BTS is a bad example. K-Pop (and also J-Pop) are about as painfully mainstream as you can get (in those respective countries). However, Anglosphere countries ra

BTS is a bad example. K-Pop (and also J-Pop) are about as painfully mainstream as you can get (in those respective countries). However, Anglosphere countries rarely import their music, so it loops back into being non-mainstream anyway. That nitpick aside, while Rick Beato's extremely Boomer, he's vaguely grasping at actual problems. My take on it is that streaming platforms are built to do what the labels want them to do - sell music as a commodity. In the terrestrial radio era, labels would pay radio stations to put specific songs they wanted to push in heavy rotation. This is called payola[0]. It's illegal, but everyone did it anyway. [0] The term was coined in an era where anything to do with music ended in "ola". Victrola was a brand of record player, Motorola was a brand of car radio, etc.