Pay-for-Play Was Banned From Radio — But Texts Reveal It May Still Be Thriving

[TheBoss]

23 minutes ago, TheSwaggerAndTheLips said:

crying cause I don’t even like starships 

 

moving on, the industry is definitely up to some fuck shit regarding pay for play and streaming farms. Travis Scott just debuted at number one (in America ?) with a song that absolutely NO ONE has listened to. Like how does that even happen? 

 

Franchise kinda goes off tho, plus it was about time M.I.A. got a #1 (although Paper Planes and Bad Girls DESERVED!!), maybe the antivaxxers, 5G conspiracists and McDonald's pulled through this time

 

Also Superbass > Starships, but the latter is a bop we can't deny

[Dark Angel]

isn't payola mostly radio? that's a little weird to me because i thought that streaming services kinda took over the radio.

 

on the subject of sketchy industry practices, i wonder if youtube is a part of this?

 

why does "burn" by ellie goulding have over 1b views? i'm not hating on her at all, but i never would of expected that particular song to reach 1b.

 

[Mer]

2 minutes ago, LemonadeHeavens said:

isn't payola mostly radio? that's a little weird to me because i thought that streaming services kinda took over the radio.

 

on the subject of sketchy industry practices, i wonder if youtube is a part of this?

 

why does "burn" by ellie goulding have over 1b views? i'm not hating on her at all, but i never would of expected that particular song to reach 1b.

 

can you buy views on YouTube like on Instagram? Just random bots that can inflate ur views. 
 

altho a lot of latin music does genuinely have 1b+ views bc they use the official music vidoes when DJ-ing clubs so it inflates the numbers (I was shocked how many Shakira songs have 2b)

[TheBoss]

2 minutes ago, LemonadeHeavens said:

isn't payola mostly radio? that's a little weird to me because i thought that streaming services kinda took over the radio.

 

on the subject of sketchy industry practices, i wonder if youtube is a part of this?

 

why does "burn" by ellie goulding have over 1b views? i'm not hating on her at all, but i never would of expected that particular song to reach 1b.

 

 

I was thinking the same thing, I mean at the end of the day we all know that you can buy your way up the Spotify playlist and pay tik tokers to promote your tune, however I'm not sure if that counts as "Payola" per se

 

This sounds way fraudulent tho since you're not only adding spins to yourself but also taking from another artist and labels, or either getting none just because you don't pay enough 

 

Tbh I'm not surprised to see some names in here (including my fave, it was quite obvious tbh)

[Dark Angel]

3 minutes ago, Mer Boy said:

can you buy views on YouTube like on Instagram? Just random bots that can inflate ur views. 
 

altho a lot of latin music does genuinely have 1b+ views bc they use the official music vidoes when DJ-ing clubs so it inflates the numbers (I was shocked how many Shakira songs have 2b)

 

yeah, i'm pretty certain that you can buy youtube views, wouldn't be surprised if some mainstream arist has a video with inflated views, even just a little bit.

[TheBoss]

5 minutes ago, Mer Boy said:

can you buy views on YouTube like on Instagram? Just random bots that can inflate ur views. 
 

altho a lot of latin music does genuinely have 1b+ views bc they use the official music vidoes when DJ-ing clubs so it inflates the numbers (I was shocked how many Shakira songs have 2b)

 

Shakira is a huge artist and the Latin market is huge as well, artist usually serve with the music videos, so it's easy for a big song to pass 600 M -1 B views in a year tbh, depends on the artist and how big the song is

 

As for Ellie's Burn, I don't remember if it was a hit in her time, but it's that kind of song that is usually on play lists and like you don't bother skipping (?), I can see it having that late 2000s/early 2010s nostalgia longevity hit feeling to it

[ShadesOfFool]

Yes the term “payola” has kind of gotten watered down. 
 

instead of the direct act of paying for radio play under the table, “payola” now entails not only that, but buying spots in Spotify playlists, using bots for YouTube views and ig engagements, utilizing streaming farms, paying TikTok creators to promote your song, paying for positive reviews, and even stuff like buying awards and accolades. 
 

The pay-for-play thing is explicitly illegal BUT the rest of that stuff isn’t, it’s just unethically gaming the system but it’s not like they can outlaw paid promotions or Grammy campaigning lol

[Mer]

1 minute ago, TheSwaggerAndTheLips said:

The pay-for-play thing is explicitly illegal BUT the rest of that stuff isn’t, it’s just unethically gaming the system but it’s not like they can outlaw paid promotions or Grammy campaigning lol

So it’s like a loophole?

[TRENCH]

1 hour ago, knives said:

was it worth it??? bc now everyone wants to bash their head into a wall each time high hopes comes on 

it plays All. The. Time. On Adult contemporary, Top 40, Alternative, And Pop stations, like who is even streaming this song in late 2020?! Now we know why it’s still hurting our ears. 

 

1 hour ago, prettywhenimhigh said:

I screamed 

52 minutes ago, TheSwaggerAndTheLips said:

crying cause I don’t even like starships 

moving on, the industry is definitely up to some fuck shit regarding pay for play and streaming farms. Travis Scott just debuted at number one (in America ?) with a song that absolutely NO ONE has listened to. Like how does that even happen? 

 

That’s some tea to uncover 

21 minutes ago, LemonadeHeavens said:

isn't payola mostly radio? that's a little weird to me because i thought that streaming services kinda took over the radio.

 

on the subject of sketchy industry practices, i wonder if youtube is a part of this?

 

why does "burn" by ellie goulding have over 1b views? i'm not hating on her at all, but i never would of expected that particular song to reach 1b.

 

Yeah very few people (me) listen to the radio but some use the terms for online content of music as well. 

I wouldn’t count out YT. Alphabet is always fixing their algorithms but someone finds ways to cheat the system. 

honest to god Ellie had like 5 songs playing simultaneously on the radio in 2013 and Burn was played every 20 minutes, that’s when she got into her fitness craze so it was used in a lot of ads too 

[Dark Angel]

i was quite young when "burn" came out so i guess i didn't pay much attention to how much they played it or anything like that  

 

interestingly enough, the only time i've heard ever dua lipa on the radio is whenever they played "new rules". maybe she's more of a social media girl.

 

i could see halsey, ed sheeran, and shawn mendes using payola, at one point they were playing "there's nothing holding me back" every hour it seemed, not that enjoyable.

 

 

[Vanilla Icy]

18 minutes ago, LemonadeHeavens said:

 

yeah, i'm pretty certain that you can buy youtube views, wouldn't be surprised if some mainstream arist has a video with inflated views, even just a little bit.

i'm pretty sure katy perry paid for music video views in the past, no hate to her but bon appetit has 1B views and not even 500k comments and the song performed horribly on charts for her standard 

[Dark Angel]

2 minutes ago, LemonadeHeavens said:

i was quite young when "burn" came out so i guess i didn't pay much attention to how much they played it or anything like that  

 

interestingly enough, the only time i've heard ever dua lipa on the radio is whenever they played "new rules". maybe she's more of a social media girl.

 

i could see halsey, ed sheeran, and shawn mendes using payola, at one point they were playing "there's nothing holding me back" every hour it seemed, not that enjoyable.

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, new gods said:

i'm pretty sure katy perry paid for music video views in the past, no hate to her but bon appetit has 1B views and not even 500k comments and the song performed horribly on charts for her standard 

 

speaking of which... that song "there's nothing holding me back" has 900m views, 6m likes, but... 100k comments???  

 

 

[TheBoss]

10 minutes ago, LemonadeHeavens said:

i was quite young when "burn" came out so i guess i didn't pay much attention to how much they played it or anything like that  

 

interestingly enough, the only time i've heard ever dua lipa on the radio is whenever they played "new rules". maybe she's more of a social media girl.

 

i could see halsey, ed sheeran, and shawn mendes using payola, at one point they were playing "there's nothing holding me back" every hour it seemed, not that enjoyable.

 

 

 

I live in South America, so obviously can't speak for the US, but as the stan that I am, I believe almost all of her hits are organic, on the US however miss Break My Heart has some fraudulent activity that doesn't add up at all (still a bop tho and sis is serving this era, so she's allowed to hustle a coin or two I don't mind) 

 

Anyways this only affects the US markets since AFAIK is the only one that counts radio (or so I've heard) 

 

[Jack]

so this is why pop auteur Jackson Novem has been blacklisted from radio stations across the country?? 

 

[Tulips]

The random Nicki Minaj Starships discussion in the first page is sending me

[ShadesOfFool]

10 hours ago, Mer Boy said:

So it’s like a loophole?

Pretty much I guess

 

cause most of the stuff these days isnt illegal. It’s sneaky and manipulative and unfair, but not illegal. And it’s not really something they can make illegal either. 

[Barry]

12 hours ago, Chemtrail said:

I stopped paying attention to the charts and radio when Starships by Nicki Minaj went to #1

 

This weeks number 1 in the USA by Travis Scott and Young Thug - im a fan of both and can't even remember the name was a terrible song and depite being number 1 is expected to fall out the top 40 next week I seen lol

Shows how much of a mess the charts are that you can really just buy the position through radio, streaming playlists and merchandise bundles.

[prettywhenimhigh]

5 hours ago, Tulips said:

The random Nicki Minaj Starships discussion in the first page is sending me

 

and like, not even nicki herself like starships lmfao

[Tulips]

1 minute ago, prettywhenimhigh said:

 

and like, not even nicki herself like starships lmfao

She should.. it's a bop

[Chemtrail]

1 hour ago, Barry said:

 

This weeks number 1 in the USA by Travis Scott and Young Thug - im a fan of both and can't even remember the name was a terrible song and depite being number 1 is expected to fall out the top 40 next week I seen lol

Shows how much of a mess the charts are that you can really just buy the position through radio, streaming playlists and merchandise bundles.

These days people think Cardi B is good so I have pretty low expectations for chart music. Same goes for the boring trap beats and mumble rap, I can't really stand any of it. I don't think I've heard anything by Travis or Young Thug tbh, unless its Travis that has a song called M.I.A. They both came along recently (I think?) and I don't keep up anymore. I see lots of song titles but I don't hear any of it. I always expect all of the popular new stuff to be unlistenable.