21 ms·

Is Spotify Killing the Top 40?

136 points by daegloe 6y ago

swiley 6y ago
This would be great. The idea of “best ranked music” results in mediocre, bland music that’s mostly ranked based on the social connections of the artist. Musical culture and genres are extremely diverse and trying to rank individual pieces of music makes discovery harder. I doubt they’ll actually do this of course. Their monetization model relies on ranking.
- 29athrowaway 6y ago
  Based on the songs being aggresively pushed by record labels, it seems that the ultimate goals of mainstream music industry are: - To glorify violence, substance abuse, disrespect of women, domination behavior, anti-intellectualism. - To reinforce racial stereotypes, including fear of minorities. - To make people superficial. Songs are an effective way to deliver a message to be repeated over and over and over again until people break and assimilate the message.
  - staplers 6y ago
    The themes you mentioned are being pushed by more than just the corporate music industry.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkES4anCYOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkES4anCYOw > "It's all hip hop's fault, you see. Not the three companies who decide what you hear and see." nice timing at 1:47, or decent 'shop skillz?
  - troughway 6y ago
    Upvoted because HNs groupthink downvoting is a festering pile of shit. However, you’re describing basic human condition. Music like this has existed long before the labels were here. This music, appalling though it may be, is at the end of the day what the populace wants to hear. It’s the equivalent of allowing people to play violent FPS games so they have an outlet. Let the people break if it’s in their nature to do so.
  - Sebb767 6y ago
    I don't think you can say this in general. There are a lot of uplifting chart songs. On the point of substance abuse, yes, that's a topic. But in reality, young people just tend to talk about this and it's really hard to say what's cause and effect. And I really can't see your points about superficiality, racial stereotypes etc. That niche surely exists, but it's far too hot for the big labels. Lastly, on anti-intellectualism: Yes, those songs tend to not be too intellectually challenging, but I don't think that's bad. People tend to listen to those when partying or just relaxing ; it's okay to simply chill out sometimes. Most people don't want to read technical literature for coming down either and that's fine.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >it seems that the ultimate goals of mainstream music industry are: [...] Songs are an effective way to deliver a message to be repeated over and over and over again until people break and assimilate the message. It sounds like you're saying that the music industry is engaged in a conspiracy to change people's behavior. Is this a correct characterization? If so, is there any evidence for this conspiracy, or some plausible motivations? I'm not sure how the powers that be would benefit from people being more violent abuse drugs, or disrespect women, for instance.
    - 29athrowaway 6y ago
      Many conspiracies can be just explained through emergent behavior. For example, there could be demand for that music, and the labels are just creating content to respond to that demand... without any ethical considerations about what they're promoting, that is. But to be honest, a conspiracy of some kind could be an explanation, who knows. For some people, there are substantial tangible, material benefits to dumbing down society. For example, the "gangster rapper" stereotype is pushed aggresively by the music industry. The popularity of "gangster rap" results in "gangster" aesthetics becoming fashionable, even among law abiding people who are not gangsters. However, when people see a person that resembles the "gangster" stereotype (purely based on their attire) pushed by the entertainment industry, they will be more likely to call 911, eventually resulting in an innocent person being killed for no valid reason. Is this a racist conspiracy? who knows. Likewise, oversexualization results in people having unplanned kids, causing them to ultimately become poor, and more susceptible to predatory loans, low wages, political manipulation and all the machinery that exists only to abuse the poor. Similar to anti-intellectualism. And then, glorification of violence, competition, non-compliance, etc... this just makes people very divisive, and in order to dominate a large population you want them to be as divided as possible, and constantly distracted with immaterial disputes while you lobby the government. So, yeah... it could be a conspiracy. It is very profitable to make people vulnerable and susceptible to manipulation and abuse. Especially political manipulation, which is already prominent in American journalism. It kind of resembles the psychological warfare techniques used by the Soviets (i.e.: ideological subversion). https://youtu.be/IQPsKvG6WMI?t=60 https://youtu.be/IQPsKvG6WMI?t=60
  - colinmhayes 6y ago
    The ultimate goal of the main stream music industry is to make money. Those are just what they've found to be the most effective ways to do it.
- dwd 6y ago
  The labels will have some method to game the system - whether they own banks of devices playing the song/album they are pushing, or through a 3rd party service. There will be services in Asia that offer to do Spotify plays, and it's likely to be cheaper than TV/Radio advertising or buying physical copies to get an initial high ranking.
- hrktb 6y ago
  Blandness is a feature for my family. We have wildly different tastes, and it’s hard to come with a consensus on what to listen in the car. The top 40/50 has a high chance of being “fine” for everybody. That’s what I would put in the background if I had to make random people wait in a room for an hour. There are “discovery” playlist outside of the ranked ones, so I wouldn’t be surprised if my use is not so far from their intended purpose.
  - Dumblydorr 6y ago
    This concept allowed Nickelback to make it into arenas and stadia. Their music is the dry toast of rock, no one loves it but it is the lowest common denominator for "rock".
Icedcool 6y ago
I can only hope..
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
I just ran across a three year old pop song on YouTube today with 200+ million views. I've never heard it on the radio. The top 40 gatekeepers are killing the top 40.
peter_l_downs 6y ago
No (Betteridge's law)
- myself248 6y ago
  Damn. That's one grave I would dance on so hard I'd probably twist an ankle or something.
- nelsonenzo 6y ago
  Ha, fun. TIL. From http://betteridgeslaw.com http://betteridgeslaw.com (which is apparently crawling some sites daily). My favorite so far is "Was Professor Snape secretely a trans Woman?" LOL.
- nkozyra 6y ago
  There's a lot of data in the article. I don't think this is a very thoughtful rebuttal.
wfme 6y ago
Personally, I used to be able to listen to a large portion of the top 50 on Spotify without skipping too many. As of late last year, though, I've found that the top 10 are almost exclusively songs made popular on TikTok. I can't stand to listen to these songs, not because I necessarily dislike the songs (or TikTok for that matter), but because there are 15-30s sections of the song that I have heard dozens of times, posted on TikTok as a part of some new trend. As soon as I hear one of these parts, I instinctively skip, because I'm generally listening to Spotify to chill out, and hearing something that is so tightly associated with a social network really works against my "chill".
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  Back when I was in school, I really hated Billboard Top 10 for the same reason. Once I've overheard them so many times, often unpleasantly, the actual song became unlistenable, not because I dislike them.
  - gre 6y ago
    With pop music you hear exactly the same track over and over with no variation and it gets predictable and monotonous. With classical, jazz, or live music there are many performances, so any two recordings will not sound identical. This is one reason I can't stand pop music after a few listens.
    - conception 6y ago
      This is also why people love pop music. It is predictable, safe and unchallenging.
      - zaptrem 6y ago
        People also like it because it's colorful and multidimensional, but not so multidimensional that you can't decipher it without focusing on it exclusively and retreating to a quiet room.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
"In a seminal 2004 essay in Wired titled "The Long Tail," journalist Chris Anderson argued that digital culture would help niche music, books, and movies thrive. With fewer gatekeepers and more avenues to find likeminded fans, people would be more likely to indulge their true interests, rather than just accept what was offered by the mainstream." Nice idea, there is some truth to it based on what we've seen so far, but we can also see how the corporations that control "what was offered by the mainstream" are now controlling (financing) the gatekeepers of the web and/or personal computing device (for lack of a better term). The new gatekeepers have become entrenched thanks to centralisation, lock-in and using the system itself as the world's most powerful hype machine, or "network effects". The entertainment industry has gatekeepers, so too does the web (perhaps even the wider internet) and the personal computing device. If and when things get tight for the gatekeeper business, they (web gatekeepers) will also control the so-called "long tail". What we are seeing is that it is not the "gatekeeperless" distribution channel many might imagine, as YouTube deletes a seemingly non-commercial video and arguments ensue over rights to "free speech". The tentacles of these gatekeepers keep reaching out further. No "long tail" seems to be safe from their influence and ultimately their control.
- duxup 6y ago
  Doesn't the article indicate...the long tail might be true?
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    somewhat but the decline seems relatively small. My intuition is that the dynamics of digital content lower the barrier for new talent to go very quickly to the top, think Billie Eilish and her brother producing an album out of their bedroom, but that the centralisation still means most eyeballs go to the top, maybe that part even got worse given how monotonous viral spread is. I don't think there is much indication that there is a broad shift from the top to the middle. Other mediums like Youtube and Twitch almost exclusively concentrate attention at the top as well, with IIRC two thirds of streamers not even having any viewers.
  - Applejinx 6y ago
toby 6y ago
This article says that the Top 40 has dropped from 35mm to 30mm plays on a Wednesday. Then it says: "The decline is likely partially the result of an overall decrease in streaming after Covid-19 hit the US, due to the absence of people listening to music on commutes and in stores. But it’s not just that. The biggest hits are declining, while the streaming of smaller hits remains about the same." Seems like it could be "just that". This analysis is weird without knowing whether overall numbers have dropped and whether retail / gyms / public spaces primarily played Top 40 hits (which I'd guess is likely).
- ponker 6y ago
  There’s also a different mix of music by listening scenario. I mostly listen to Top 40 and similar garbage while I’m commuting because I’m not that discerning. But the people who are true music aficionados are probably continuing to listen to their obscure music even when not commuting.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    Not just scenario, but during crises, people tend to go for the familiar, so older tracks might have done relatively better than before. Spotify users might also be skewing a bit older than they used to as streaming adoption grows, but this is just a guess, and older users tent to use Apple Music.
    - RandoHolmes 6y ago
      According to the article, less popular songs are still being streamed about as much as they were before.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    In other words its formulaic garbage people really don't care about, yet are too occupied to change it. When given the choice, they choose not.
    - vladvasiliu 6y ago
brat81 6y ago
Who would've thought that retail outlets and other public places had such a large impact on how the TOP40 is shaped.
baron816 6y ago
> While blockbuster movies are only growing in importance... Obviously, there have been no real blockbusters released this year. I don’t have evidence, but for me it seems like indie movies are thriving. The Streamers are all pouring money into original movies—I can’t think of a single movie that Netflix, Prime, or Hulu has produced that was a sequel.
- teruakohatu 6y ago
  You need to create originals before you can cash in on sequels. Or buy them eg. Disney buying Marvel for $4b and making $18 billion 10 years later from the IP. Off the top of my head a Netflix original Christmas movie has had two sequels.
  - baron816 6y ago
    Oh, yes there were some teen romcoms that had sequels (eg. Kissing Booth 2). I’m not exactly the target audience for those.
  - theshrike79 6y ago
    That christmas stuff was 100% algorithm driven stuff. They analysed that christmas movies sell and pumped out a bunch for 2-3 years straight now. None of them are especially good or bad, it's a way to spend 1-2 hours while eating christmas candy.
- Cactus2018 6y ago
  Speaking of blockbuster sequels. Look at these crazy dollar amounts, especially the Avengers franchise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films#Highest-grossing_films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_superhero_films#Highest-grossing_superhero_films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_super...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
werber 6y ago
I’ve personally been listening to more calming music, classical and “study beats” and haven’t felt cultural pressure to check anything out recently ( besides wap ). It’s kind of a relief to have less cultural moments for me
vmception 6y ago
Perfect
kabacha 6y ago
Honestly I've never met a person who listens to Spotify's top/trending playlists - they are notoriously awful random mess (like all top hit charts) Spotify is definitely killing top lists but not on purpose - turns out arbitrary top lists are an awful idea once we have free access to music and a strong communities that can curate the music properly. It'll continue to decline as people are learning how to control their playlists better.
shmerl 6y ago
I prefer stores like Bandcamp.
oshea64bit 6y ago
I think it's interesting that there's some periodicity in the graph showing the "Share of US Spotify top 200 streams going to top 40 songs" where the share spikes during each summer. I have no substantive conclusions about this, just thought it was worth pointing out.
perardi 6y ago
I guess it’s reasonable to worry that Spotify is creating a sort of algorithmic filter bubble where it just delivers you more of what you want…but man, the Discovery Weekly feature just works. I have, weekly, discovered a lot of artists I would never have heard of. Am I finding as wide of a range of music as I would have when I worked at a college radio station? Probably not. Have I discovered more and better music than whatever was on the radio in Peoria growing up? You betcha.
arrakeen 6y ago
"killing" might be an extreme way of putting it, but it's definitely showing that the older models to determine music popularity are outdated (billboard, top 40 radio) see also Post Malone Shatters 54 Year Old Beatles Record: https://kiss108.iheart.com/content/2018-05-09-post-malone-shatters-54-year-old-beatles-record/ https://kiss108.iheart.com/content/2018-05-09-post-malone-sh...
pointyfence 6y ago
Spotify has definitely changed how I listen to music over the years. I have my core segments, but I'd say that 33% of my time on Spotify is just stuff that I bump into for random of reasons: a music beef between artists I don't listen to, stories from friends with different tastes in music, a news article about a band in the 50s, etc. I find myself listening to the music to give context to the stories I bump into. And then I just sort of get lost in it for a bit like you would reading random stuff on Wikipedia. Wrecks havoc on my music suggestions though.
- ehnto 6y ago
  I'm similar, I spend a lot more time discovering and exploring than I do listening tonold favourites. Which is saying a lot, because I used to DJ House and DnB for a community online radio station.
  - lowdose 6y ago
    Isn't soundcloud better for house?
    - ehnto 6y ago
      Yeah lots of better places than Spotify. I only listen to house when I am mixing or listening to a friends set these days so it has to be from my own collection or theirs. It's all the other genres I listen to that are on Spotify.
- ImaCake 6y ago
  >Wrecks havoc on my music suggestions though Netflix and spotify have definitely not solved suggestions yet. I still struggle to get either service to get me what I want.
  - jillesvangurp 6y ago
    With Netflix, their catalogue is small enough that I can find what I want regardless of what they suggest. They seem to have nailed the "more of the same" algorithm which is mostly looking at their weird notion of genre. For me that means it recommends me stuff I've already decided that I'm not interested in watching because they've been recommending it for months and I've declined to watch it. This seems in general a problem with recommendation algorithms: they struggle picking up on negative signals and get stuck in t a perpetual more of the same shit loop. Spotify recommendations vary depending on the context. Their profile of me is probably very confused because I listen to a lot of different things and what I listen to is mostly dependent on context and what I'm in the mood for, which spans 5 decades of music and quite a few genres. I gravitate to a lot of alternative stuff but only the good stuff (for my personal very narrow definition of good). Spotify never figured out that sweet spot. So, I've been ignoring their radio feature because I find it a mix of "I already have that in a play list" or "I hate that song, which is why I don't have it in a playlist". It only very occasionally suggests something I haven't heard that I actually like. However, I love their "users that listen to X also listen to Y" section. For me that's a main tool to discover new things. They also suggest adding songs to playlists. I've rediscovered a few tunes from the eighties that were somehow stuck in my head but that I struggled to name this way. The eighties were of course the glory days of the top 40 and I listened to it while doing my homework back in the day. I stopped listening to that stuff in the nineties when alternative music became a thing. In any case, I prefer these non personalized type of suggestions over the more of the same stuff that passes for artificial intelligence peddled by many websites. I hate how you get stuck in recommendation bubbles that way. This also dominates news websites these days, which is something I hate because it's gotten quite hard to get an overview of what is happening in the world with news websites increasingly biased by what works as click bait with shoddy AI algorithms rather than telling me what is happening. And it's a reason I like HN because here the feed is dictated by shared interest of a technical audience rather than any of our personal preferences or political opinions. That's why it works. No AI recommendations here. That's why people come here.
ehnto 6y ago
I hope so. Top 40 lists are constructed not observed. They seem to have no relationship to what music is favored by listeners, just what is being pushed on pop radio. A self satisfying loop.
- laurent92 6y ago
  It is astonishing when you realize it. Since the MCM times, we’ve transferred music bands from sound to image, and we noticed the commercial drums (and repetition on radios in particular) produced linear return in investment, and music characteristics hadn’t much to do with it. To the point that today, any music will do. It’s much easier for the labels, since they can pimp anyone among the 1-10% of the population who can sing, and therefore they can choose people on character and ethnicity. Studies on thousands of pieces showed that melodies recouped more and more, the chorus started earlier in the song, songs got shorter, and instrument-based tricks reduced. Meanwhile loudness increased (screams and whisper are at the same volume) to make it fitter for bad-quality players (radio, speakers etc.)
  - jimbob45 6y ago
    I think you’re right and I’d argue that American Idol proves that there is a surplus of talent for labels to choose from, allowing them to be picky in regards to secondary requirements (ethnicity, backstory, work ethic).
    - awalton 6y ago
      The difference being that American Idol contestants are often actually quite artistically good - they only managed to get where they are because of skill and looks and luck, instead of just the latter two. (This isn't universal; it's often the case they pick someone up who is actually pretty awful but is interesting for the whole mechanics of the show, either being very attractive or standing out in some other way... but it still holds that the show has actually managed to scout real talent on the whole - just look at how many of the people who didn't win managed to snag successful music careers afterwards.) But that's beside the point here. My biggest peeve is that there are plenty of "Top 40" "artists" that can barely hold a note. And it's been that way since the 90s, thanks to the magic of Auto-Tune. Anyone with a marketing budget and access to an industry insider who can make the right moves can just start dropping albums and buying hit slots. What's changed is that now, anyone with a YouTube or Twitch channel can just start publishing music. Create a Soundcloud and you can get rotation in any one of a dozen DJs podcasts. TuneCore will put your stuff in the Music Stores. Spotify and Pandora are a little harder to break into, but not much. Setup a Twitter account and talk directly to your fans without needing a publicist. A whole industry's worth of Kingmakers have been turned into online services, and that's really changing the landscape of the industry.
pdx_flyer 6y ago
Spotify makes me miss Rdio. The Rdio algorithm for finding new music based on an artist, song, or album was really fantastic while Spotify just gives me a playlist of similar songs in the same genre as my “radio”. I know Pandora incorporated some of Rdio’s technique but its UI leaves a lot to be desired.
- tolbish 6y ago
  Spotify did this for a while, but the more advanced recommendation algorithm got axed after the acquisition and now it just plays songs from similar artists. I really wish Spotify brought back that deeper music analysis because I'm the type of listener who will like one or two songs from an artist while not being a fan of the artist's general style of their more well-known work. Thus, Spotify's current recommendation algorithm is incredibly hit or miss for me.
zeus_hammer 6y ago
The NYTimes Popcast podcast recently[0] took up a form of this question while examining the relevance of album sales and Billboard charts as a whole. I highly recommend the episode, as well as the podcast generally. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/arts/music/popcast-merchandise-bundles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/arts/music/popcast-mercha...
notafraudster 6y ago
I once audited the playlist of local radio stations. I recorded a few months worth of data and asked, for each day, week, and the full time period, what # of songs constituted 50% of overall song playtime. In all commercial formats in my market, the number was under 75, and in most under 50. I find Spotify pretty crummy at surfacing new music, but it's a lot better than the same 30-50 songs being played again and again and again and again.
- spiderfarmer 6y ago
  Spotify is actually pretty good at surfacing new music when compared to radio stations. As a music lover I never had it this good. If you just rely on Discover Weekly it offers you more new songs than you could ever discover by listening radio and if you're a little more proactive, you can discover new music in myriad ways.
chriselles 6y ago
Has Zipf’s Law ever applied to the distribution of music consumption? When shaped by industry, algorithm, or serendipity?
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Yes, strongly. The influence of hitmakers and gatekeepers adjusts what makes the curve, and shifts it somewhat, but the overal outlines of any informational domain will be governed by Zipf.
  - chriselles 6y ago
    I thought so.....but it's always good to hear validated or contrarian thought on the topic. Maybe I'm just in a self-created confirmation bias loop or force fitting, but I'm noticing what appears to be Zipf's Law all around me since I've become aware of it.
londonatil 6y ago
Spotify's statistics are super misleading, and they will continue to be misleading until they make all "listens" from each account equal in value.
raverbashing 6y ago
Oh is it? Good Top 40 are only relevant to music executives that make their living pumping up the worse kinds of musical garbage to people that base their musical tastes into what "other people" (payola, it's payola) like. And it seems that, as the internet came and the music distribution became more long-tailed, the worse the "top 40" became.
tiku 6y ago
Spotify is really the true top 40. Because there are direct statistics about what is most played and shared..
- draugadrotten 6y ago
  Spotify suffers from fake listeners, so it's not the true top 40 either. https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/fake-artists-have-billions-of-streams-on-spotify-is-sony-now-playing-the-service-at-its-own-game-834746/ https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/fake-artists-have-...
- mrweasel 6y ago
  It's even better for smaller countries. Denmark has a best selling music list, published by the record industry, which is often used as the basis for TOP XX playlists on the radio. That seems reasonable, until you realize that it's actually within the reach of a dedicated individual on a normal salary to affect the list. The best selling album have in some weeks sold in the low hundreds.
dredmorbius 6y ago
The pop music industry has seen at least three disruptions to its controlling gatekeepers since the 1950s (1956-60, ~2000 with Napster, and presently with Spotify and YouTube), but each time a dominant hegenomy re-emerges. I doubt this time will be different, though the brief renaissance will doubtless be appreciated. Charles Perrow wrote of this in the mid-1980s: After the critical period from about 1956 to 1960, when tastes were unfrozen, competition was intense, and demand soared, consolidation appeared. The number of firms stabilized at about forty. New corporate entries appeared, such as MGM and Warner Brothers, sensing, one supposes, the opportunity that vastly expanding sales indicated. Some independents grew large. The eight-firm concentration ratio also stabilized (though not yet the four-firm ratio). The market became sluggish, however, as the early stars died, were forced into retirement because of legal problems, or in the notable case of Elvis Presley, were drafted by an impinging environment. Near the end of this period the majors decided that the new sounds were not a fad and began to buy up the contracts of established artists and successfully picked and promoted new ones, notably The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan. A new generation (e.g., The Beatles) appeared from 1964 to 1969, and sales again soared. But now the concentration ratios soared also. From 1962 to 1973, the four-firm ratio went from 25 to 51 percent; the eight-firm ratio from 46 to 81 percent, almost back to the pre-1955 levels. The number of different firms having hits declined from forty-six to only sixteen. Six of the eight giants were diversified conglomerates, some of which led in the earlier period; one was a new independent, the other a product of of mergers. How did they do it? The major companies asserted “increasing central control over the creative process”[352] through deliberate creation and extensive promotion of new groups, long-range contracts for groups, and reduced autonomy for producers. In addition, legal and illegal promotion costs (drug payola to disc jockeys, for example) rose in the competitive race and now exceeded the resources of small independents. Finally, the majors “have also moved to regain a controlling position in record distribution by buying chains of retail stores.”[353] The diversity is still greater than it had been in the past, and may remain high, but it is ominous that the majors have all the segments covered. As an executive said, “Columbia Records will have a major entry into whatever new area is broached by the vagaries of public tastes.” But for a concentrated industry, the “vagaries of public tastes” are not economical; it is preferable to stabilize and consolidate them. This would be possible through further control over the creative process and marketing. Charles Perrow, Complex organizations : a critical essay, 1972, 1985. pp. 186--187. The dynamics, actors, and economics remind me strongly of the software / high-tech industry, though with much weaker coupling and different lock-in mechanics.
d--b 6y ago
It must be an algorithm change in the spotify recommendation engine. Either because the top50 playlist overstated the correlation between "liking Drake" and "liking Taylor Swift", or because they found that by trying to broaden the spectrum of what people listen to, they get people to listen to more music, and they get less-than-top50 artists happier.
LockAndLol 6y ago
"Killing"... What a sensationalist title with an article isn't even indicating " death". Why do you put up with subpar clickbait like this?
gregjw 6y ago
Betteridge's law of Hacker News headlines
charliebrownau 6y ago
Mainstream killed itself Let the American/Western top 40 die , the same with TV , News, Movies, Comics and scifi
exnuber 6y ago
The top-40 is killing me, so it only seems fair.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
whywhywhywhy 6y ago
Why does it matter? Top 40 only really had relevancy to what journalists talk about, music journalists are not really relevant because the idea of having to go to town to a store to buy music is no longer a thing when you can just listen to any music instantly and make your own mind up quicker than you can read a review. Think they're getting annoyed at modern way of consuming music affecting an antiquated meaningless chart that had already been made irrelevant by the very way music listening had changed.
ImAlreadyTracer 6y ago
I haven't started streaming my music yet but if it leads to a greater diversity of tastes in listeners then I'm all for it.
iunternik 6y ago
That would be a good thing, honestly. I mean...look at rotten tomatoes, lots of times critics have no idea what they're talking about
l4r5 6y ago
This is a little bit off topic, but I read this interesting article how it's possible to do money laundering through Spotify with the help of streaming farms: https://ppcprotect.com/spotify-streaming-farms/ https://ppcprotect.com/spotify-streaming-farms/ This seems to be a bigger issue than I thought - this article quotes up to $300 million as damage: https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/how-to-fight-spotify-streaming-fraud-850990/ https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/how-to-fight-spoti...
blaser-waffle 6y ago
Good! Top 40 -- and why 40 instead of 50, or 100? -- is useless pop nonsense for bland radio stations.

136 points by daegloe 6y ago

This would be great. The idea of “best ranked music” results in mediocre, bland music that’s mostly ranked based on the social connections of the artist. Musical culture and genres are extremely diverse and trying to rank individual pieces of music makes discovery harder. I doubt they’ll actually do this of course. Their monetization model relies on ranking.

29athrowaway 6y ago
Based on the songs being aggresively pushed by record labels, it seems that the ultimate goals of mainstream music industry are: - To glorify violence, substance abuse, disrespect of women, domination behavior, anti-intellectualism. - To reinforce racial stereotypes, including fear of minorities. - To make people superficial. Songs are an effective way to deliver a message to be repeated over and over and over again until people break and assimilate the message.
- staplers 6y ago
  The themes you mentioned are being pushed by more than just the corporate music industry.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkES4anCYOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkES4anCYOw > "It's all hip hop's fault, you see. Not the three companies who decide what you hear and see." nice timing at 1:47, or decent 'shop skillz?
- troughway 6y ago
  Upvoted because HNs groupthink downvoting is a festering pile of shit. However, you’re describing basic human condition. Music like this has existed long before the labels were here. This music, appalling though it may be, is at the end of the day what the populace wants to hear. It’s the equivalent of allowing people to play violent FPS games so they have an outlet. Let the people break if it’s in their nature to do so.
- Sebb767 6y ago
  I don't think you can say this in general. There are a lot of uplifting chart songs. On the point of substance abuse, yes, that's a topic. But in reality, young people just tend to talk about this and it's really hard to say what's cause and effect. And I really can't see your points about superficiality, racial stereotypes etc. That niche surely exists, but it's far too hot for the big labels. Lastly, on anti-intellectualism: Yes, those songs tend to not be too intellectually challenging, but I don't think that's bad. People tend to listen to those when partying or just relaxing ; it's okay to simply chill out sometimes. Most people don't want to read technical literature for coming down either and that's fine.
- gruez 6y ago
  >it seems that the ultimate goals of mainstream music industry are: [...] Songs are an effective way to deliver a message to be repeated over and over and over again until people break and assimilate the message. It sounds like you're saying that the music industry is engaged in a conspiracy to change people's behavior. Is this a correct characterization? If so, is there any evidence for this conspiracy, or some plausible motivations? I'm not sure how the powers that be would benefit from people being more violent abuse drugs, or disrespect women, for instance.
  - 29athrowaway 6y ago
    Many conspiracies can be just explained through emergent behavior. For example, there could be demand for that music, and the labels are just creating content to respond to that demand... without any ethical considerations about what they're promoting, that is. But to be honest, a conspiracy of some kind could be an explanation, who knows. For some people, there are substantial tangible, material benefits to dumbing down society. For example, the "gangster rapper" stereotype is pushed aggresively by the music industry. The popularity of "gangster rap" results in "gangster" aesthetics becoming fashionable, even among law abiding people who are not gangsters. However, when people see a person that resembles the "gangster" stereotype (purely based on their attire) pushed by the entertainment industry, they will be more likely to call 911, eventually resulting in an innocent person being killed for no valid reason. Is this a racist conspiracy? who knows. Likewise, oversexualization results in people having unplanned kids, causing them to ultimately become poor, and more susceptible to predatory loans, low wages, political manipulation and all the machinery that exists only to abuse the poor. Similar to anti-intellectualism. And then, glorification of violence, competition, non-compliance, etc... this just makes people very divisive, and in order to dominate a large population you want them to be as divided as possible, and constantly distracted with immaterial disputes while you lobby the government. So, yeah... it could be a conspiracy. It is very profitable to make people vulnerable and susceptible to manipulation and abuse. Especially political manipulation, which is already prominent in American journalism. It kind of resembles the psychological warfare techniques used by the Soviets (i.e.: ideological subversion). https://youtu.be/IQPsKvG6WMI?t=60 https://youtu.be/IQPsKvG6WMI?t=60
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  The ultimate goal of the main stream music industry is to make money. Those are just what they've found to be the most effective ways to do it.
dwd 6y ago
The labels will have some method to game the system - whether they own banks of devices playing the song/album they are pushing, or through a 3rd party service. There will be services in Asia that offer to do Spotify plays, and it's likely to be cheaper than TV/Radio advertising or buying physical copies to get an initial high ranking.
hrktb 6y ago
Blandness is a feature for my family. We have wildly different tastes, and it’s hard to come with a consensus on what to listen in the car. The top 40/50 has a high chance of being “fine” for everybody. That’s what I would put in the background if I had to make random people wait in a room for an hour. There are “discovery” playlist outside of the ranked ones, so I wouldn’t be surprised if my use is not so far from their intended purpose.
- Dumblydorr 6y ago
  This concept allowed Nickelback to make it into arenas and stadia. Their music is the dry toast of rock, no one loves it but it is the lowest common denominator for "rock".

Icedcool 6y ago

I can only hope..

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

I just ran across a three year old pop song on YouTube today with 200+ million views. I've never heard it on the radio. The top 40 gatekeepers are killing the top 40.

peter_l_downs 6y ago

No (Betteridge's law)

myself248 6y ago
Damn. That's one grave I would dance on so hard I'd probably twist an ankle or something.
nelsonenzo 6y ago
Ha, fun. TIL. From http://betteridgeslaw.com http://betteridgeslaw.com (which is apparently crawling some sites daily). My favorite so far is "Was Professor Snape secretely a trans Woman?" LOL.
nkozyra 6y ago
There's a lot of data in the article. I don't think this is a very thoughtful rebuttal.

wfme 6y ago

Personally, I used to be able to listen to a large portion of the top 50 on Spotify without skipping too many. As of late last year, though, I've found that the top 10 are almost exclusively songs made popular on TikTok. I can't stand to listen to these songs, not because I necessarily dislike the songs (or TikTok for that matter), but because there are 15-30s sections of the song that I have heard dozens of times, posted on TikTok as a part of some new trend. As soon as I hear one of these parts, I instinctively skip, because I'm generally listening to Spotify to chill out, and hearing something that is so tightly associated with a social network really works against my "chill".

segfaultbuserr 6y ago
Back when I was in school, I really hated Billboard Top 10 for the same reason. Once I've overheard them so many times, often unpleasantly, the actual song became unlistenable, not because I dislike them.
- gre 6y ago
  With pop music you hear exactly the same track over and over with no variation and it gets predictable and monotonous. With classical, jazz, or live music there are many performances, so any two recordings will not sound identical. This is one reason I can't stand pop music after a few listens.
  - conception 6y ago
    This is also why people love pop music. It is predictable, safe and unchallenging.
    - zaptrem 6y ago
      People also like it because it's colorful and multidimensional, but not so multidimensional that you can't decipher it without focusing on it exclusively and retreating to a quiet room.

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

"In a seminal 2004 essay in Wired titled "The Long Tail," journalist Chris Anderson argued that digital culture would help niche music, books, and movies thrive. With fewer gatekeepers and more avenues to find likeminded fans, people would be more likely to indulge their true interests, rather than just accept what was offered by the mainstream." Nice idea, there is some truth to it based on what we've seen so far, but we can also see how the corporations that control "what was offered by the mainstream" are now controlling (financing) the gatekeepers of the web and/or personal computing device (for lack of a better term). The new gatekeepers have become entrenched thanks to centralisation, lock-in and using the system itself as the world's most powerful hype machine, or "network effects". The entertainment industry has gatekeepers, so too does the web (perhaps even the wider internet) and the personal computing device. If and when things get tight for the gatekeeper business, they (web gatekeepers) will also control the so-called "long tail". What we are seeing is that it is not the "gatekeeperless" distribution channel many might imagine, as YouTube deletes a seemingly non-commercial video and arguments ensue over rights to "free speech". The tentacles of these gatekeepers keep reaching out further. No "long tail" seems to be safe from their influence and ultimately their control.

duxup 6y ago
Doesn't the article indicate...the long tail might be true?
- Barrin92 6y ago
  somewhat but the decline seems relatively small. My intuition is that the dynamics of digital content lower the barrier for new talent to go very quickly to the top, think Billie Eilish and her brother producing an album out of their bedroom, but that the centralisation still means most eyeballs go to the top, maybe that part even got worse given how monotonous viral spread is. I don't think there is much indication that there is a broad shift from the top to the middle. Other mediums like Youtube and Twitch almost exclusively concentrate attention at the top as well, with IIRC two thirds of streamers not even having any viewers.
- Applejinx 6y ago

toby 6y ago

This article says that the Top 40 has dropped from 35mm to 30mm plays on a Wednesday. Then it says: "The decline is likely partially the result of an overall decrease in streaming after Covid-19 hit the US, due to the absence of people listening to music on commutes and in stores. But it’s not just that. The biggest hits are declining, while the streaming of smaller hits remains about the same." Seems like it could be "just that". This analysis is weird without knowing whether overall numbers have dropped and whether retail / gyms / public spaces primarily played Top 40 hits (which I'd guess is likely).

ponker 6y ago
There’s also a different mix of music by listening scenario. I mostly listen to Top 40 and similar garbage while I’m commuting because I’m not that discerning. But the people who are true music aficionados are probably continuing to listen to their obscure music even when not commuting.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  Not just scenario, but during crises, people tend to go for the familiar, so older tracks might have done relatively better than before. Spotify users might also be skewing a bit older than they used to as streaming adoption grows, but this is just a guess, and older users tent to use Apple Music.
  - RandoHolmes 6y ago
    According to the article, less popular songs are still being streamed about as much as they were before.
- dylan604 6y ago
  In other words its formulaic garbage people really don't care about, yet are too occupied to change it. When given the choice, they choose not.
  - vladvasiliu 6y ago

brat81 6y ago

Who would've thought that retail outlets and other public places had such a large impact on how the TOP40 is shaped.

baron816 6y ago

> While blockbuster movies are only growing in importance... Obviously, there have been no real blockbusters released this year. I don’t have evidence, but for me it seems like indie movies are thriving. The Streamers are all pouring money into original movies—I can’t think of a single movie that Netflix, Prime, or Hulu has produced that was a sequel.

teruakohatu 6y ago
You need to create originals before you can cash in on sequels. Or buy them eg. Disney buying Marvel for $4b and making $18 billion 10 years later from the IP. Off the top of my head a Netflix original Christmas movie has had two sequels.
- baron816 6y ago
  Oh, yes there were some teen romcoms that had sequels (eg. Kissing Booth 2). I’m not exactly the target audience for those.
- theshrike79 6y ago
  That christmas stuff was 100% algorithm driven stuff. They analysed that christmas movies sell and pumped out a bunch for 2-3 years straight now. None of them are especially good or bad, it's a way to spend 1-2 hours while eating christmas candy.
Cactus2018 6y ago
Speaking of blockbuster sequels. Look at these crazy dollar amounts, especially the Avengers franchise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films#Highest-grossing_films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_superhero_films#Highest-grossing_superhero_films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_super...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

werber 6y ago

I’ve personally been listening to more calming music, classical and “study beats” and haven’t felt cultural pressure to check anything out recently ( besides wap ). It’s kind of a relief to have less cultural moments for me

vmception 6y ago

Perfect

kabacha 6y ago

Honestly I've never met a person who listens to Spotify's top/trending playlists - they are notoriously awful random mess (like all top hit charts) Spotify is definitely killing top lists but not on purpose - turns out arbitrary top lists are an awful idea once we have free access to music and a strong communities that can curate the music properly. It'll continue to decline as people are learning how to control their playlists better.

shmerl 6y ago

I prefer stores like Bandcamp.

oshea64bit 6y ago

I think it's interesting that there's some periodicity in the graph showing the "Share of US Spotify top 200 streams going to top 40 songs" where the share spikes during each summer. I have no substantive conclusions about this, just thought it was worth pointing out.

perardi 6y ago

I guess it’s reasonable to worry that Spotify is creating a sort of algorithmic filter bubble where it just delivers you more of what you want…but man, the Discovery Weekly feature just works. I have, weekly, discovered a lot of artists I would never have heard of. Am I finding as wide of a range of music as I would have when I worked at a college radio station? Probably not. Have I discovered more and better music than whatever was on the radio in Peoria growing up? You betcha.

arrakeen 6y ago

"killing" might be an extreme way of putting it, but it's definitely showing that the older models to determine music popularity are outdated (billboard, top 40 radio) see also Post Malone Shatters 54 Year Old Beatles Record: https://kiss108.iheart.com/content/2018-05-09-post-malone-shatters-54-year-old-beatles-record/ https://kiss108.iheart.com/content/2018-05-09-post-malone-sh...

pointyfence 6y ago

Spotify has definitely changed how I listen to music over the years. I have my core segments, but I'd say that 33% of my time on Spotify is just stuff that I bump into for random of reasons: a music beef between artists I don't listen to, stories from friends with different tastes in music, a news article about a band in the 50s, etc. I find myself listening to the music to give context to the stories I bump into. And then I just sort of get lost in it for a bit like you would reading random stuff on Wikipedia. Wrecks havoc on my music suggestions though.

ehnto 6y ago
I'm similar, I spend a lot more time discovering and exploring than I do listening tonold favourites. Which is saying a lot, because I used to DJ House and DnB for a community online radio station.
- lowdose 6y ago
  Isn't soundcloud better for house?
  - ehnto 6y ago
    Yeah lots of better places than Spotify. I only listen to house when I am mixing or listening to a friends set these days so it has to be from my own collection or theirs. It's all the other genres I listen to that are on Spotify.
ImaCake 6y ago
>Wrecks havoc on my music suggestions though Netflix and spotify have definitely not solved suggestions yet. I still struggle to get either service to get me what I want.
- jillesvangurp 6y ago
  With Netflix, their catalogue is small enough that I can find what I want regardless of what they suggest. They seem to have nailed the "more of the same" algorithm which is mostly looking at their weird notion of genre. For me that means it recommends me stuff I've already decided that I'm not interested in watching because they've been recommending it for months and I've declined to watch it. This seems in general a problem with recommendation algorithms: they struggle picking up on negative signals and get stuck in t a perpetual more of the same shit loop. Spotify recommendations vary depending on the context. Their profile of me is probably very confused because I listen to a lot of different things and what I listen to is mostly dependent on context and what I'm in the mood for, which spans 5 decades of music and quite a few genres. I gravitate to a lot of alternative stuff but only the good stuff (for my personal very narrow definition of good). Spotify never figured out that sweet spot. So, I've been ignoring their radio feature because I find it a mix of "I already have that in a play list" or "I hate that song, which is why I don't have it in a playlist". It only very occasionally suggests something I haven't heard that I actually like. However, I love their "users that listen to X also listen to Y" section. For me that's a main tool to discover new things. They also suggest adding songs to playlists. I've rediscovered a few tunes from the eighties that were somehow stuck in my head but that I struggled to name this way. The eighties were of course the glory days of the top 40 and I listened to it while doing my homework back in the day. I stopped listening to that stuff in the nineties when alternative music became a thing. In any case, I prefer these non personalized type of suggestions over the more of the same stuff that passes for artificial intelligence peddled by many websites. I hate how you get stuck in recommendation bubbles that way. This also dominates news websites these days, which is something I hate because it's gotten quite hard to get an overview of what is happening in the world with news websites increasingly biased by what works as click bait with shoddy AI algorithms rather than telling me what is happening. And it's a reason I like HN because here the feed is dictated by shared interest of a technical audience rather than any of our personal preferences or political opinions. That's why it works. No AI recommendations here. That's why people come here.

ehnto 6y ago

I hope so. Top 40 lists are constructed not observed. They seem to have no relationship to what music is favored by listeners, just what is being pushed on pop radio. A self satisfying loop.

laurent92 6y ago
It is astonishing when you realize it. Since the MCM times, we’ve transferred music bands from sound to image, and we noticed the commercial drums (and repetition on radios in particular) produced linear return in investment, and music characteristics hadn’t much to do with it. To the point that today, any music will do. It’s much easier for the labels, since they can pimp anyone among the 1-10% of the population who can sing, and therefore they can choose people on character and ethnicity. Studies on thousands of pieces showed that melodies recouped more and more, the chorus started earlier in the song, songs got shorter, and instrument-based tricks reduced. Meanwhile loudness increased (screams and whisper are at the same volume) to make it fitter for bad-quality players (radio, speakers etc.)
- jimbob45 6y ago
  I think you’re right and I’d argue that American Idol proves that there is a surplus of talent for labels to choose from, allowing them to be picky in regards to secondary requirements (ethnicity, backstory, work ethic).
  - awalton 6y ago
    The difference being that American Idol contestants are often actually quite artistically good - they only managed to get where they are because of skill and looks and luck, instead of just the latter two. (This isn't universal; it's often the case they pick someone up who is actually pretty awful but is interesting for the whole mechanics of the show, either being very attractive or standing out in some other way... but it still holds that the show has actually managed to scout real talent on the whole - just look at how many of the people who didn't win managed to snag successful music careers afterwards.) But that's beside the point here. My biggest peeve is that there are plenty of "Top 40" "artists" that can barely hold a note. And it's been that way since the 90s, thanks to the magic of Auto-Tune. Anyone with a marketing budget and access to an industry insider who can make the right moves can just start dropping albums and buying hit slots. What's changed is that now, anyone with a YouTube or Twitch channel can just start publishing music. Create a Soundcloud and you can get rotation in any one of a dozen DJs podcasts. TuneCore will put your stuff in the Music Stores. Spotify and Pandora are a little harder to break into, but not much. Setup a Twitter account and talk directly to your fans without needing a publicist. A whole industry's worth of Kingmakers have been turned into online services, and that's really changing the landscape of the industry.

pdx_flyer 6y ago

Spotify makes me miss Rdio. The Rdio algorithm for finding new music based on an artist, song, or album was really fantastic while Spotify just gives me a playlist of similar songs in the same genre as my “radio”. I know Pandora incorporated some of Rdio’s technique but its UI leaves a lot to be desired.

tolbish 6y ago
Spotify did this for a while, but the more advanced recommendation algorithm got axed after the acquisition and now it just plays songs from similar artists. I really wish Spotify brought back that deeper music analysis because I'm the type of listener who will like one or two songs from an artist while not being a fan of the artist's general style of their more well-known work. Thus, Spotify's current recommendation algorithm is incredibly hit or miss for me.

zeus_hammer 6y ago

The NYTimes Popcast podcast recently[0] took up a form of this question while examining the relevance of album sales and Billboard charts as a whole. I highly recommend the episode, as well as the podcast generally. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/arts/music/popcast-merchandise-bundles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/arts/music/popcast-mercha...

notafraudster 6y ago

I once audited the playlist of local radio stations. I recorded a few months worth of data and asked, for each day, week, and the full time period, what # of songs constituted 50% of overall song playtime. In all commercial formats in my market, the number was under 75, and in most under 50. I find Spotify pretty crummy at surfacing new music, but it's a lot better than the same 30-50 songs being played again and again and again and again.

spiderfarmer 6y ago
Spotify is actually pretty good at surfacing new music when compared to radio stations. As a music lover I never had it this good. If you just rely on Discover Weekly it offers you more new songs than you could ever discover by listening radio and if you're a little more proactive, you can discover new music in myriad ways.

chriselles 6y ago

Has Zipf’s Law ever applied to the distribution of music consumption? When shaped by industry, algorithm, or serendipity?

dredmorbius 6y ago
Yes, strongly. The influence of hitmakers and gatekeepers adjusts what makes the curve, and shifts it somewhat, but the overal outlines of any informational domain will be governed by Zipf.
- chriselles 6y ago
  I thought so.....but it's always good to hear validated or contrarian thought on the topic. Maybe I'm just in a self-created confirmation bias loop or force fitting, but I'm noticing what appears to be Zipf's Law all around me since I've become aware of it.

londonatil 6y ago

Spotify's statistics are super misleading, and they will continue to be misleading until they make all "listens" from each account equal in value.

raverbashing 6y ago

Oh is it? Good Top 40 are only relevant to music executives that make their living pumping up the worse kinds of musical garbage to people that base their musical tastes into what "other people" (payola, it's payola) like. And it seems that, as the internet came and the music distribution became more long-tailed, the worse the "top 40" became.

tiku 6y ago

Spotify is really the true top 40. Because there are direct statistics about what is most played and shared..

draugadrotten 6y ago
Spotify suffers from fake listeners, so it's not the true top 40 either. https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/fake-artists-have-billions-of-streams-on-spotify-is-sony-now-playing-the-service-at-its-own-game-834746/ https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/fake-artists-have-...
mrweasel 6y ago
It's even better for smaller countries. Denmark has a best selling music list, published by the record industry, which is often used as the basis for TOP XX playlists on the radio. That seems reasonable, until you realize that it's actually within the reach of a dedicated individual on a normal salary to affect the list. The best selling album have in some weeks sold in the low hundreds.

dredmorbius 6y ago

The pop music industry has seen at least three disruptions to its controlling gatekeepers since the 1950s (1956-60, ~2000 with Napster, and presently with Spotify and YouTube), but each time a dominant hegenomy re-emerges. I doubt this time will be different, though the brief renaissance will doubtless be appreciated. Charles Perrow wrote of this in the mid-1980s: After the critical period from about 1956 to 1960, when tastes were unfrozen, competition was intense, and demand soared, consolidation appeared. The number of firms stabilized at about forty. New corporate entries appeared, such as MGM and Warner Brothers, sensing, one supposes, the opportunity that vastly expanding sales indicated. Some independents grew large. The eight-firm concentration ratio also stabilized (though not yet the four-firm ratio). The market became sluggish, however, as the early stars died, were forced into retirement because of legal problems, or in the notable case of Elvis Presley, were drafted by an impinging environment. Near the end of this period the majors decided that the new sounds were not a fad and began to buy up the contracts of established artists and successfully picked and promoted new ones, notably The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan. A new generation (e.g., The Beatles) appeared from 1964 to 1969, and sales again soared. But now the concentration ratios soared also. From 1962 to 1973, the four-firm ratio went from 25 to 51 percent; the eight-firm ratio from 46 to 81 percent, almost back to the pre-1955 levels. The number of different firms having hits declined from forty-six to only sixteen. Six of the eight giants were diversified conglomerates, some of which led in the earlier period; one was a new independent, the other a product of of mergers. How did they do it? The major companies asserted “increasing central control over the creative process”[352] through deliberate creation and extensive promotion of new groups, long-range contracts for groups, and reduced autonomy for producers. In addition, legal and illegal promotion costs (drug payola to disc jockeys, for example) rose in the competitive race and now exceeded the resources of small independents. Finally, the majors “have also moved to regain a controlling position in record distribution by buying chains of retail stores.”[353] The diversity is still greater than it had been in the past, and may remain high, but it is ominous that the majors have all the segments covered. As an executive said, “Columbia Records will have a major entry into whatever new area is broached by the vagaries of public tastes.” But for a concentrated industry, the “vagaries of public tastes” are not economical; it is preferable to stabilize and consolidate them. This would be possible through further control over the creative process and marketing. Charles Perrow, Complex organizations : a critical essay, 1972, 1985. pp. 186--187. The dynamics, actors, and economics remind me strongly of the software / high-tech industry, though with much weaker coupling and different lock-in mechanics.

d--b 6y ago

It must be an algorithm change in the spotify recommendation engine. Either because the top50 playlist overstated the correlation between "liking Drake" and "liking Taylor Swift", or because they found that by trying to broaden the spectrum of what people listen to, they get people to listen to more music, and they get less-than-top50 artists happier.

LockAndLol 6y ago

"Killing"... What a sensationalist title with an article isn't even indicating " death". Why do you put up with subpar clickbait like this?

gregjw 6y ago

Betteridge's law of Hacker News headlines

charliebrownau 6y ago

Mainstream killed itself Let the American/Western top 40 die , the same with TV , News, Movies, Comics and scifi

exnuber 6y ago

The top-40 is killing me, so it only seems fair.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

whywhywhywhy 6y ago

Why does it matter? Top 40 only really had relevancy to what journalists talk about, music journalists are not really relevant because the idea of having to go to town to a store to buy music is no longer a thing when you can just listen to any music instantly and make your own mind up quicker than you can read a review. Think they're getting annoyed at modern way of consuming music affecting an antiquated meaningless chart that had already been made irrelevant by the very way music listening had changed.

ImAlreadyTracer 6y ago

I haven't started streaming my music yet but if it leads to a greater diversity of tastes in listeners then I'm all for it.

iunternik 6y ago

That would be a good thing, honestly. I mean...look at rotten tomatoes, lots of times critics have no idea what they're talking about

l4r5 6y ago

This is a little bit off topic, but I read this interesting article how it's possible to do money laundering through Spotify with the help of streaming farms: https://ppcprotect.com/spotify-streaming-farms/ https://ppcprotect.com/spotify-streaming-farms/ This seems to be a bigger issue than I thought - this article quotes up to $300 million as damage: https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/how-to-fight-spotify-streaming-fraud-850990/ https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/how-to-fight-spoti...

blaser-waffle 6y ago

Good! Top 40 -- and why 40 instead of 50, or 100? -- is useless pop nonsense for bland radio stations.