The fake artist phenomenon

Music
1

How do you feel about the Swedish composer Johan Röhr?
You don’t know him?
He has generated more Spotify streams than Michael Jackson or Elton John.
His tracks have been included on 144 official playlists with 62 million followers in aggregate. On Spotify.
“Johan Röhr”, you say?
Well, no. He hid behind 656 different pseudonyms.

I got this from a post by Ted Gioia:

There has been a lot written about fake musicians in streaming services.
Spotify in particular seems to love this phenomenon.

Ted points out that these playlists are called things like “Jazz for Studying” or “Classical Music for Driving”. Their are designated by the activity, not the music.

I can’t comment on Röhr’s music. I have never been exposed to it.
Because I listen to albums, not playlists.
Yes, it’s hard work.

2

I s’pose this is but one example.

I use a UPnP controller called JPLAY app from time to time (when Roon search get’s my adenaline pumping, bloodpressure high and aggression levels beyond comfort) and while visually a good Roon clone, the business logic behind the scenes is nowhere near Roon.

Anyhoo, a couple of versions back they used to display “Qobuz most streamed” on the "home screen. And the impression i got was that this was truly the most streamed. It’ was “Soothing music for dogs”, “Meditation backdrops” and lots and lots of this “elevator music” which obviously get played a lot, but rarely listened too.

So, how do we focus on getting artists payed, when people actually listen to their artistic work?