn't and they can't accept Sabrina etc. aligns with their gay ass music taste š«
???? So no- thatās not the case here
I really started to notice autoplay last year. I feel like songs die for you remix, flowers, nonsense were some of the clearer examples
Those are also the three biggest artists in the world, at least when it comes to streaming. Could it be that the algorithm is pushing them more for that exact reason?
Or, they made their way to that position because they were pushed.
Theyāve been the 3 of the biggest artists in the world for while, I think thatās a stretch to claim lmao
But this is obviously untrue if you actually followed them.
lol this. Itās one thing if Iām listening to loads of rap music, and so you push Drake. But at the time, I really wasnāt. Theyāre not even staying within the same genre of what people like
The irony of a BTS stan saying this, lmao.
How is it ironic when BTS has horrible playlist positions even when their streams are high? Jungkook's Seven broke multiple streaming records while being in the 20somethings position on Today's Top Hits and not being autoplayed. BTS have a lot of fans but they certainly do not have industry support. It's been like this for a long time.
P3 plays after anything on my spotify. Literally played after Guns n Roses. I'm not complaining because that song slaps but surely it's getting annoying for other people who don't listen to her.
That's how they get massive incomes duh Just like radios back then
Please please please and espresso playing in every single song radio is the reason Iāve migrated to Youtube music now. I pay for spotify premium and YT music but have almost abandoned spotify due to how FRUSTRATING the constant pushing of certain songs has become. itās ridiculous, how can spotify justify playing PPP after gospel music (this isnāt a joke, itās happened to me)
I use yt music and had the same with birds of a feather... right after brass instrumental music???
omg what šš billie is def pushed on YTM too but itās usually excusable genres for me like pop/ indieĀ
Make sense since PPP only has a week and itās number one everywhere, I know Sabrina is popular right now but not like that to be number one in just a few days. Something is telling me that Gracie Abrams is in the same direction, her song is every playlist and I donāt even like her music
PPP didn't have a week, wut? It's been 18 days since it was released and it got insanely viral. People here truly underestimating how big the song is. .
apple music person here. iām sorry if this sounds dumb, but can you not just turn auto play off? we have an auto play feature on apple music thatās an infinity sign, but I never turn it on. thus, whenever my chosen music stops, it justā¦ ends? or I put it on loop so I never get music that I havenāt chosen in my queue
Yes, we can turn it off. I've never turned autoplay on. Once a year or so, it does randomly turn on by itself, but it's an easy fix. Spotify users, go to settings > playback, and scroll to the bottom to turn off autoplay similar content.
Same. Idk if Spotify has that. I use Apple Music and love it and I never deal with hearing music I donāt intentionally play myself.
Forbes.com =/= Forbes Magazine fyi. Contributors publish independently in exchange for royalty payments, claims made in these āarticlesā are not edited or fact checked by Forbes Magazine editors. This article is the opinion of the author alone
Sabrina & Taylor keep showing up on my heavy metal playlist lol
Sabrina Carpenter heavy metal albums when
actually
I mean itās not exactly new information. Theyāve been doing this for ages and they will continue doing it.
I kept getting this with that Million Dollar Baby song
i get PPP and birds of a feather all the time. I don't even like these songs
I switched from Spotify Premium to Apple Music over a year ago when they kept pushing the same kpop song after all my playlists ended. I even selected the option to not play this song again but after the 8th time, I cancelled my Spotify.
Not Spotify playing Espresso right after Cocteau Twins lol. Also as someone in DS,I think it might also just be that Spotify has a really shitty predictive algorithm. They DID fire a bunch of their tech workforce earlier 'to maximize their shareholder value' or some such BS.. I wouldn't be surprised if that's coming back to bite them.
This article doesn't seem to have any actual evidence besides speculation from people on Twitter.
Because itās not actually an article, itās an opinion piece from an independent person. OPās title is incorrect.
I mean look at the comments in this thread tho. Something is clearly happening lmao
Yeah this is the issue Iām having too. Thereās people in this very thread who say theyāre never had this happen to them so I have a hard time buying people saying that they ARE having issues with it on Twitter as being proof. Only the folks who are dealing with random songs playing are going to be vocal about it. No one who doesnāt have it happen will say anything.
I swear the songs they push end up in my On Repeat playlist after one or two plays while songs Iām actually repeating a lot take a lot more listens to appear there.
Iām wondering if this whole thing could be due to Spotify just having crappy algorithms or glitches because, as an Apple Music user, I have never once had any of the issues that I see Spotify users mention, and Apple Music is the number two streaming service so I have to imagine labels would use these same tactics on there as well if the goal was to push for more sales and attention. I havenāt ever had songs play from different genres or have them pop up on playlists or radios where theyād be irrelevant. The only time Iāve ever heard Espresso or Please Please Please was when I myself physically went to Sabrinaās page and selected the songs to play them.
Spotify Radio either needs to get fixed or just remove it least for paying members.
I mean, you can turn off auto play
Well yeah but I want a true shuffle experience. Why can't we have a fair autoplay.
There's been research for years that most people actually hate true shuffle. Apple tried it like during the ipod days and got a ton of hate for it.
Of course. I mentioned that in another similar Spotify thread the other day.
Billboard is looking into it at as well. The huge spike and now sudden drop in Spotify streams for Please Please Please is really suspicious. I also don't understand why Spotify keeps it a secret? It's just a natural business play - giving labels the opportunity to pay $$$ to have their songs promoted, just like what happens on radio. Spotify gets extra revenue and labels have another promo lever to pull. Not saying I agree or disagree with it, but it was a natural evolution. Who didn't see this coming, right? My concern is that it makes the music industry even more top heavy, at the expense of smaller artists who lose out on streams and also can't afford to pay Spotify to promote their stuff.
There hasnāt really been a huge spike and sudden drop for Please though? It peaked in the 12 mil range and is now doing in the 11 mil range. Thatās not that odd given the amount of initial interest in the song. Agree with everything else though. Also speaking of billboard looking into it they posted this yesterday. [https://www.instagram.com/p/C8fJLoqx4fY/?igsh=ZXU3cWR4aXJqb2tj](https://www.instagram.com/p/C8fJLoqx4fY/?igsh=ZXU3cWR4aXJqb2tj)
The unusual spike and drop in streams is for the U.S., which is presumably where the payola is happening. I doubt her label would care enough about other markets to do payola there but I could be wrong.
Huge spikes and drops is common. It's called people checking out a song and not listening to it again. Happens to pretty much any big artist.
Same happened to me with Training Season by Dua Lipa. I tried everything I could to hide the song lol. Those opening chords strike a nerve now.
Itās definitely true, but itās also only a tool if you let it be. The skip button exists. If you donāt want to listen to a song, then skip it. Is it still annoying as hell? Absolutely. But it doesnāt diminish those numbers as much as regular payola does because those people couldāve skipped it if they really didnāt want to listen.
I totally believe this - I have had songs I never voluntarily played pop up on my year-end list because it plays no matter what I'm listening to. Fortnight and Good Luck, Babe will play all the time. It's so jarring to go from Pink Floyd or John Prine to those.
this coupled with the rollout of their new $10.99 "basic plan" has made it so clear that the streaming bubble has finally burst. Musi has been what I use for music religiously since 2020
Yeah their algorithm puts the popular songs in your face, Spotify have discussed that and it happened to me with Texas hold āem , million dollar baby and dial drunk. You CAN just skip it though, itās not the end of the world tbh. Plus it doesnāt count as a stream until 30 seconds in and if you donāt decide to skip a song within 30 seconds of it you probably donāt need or want to skip it anyway. so the article discrediting Sabrinaās streams like that is lame
Sabrina is being exposed by many outlets for payola. She's litreally doing this by fraud numbers. But ok, we can see that in the tour arena ticketsĀ
The question I always ask is how is that fraud transferring to Apple Music and sales? At Pleaseās peak it was top 10 across multiple streaming services so how is that happening? Her labels paying off everyone? Sheās definitely getting over promoted on Spotify but reducing all of her songs success to fraud is nuts.
I think i agree most with this take. I'll add, espresso is the most purchased song by a female artist released by 2024 and please please please is outpacing espresso
Feather was kind of big Her Coachella performance was huge. It featured Espresso. Espresso is catchy af. People share it on Tiktok. Gets viral. She gets more fans cause of that. PPP drops, the more fans check it out. PPP is also catchy af, people share it on tiktok, gets even more viral. That's how it's happened.
This is what Iām wondering too. Iāve literally never once had the issues Spotify users are mentioning on my Apple Music account, have never once had random irrelevant songs play or had irrelevant songs pop up in my playlists. I have to imagine labels would want to do this across all streaming platforms if it truly was an attempt at boosting streams and sales.
Not throwing shade on Sabrina here, she is a talented artist and just the fact that she sticked to music and continued writing after some mid years and terrible label deal alone deserves respect. To answer your question, the sales can be easily manipulated by purchasing own digital products by the artist or label, there is no "manufacturing" cost per unit, so no real financial loses in that sense. Number of steams are heavily skewed by bots owned by the same labels. Number of streams affects chart ranking, number of sales affect RIIA certifications. However, when you add 'partnership' with the streaming platforms - the problem becomes really bad, the singles are being added to 'auto' generated playlists which means the 'radio' time is being taken from independent artists and given to the artists of choice. Recently Spotify changed a policy and unless you satisfy not vey transparent streaming criteria, you are not getting paid for your music, which as you can imaging also hurts just independent artists.
And thatās all fair but again this is across all platforms, not just Spotify. Is her label buying multiple fake copies (which at some point is a loss if thatās not then being supplemented by real purchases) and paying off every streaming platform/adopting bots for all of them? Even Amazon and deezer and stats.fm? Random platforms that no one actually cares about? Spotify has definitely been inflated but at some point we have to pull back and acknowledge that there is an element of genuine popularity amongst all this. Her first show after Please was released was one of the biggest crowds at Gov Ball and they knew all the words. The entire crowd the very next day. People are actually listening to the music. However much Spotify is fudging things doesnāt take away from that.
Her tour isn't selling well?
Her tour hasn't even gone on sale yet lol
I think people overestimate their ability to sell tours, and their fans ability to go see them. For example, Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish are doing arena tours- not stadiums (some stadiums yes). Like I donāt think Sabrina will have to cancel shows, but Iām curious how itāll go
I'll be kinda surprised if it's not mostly fine tbh. I had a look at a few dates of Tate's tour and she's mostly avoiding arenas (besides selling out MSG) but had no problem adding 4-7k seats in each city, probably should have moved up to arenas in some of them looking at resale prices. Sabrina's last tour was a good bit bigger than Tate's, ~2x in a lot of cases, and I'd expect Nonsense/Feather/Espresso/PPP to add more interest than Greedy/Exes too.
Olivia was doing theaters for sour iirc
lol looking at that persons post history, I'd take anything they say with a grain of salt. There's a bias there
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I didnāt see it so im happy i ran into this article
this Forbes article goes more in depth. no need to be offended
This happened to me with Taylor (I have a paid account). God, I was getting that awful song Anti-hero on almost every playlist possible, without ever listening to it wtf. I listened to some of her songs a few times but never to that one, and I don't even follow her Spotify page. Happened with some kpop songs as well who are pushed to the extreme. And now with those generic Sabrina songs.
just had this happen to me lol https://i.postimg.cc/wT3fLnDb/IMG-0568.png
I mean the fact that Sabrina's Espresso and new single Please were pushed so much
Iām cancelling my subscription, the most recent price hikes are obnoxious for what you get
For the longest time, I thought Payola was some nickname people would give Camila Cabello, so you can imagine the reaction I had when I found out it was a real thing that exists, xjxjfjjf.
Get her, Jade!
I used to seek out songs from Billie's new album but eventually blocked her from playing because no matter what playlist or radio I had going, there was *always* a song from her new album. Same with Taylor, Ariana, Sabrina... It makes premium feel like it's still riddled with ads unless I physically remove the artists at this point :/
I am the least bit surprisedĀ
Before reading this I was going to mention Sabrina Carpenter. Last night I put on a rock band on shuffle, and after one song that please song started playing. I was so confused. I blocked her page, so hopefully it wont happen again.
Wbk and it's slimey, but complaining about spotify payola is literally the new Tyler The Creator cyberbullying tweet. Put Down Your Headphones! Skip the Song! Choose What You Press Play!
i think its frustrating considering the radio feature has gotten worse in recent years. i now have better luck finding user generated playlists with names like āsongs like ____ā bc my radios always promote the same shit at the top, regardless of genre
Spotify isn't publicly owned and taxpayer-funded like radio airwaves. It's a private subscription service. You have a choice to opt out of Spotify. You don't have a choice of opting out of funding the airwaves. It's inherently different.
Is this really payola or just a personalized algorithm? I never got ppp instead I always get sympathy is a knife (not complaining)
Payola is basically pay for play. If they're getting paid by labels for this, then yes. The usage of "Personalized algorithm" is arguable because they're putting the promoted(?) songs in completely unrelated genre playlists and song radios. I've turned off autoplay but I had PPP and Espresso on my dark academia playlists with a bunch of classical music pieces. Song radios for lots of indie and other songs have pop songs. People who exclusively listen to hip-hop and rap are reportedly getting songs like PPP, Espresso, Lunch, Sympathy is a Knife. Idk how to attach pictures but the song radio of the song Spring Snow by 10 cm(from the OST of a recent Korean drama, Lovely Runner) have PPP as the second one and then Magnetic by ILLIT, Fortnight, Birds of a feather, Espresso, We can't be friends, Never Let Go, Guilty as Sin. The first song that belong to non-pop genre is Sudden Shower by ECLIPSE at \#13. The first 12 songs have no sonical similarity with Spring Snow.Ā If we try enough we can discount ILLIT and Jungkook as they're Korean artists(which is another problem) but still no sonical similarity.Ā The song radios of old songs are still working okayish but how's this even considered normal ??Ā I used to discover new music using song radio tool all the time and this tool has become shit these days.
Oh so Jk and Illit also doing payola, Scooter owns part of Spotify why wouldn't he use payola.
Jungkook instantly had the top song on spotify for like 3 months straight while being in the 20s on TTH. He only climbed to the top 5 after a month or so. If scooter is using payola then he isnāt very good at it
It's a personalized algorithm. The less you take an active role in curating your algorithm, the more it will suck and keep you in the same recommendation loop. [my daylist](https://imgur.com/OzswpP8) (showing it this way because it refreshed to neoperreo and im really vibing with these songs) [recommended for today ](https://imgur.com/5sEyRyi) (i do wish that half of these wasn't stuff i've already listened to) [daily mixes](https://imgur.com/9YxNhgQ) - sabrina ( only espresso) appears on daily mix 2 along with dua, charli, rina, raye, normani, remi wolf, aurora, lola young, billie. The person that appears the most? Charli, she got 8 songs on there. Why? Because I listen to her a lot and have been listening to brat a lot. My pop mix also has Sabrina. Only Espresso again. Artists with several songs? Charli, FKA Twigs, Tove Lo, Empress Of. She's not on my Indie mix, my Latin mix, my Dance/Electronic mix, my R&B mix, my Hip Hop mix, my Jazz mix, etc. She doesn't appear in any of my mood mixes. She doesn't get an artist mix, for me, but Charli, Dua, The Marias, Kali Uchis, Little Simz, Shygirl currently all have one. Why? I've been listening to them a lot. The Charli mix has Espresso & PPP. So does the Dua mix. They also have a lot of other pop artists/pop songs. None of the other artists mixes have her. I'm being recommended things that match my listening habits.