Not Crazy About Artists Fudging Spotify Numbers

In rap, like sports and other areas, there is a certain level of sportsmanship — at least there should be. Nowadays, though, some artists are using questionable tactics to boost plays on streaming services.

For example, a rapper who I really enjoy, Mod Sun, is walking the fine line between promotion and poor sportsmanship. Since dropping his new single, “Burning Up,” Mod has asked his fans to play the song on mute when they go to sleep, adding in another tweet to put the song “on repeat” in order to “run these plays up crazy.”

Mod is a really talented guy but it’s not a great look. Some folks in the comment section thought the same thing, with one user calling it “lame.”

It would be like a blogger who abusing the pay-per-click ad system to boost revenue, except in this case, I believe the goal was to get  “Burning Up” on the top of the charts — not for monetary gain.

TuneCore has a whole post about the ins and outs of streaming/click fraud.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a huge deal. Variety reported earlier this year that some artists are getting millions of fraudulent streams. In the article, they note that artists are sometimes using services to give them a boost. Other times, they may not even know that it’s fraud.

You can listen to “Burning Up” here, it’s a good song but you have to actually listen to it.