As a artist who cant even get more then a couple hundred plays on songs i release i can say them 100 plays mean way more to me then 1,000s of fake plays could ever mean. I do this to express my self and no other motive and unfortunately in music and most forms of art this dosnt exist anymore
i have a friend who says the same | i tell him that he then should not complain about no success and my logic is that you should be a mass manipulator that is social engineering | if all just like bangers or radio songs with a catchy melody, then you, if you like to have money, have to follow the market or be up front | you might be up front without realizing with your own style but rather dont gamble on this - force your luck btw, i see it as one of the most hard tasks - wish you good
unfortunately, even if you do want to get popular legitimately you have to get fake plays and streams to some degree just to even get noticed and in the algorithm in the first place. but then again I found one of my favourite rappers xavy rusan because he DMd me on instagram asking to check his music out when he had a few hundred views which would probably be the digital version of handing your cd out in public and he ended up blowing up with a million views because a popular creator used his song in an animation about a popular video game.
We already found out record labels were willing to buy radio plays and most times the artists had no clue, so I don't see how they could deny this one when theyve already shown us theyre willing and capable
Yes this is why so many songs were overplayed on the radio, even when the artist would have better songs out there on their newer albums. It always puzzled me why radios would play the same 10 songs over and over again, until i put two and two together and realized that labels were literally paying them per play for the songs they released and wanted popularized.
Even TH-cam does it. I had an account to where random music videos of artists I would NEVER listen to would end up in my video history. It was so bad that I could continuously refresh my history and new vids would keep popping up
@@arasuka6889 if I’m the only one with access to my account and I wake up after a long nights sleep and not using my TH-cam and go to my history to see that 50+ moneybagg yo songs are in my recently watched how is that not botted/stolen views
i was astounded when he referred to him as "documentary maker michael k. williams" XD [although i do love all the ones he made.] he had such a natural ease & talent talking to people. taken way too soon.
I know that many people complained about your voice being monotone. Over a short period of time, I’ve seen you improve that. I just want you to know that there’s nothing wrong with how your voice sounds. However, because your genre is commentary/doc I do love how you inflect and project your voice. It’s very comforting
A large part of my enjoyment of these is your cool and relaxed speaking style. I like it a lot more than overly affected speakers and it pairs well with your sense of humor. I still go back and watch the Biden T-Shirt Promo a lot 😂
I worked with a record label during the MySpace days and we would use software to run up our bands plays so that they would stay on MySpace's Top 100 list. I personally did this for several bands including an artist that was on MTV's Making the Band.
@AnAdorableWombat1 Absolutely. This was around 2009 and the program we used could even switch IP addresses. I'd add about 500 unique IP addresses, tell it to create 50 to 100k plays and come back in about 8 hours. You have people right now with millions of steams on Spotify and they are playing club dates with barely 500 people.
@Markaylaa0 I can go even further. Sometimes, when you see a bigger artist on a tour package, the smaller or supporting artist on that package paid the artist or their management to take them out on tour. I was working with a band that was really starting to get some buzz, but we couldn't get them on any big shows to expand the audience. Label head called me and told me we needed to pay a specific band to take them out. I had a relationship with the band. One of my best friends was the guitarist, but the singer hated them and felt threatened by their buzz, so he kept saying no even though everyone else agreed to the tour. I offered to pay them because I knew they were broke. He threw out a ridiculous amount of money. I called the label and told him how much. He had his lawyer draft the contract and wired the money into the bands account. We announced the tour and people were fighting to book the dates. Now we ended up canceling the tour and I personally lost over 10 grand dealing with "diva artists" but there is a lot going on behind the scenes in music.
Lil baby his 2020 album “my turn” is still on the billboard 100 albums selling like 15k + every week. Thats not fake. I think that tour flopped because he is just not that interesting in person, a lazy performer, and most people wont want to be around his general audience.
@@conke7765yeah, I can see this being the reason. A lot of modern rappers just aren’t interesting performers and it’s especially disheartening that a lot of them barely even rap during shows, but mainly sing over canned vocals.
The reason for fake streams and followers in music isn’t just for attention from strangers. It’s negotiating power. Artists and DJs get more opportunity based on their numbers. It dictates if you’re opening, headlining or even getting booked at all. When new artists approach booking agents and labels the first thing they ask about is your streaming/social media numbers. Artist development is dead. They look for established acts which is why people fake their numbers for opportunity. The illusion of popularity online matters more to industry people than the actual music.
I SAW the Chad Focus documentary with Michael K Williams and it really blew my mind. Being an artist myself it's kind of empowering to see someone who's blowing up like that.
Shi like this is why i like youtubers who make videos about “watching a music video with 0 views” or “listening to a song with 0 plays” cause they arent following the rest of the world and doin exploring songs for themselves not for what they see everyone else play
I keep having Doja Cat “paint the town red” on Spotify, I never searched for the song, don’t want to listen to Doja cat but Spotify keep pushing her songs you can’t escape them even if you don’t want to listen to them, i heard her song hundreds of times all against my will.
As a artist on the come up. I appreciate genuine views because it keeps us connected as a community. There’s no integrity in the music now a days, everyone is trying to make music and it’s too over saturated with nonsense and shady people who don’t want to use their powers to help the right people. Too much greed. If I gotta take the longer route to keep the actual love for my work and to have fans who care about quality then so be it. At least they know they are valued by me when they give me a listen.
@@brianboyle9330 I'm retired after my 38th album. That diss record I dropped was mainly for clout. This is not my OAC on this 1 here. I was making a point that he probably paid for his subs and talking about rappers that did the same thing. But yall do what u want. Like I said I'm retired from music now bcuz people made my art form worthless by paying for views and im just concentrate on other things like my merch store now.
If you know about how record labels were manipulating jukeboxes back in the day and radio stations more recently to get songs on the number one chart onto certain places for certain amounts time It's always been a thing and now that it's streaming of course they're in it
@@Woozy.0 what does that have to do with the fire shit he got you act like a ninja got a be fan of the person it’s just music either way that goes for any artist
@@Woozy.0 nah Nav was never doing Mac and cheese mix tapes and coke boys sound Tbh I don’t really know who I can pin as Nav type of music like that but Nav do go hard. th-cam.com/video/XfzqnKcoEx8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=VuaYOoBLL-dzE8_r this French was for the streets like I said new French is for the masses to try to make generational money that’s all. th-cam.com/video/FDep8HpxSJM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=kJ172sMY1DXvEidm
This why music is so fake nowadays! Ppl go off popularity looks rather than authenticity of an artists or bands emotional connection with the music they create. When it’s abt the numbers, music is led by money!
I think one of the easiest ways to see and observe this is when an artist will pop up on my recommendation list on Spotify...i enjoy the track, then i look up the artist on google and they ain't got any other music at all. It's like they're an AI rapper or something. So strange.
PayPal also includes media coverage. Your favourite’s label might have paid for them to be on the cover of a magazine, especially smaller print pubs because they don’t have the money yet
Back in the day, major labels would buy bulk copies of their artists albums within the first day or so of the release to make it appear as though the artist went gold or platinum in sales on the first day of release and in hopes that the hype of that would cause more real fans to go buy the album. It got out because some of those sales were being processed a day before the album release (without a presale), so it made it obvious on who obvious on who else could be buying the album except the label themselves. It was common malpractice amongst major labels, but if I remember correctly, I think Clive Davis was one of them that got caught. Anyhow, it was definitely in the news and in online articles. This was in the early 2000’s, maybe even late 90’s.
i feel like its so weird nowerdays as well, sometimes an artist wont even buy the streams but the bots are still there as soon as the track drops. I’tslike the bots have a hold of accounts already set up somehow.
This has been going on for so long… Funds and venture capitalists do the exact same with stocks and financial assets by moving substantial amounts of said assets. This is not stopping nor is it easy to completely prove how illegal it is on the music industry specifically.
My boy Matty - we gotta introduce you to “The Wire” and a character by the name of Omar my friend. You’re really going to appreciate Michael K. Williams then. R.I.P to a real one. 💜
My work plays one of dj kahled's new songs every hour every day, the system just pops it in the list. Asking around I was told he made a deal with the company. I'm so tired of hearing it.
It's no surprise in my opinion how big artists are getting exposed for botting streams. I feel about 90% of 'mainstream' artists bot their plays to make them look more influential than they are. Roughly 10-15% of plays are likely botted so it isn't like they are losing a huge margin, but a decent enough margin that could throw them off some deals/opinions.
Best way to help artists is to go to shows and buy their merch from their merch stands. That’s the closest you can get to giving money directly to the artist.
Here's to the payouts: Spotify calculates their payouts based on how many subscribers they have - and then obviously how many plays the songs have. Let's assume Spotify had 10mil subscribers and makes 100M$ that way. 50% of that goes to artists - 50M$ Now these 50M$ get distributed to all the songs. So if there is a total of 50M monthly Streams, every stream is worth 1$. If now one song gets botted the fuck out and sits at 10M alone, leading the total streams to 60M, every stream is only worth like 0.8$, making every non-botted song losing out on money. Hope this makes sense, btw yes this is far from the real numbers and only rounded up in my head (actual streams paying out like 0.004$ max) just to get the point across.
As they 1up each other they're digging the hole deeper. Soon the barrier to entry will be so high you cant get noticed. On top of that, at some point if theyre steadily increasing theyre going to exceed real people streaming. Then theyre in the negative. This could make the music industry implode.
honestly , i'm curious if this is also applied to the kpop industry. i know that the fans are extremely dedicated to streams , either on yt or spotify. artists like bts , blackpink (and their solo work) have reached astronomical numbers in hours ( lisa's solo has received 73.6 million views within 24 hours, breaking the record for the most-viewed music video in a single day from a soloist ) .
Definitely bp. Since K-pop groups are signing with American labels now, I imagine at least those groups and the big three kpop companies use streaming farms. Bts probably fakes a some streams but considering how both these groups can fill out concerts with real people, their popularity is still real compared to other artists that fake their streams
Keep track of ya music and the real supporters that are your cult fans and never cheat yourself stay organic and build from the ground up and most importantly make good music they'll find you🤘🏾💯
the music I listen to is so niche that big numbers have never reeled me in. so this shit truly has no affect on me. The general population has no taste
Let’s also just remember that every smaller artist that pays for playlisting is a part of a playlist that the curator most likely put bigger songs in too!!! So that means when they are faking smaller artists streams it also is going towards those bigger songs too. Faking everybodys streams
I wasn’t even signed and I did a pay to promote thing. All fake streams. The guy made it seem like he had this sophisticated business plan for my song and how he was gonna market it with his team. Threw him $100 to get me 2K streams lmfao. He lives in Sweden and this was clearly his side hustle. Insta profile was full of a bunch of expensive watches, clothes, sightseeing in Sweden, etc… I knew it was fake when I emailed him three times telling him I have yet to see any plays and that it had been over a month, well past the deadline. He shot me an email back, told me not to worry, and by 3 PM that day, I already shot up $1K plays. The way it spiked was so obviously fake, I can’t believe this guy thought I believed it.
Lil Tay did the same thing with her song. Randomly started playing on my Spotify when I was driving listening to a completely different song, hacking users to get plays it’s crazy!
Yeah Michael Kenneth Williams died two years ago. Great actor, he was in The wire and Boardwalk Empire. Don't tell me you haven't watched the wire matty.
This can be easily explained by the labels and/or artists. It's simply a new form of marketing/advertising in the climate in which we currently exist (online streaming/social media). It's much cheaper than traditional marketing/advertising as well. You'll get many more eyes and ears this way. Gotta keep up with the times. It makes perfect sense.
I can believe it tho. He’s not relevant and entirely overhyped . Even JCole is depressed because he knows this about himself it’s very obvious he’s faking it
This is so sad man... its minor right now, but we are kind of witnessing the slow death of an art form. Money and capitalism are taking away the good things in life.
I saw another video a while back talking about how artists get killed off by the music industry for their insurance and to own their music and stuff like that. In fact bob Dylan once said he still makes music so that he is more valuable to the industry alive than dead. And it's a little suss that the guy that made the documentary died and the documentary got taken down. I'd be careful posting this stuff.
I’d say the biggest scam in the music industry is the industry itself. The way it’s set up from top to bottom is built to scam as much money from artists as possible. But, that’s just my opinion.
I get basically no streams or listens attempting to do the shit the right way but at what point does it get better the music I make is therapeutic I write my feelings and shit and make it an expression of myself but I feel like I’m only doing it for myself I wanna share what I do id rather have a failed career vs one built on lies and fake shit
Best in some ways, worst in other ways. Some of the best, brightest, and most unique music out there has been released in the last decade, but it's sometimes difficult to sift through all the stuff being promoted to get to it.
A Brazilian singer, Anitta, did this and also used her fans to pump the streams putting her song “Envolver” reaching number 1 song globally in spotting.
Great video Matty!! Really enjoyed this and it got me thinking - I can't remember what music app a few years ago, kept showing i was streaming a song - one i didn't like or enjoy. At the end of the year,bit was my mist streamed song- you got me thinking now 🤔
Spotify deleted 2 songs of mine falsely accusing me of using fake streaming. When I just played my own music in MY OWN COMPUTER!!! It’s scary. I can’t play and support my own creation??
Artists stream farm due to a variety of reasons but the biggest reason is because most platforms have a system that detects 3rd party account connections deeming paid botted views to be demonetized. When stream farmers use multiple devices, they’re using real accounts, it doesn’t get detected as a bot account or to a 3rd party app so they can make money off of the stream farm plays. Just food for thought.
It’s not the artist, it’s the labels! The Al label is making all the money with streams, so they are the ones who are faking streams! Not one artist knows how to code!
This problem isn't just confined to the music industry. The New York Times bestseller list for books is 90% books that were purchased in mass quantities by the publisher.
Damn as a somewhat fan of G-Eazy, it kinda sucks that his team was faking his streams on his music because I always felt he had a solid fanbase and didn’t need to do that
As a artist who cant even get more then a couple hundred plays on songs i release i can say them 100 plays mean way more to me then 1,000s of fake plays could ever mean. I do this to express my self and no other motive and unfortunately in music and most forms of art this dosnt exist anymore
Wow that's actually a really good point. Kind of like how one good friend is worth more than a million NPCs.
“One good girl is worth a thousand bitches” -Ye
i have a friend who says the same | i tell him that he then should not complain about no success and my logic is that you should be a mass manipulator that is social engineering | if all just like bangers or radio songs with a catchy melody, then you, if you like to have money, have to follow the market or be up front | you might be up front without realizing with your own style but rather dont gamble on this - force your luck
btw, i see it as one of the most hard tasks - wish you good
@@realmcafeethe format of your comment hurts
unfortunately, even if you do want to get popular legitimately you have to get fake plays and streams to some degree just to even get noticed and in the algorithm in the first place. but then again I found one of my favourite rappers xavy rusan because he DMd me on instagram asking to check his music out when he had a few hundred views which would probably be the digital version of handing your cd out in public and he ended up blowing up with a million views because a popular creator used his song in an animation about a popular video game.
I laughed when J Cole came out of no where and said "question"😂
Yo what’s up louaista
@louaista is the type of homie to laugh when an artist such as J Cole comes out of no where and states "question"😂
Hey louaista
I laughed when J Fold apologized to his fans for trying to sneak diss Kendrick. Instead of to Kendrick
@@louaista you both should do a collab, i watched both of y'all back to back when i discovered y'all at the same time
We already found out record labels were willing to buy radio plays and most times the artists had no clue, so I don't see how they could deny this one when theyve already shown us theyre willing and capable
Lol I remember that drama. Takes me back to a simpler times.
Yea, I mean was that even hidden though? I thought it was openly common to buy radio plays, bc u want ur song on that radio
Yes this is why so many songs were overplayed on the radio, even when the artist would have better songs out there on their newer albums.
It always puzzled me why radios would play the same 10 songs over and over again, until i put two and two together and realized that labels were literally paying them per play for the songs they released and wanted popularized.
Even TH-cam does it. I had an account to where random music videos of artists I would NEVER listen to would end up in my video history. It was so bad that I could continuously refresh my history and new vids would keep popping up
That’s the preview function. If you hover over a video for too long it will add it to your history cause you were watching it
@@arasuka6889 if I’m the only one with access to my account and I wake up after a long nights sleep and not using my TH-cam and go to my history to see that 50+ moneybagg yo songs are in my recently watched how is that not botted/stolen views
4:20 Michael K. Williams was better known as a highly celebrated and critically aclaimed actor. May he keep resting in peace
People think just because Omar’s not coming anymore they can call him whatever they want.
i was astounded when he referred to him as "documentary maker michael k. williams" XD [although i do love all the ones he made.] he had such a natural ease & talent talking to people. taken way too soon.
Kind of alarming how mattyballz didn't really seem to know who Michael was or that he had passed.
@@lonellfletcherI'm not surprised. I watch a lot of TH-cam docs and many of them can't seem to do a simple IMDB search.
i just dont watch tv, dont know any actors. but ill check out the wire cus ppl seem to love it!
As music, I can confirm our industry is very much corrupt
What isn’t corrupt nowadays
French faking stream isn’t surprising, the fact he ever gained popularity is what’s surprising. Dude is trash.
@@5.56NATOyour local ice cream guy
@@5.56NATO cats
@@5.56NATO😐
I know that many people complained about your voice being monotone. Over a short period of time, I’ve seen you improve that. I just want you to know that there’s nothing wrong with how your voice sounds. However, because your genre is commentary/doc I do love how you inflect and project your voice. It’s very comforting
thanks!
A large part of my enjoyment of these is your cool and relaxed speaking style. I like it a lot more than overly affected speakers and it pairs well with your sense of humor. I still go back and watch the Biden T-Shirt Promo a lot 😂
You sound fine
paid actor
@@mattyballz First time viewer and I actually enjoy your voice. Very relaxing with great enunciation and speed of speaking.
I worked with a record label during the MySpace days and we would use software to run up our bands plays so that they would stay on MySpace's Top 100 list. I personally did this for several bands including an artist that was on MTV's Making the Band.
Exactly!!! So you know and I know they fake their streams lol
@AnAdorableWombat1 Absolutely. This was around 2009 and the program we used could even switch IP addresses. I'd add about 500 unique IP addresses, tell it to create 50 to 100k plays and come back in about 8 hours. You have people right now with millions of steams on Spotify and they are playing club dates with barely 500 people.
That’s crazy to me. So none of this is new. Wow…lol
@Markaylaa0 I can go even further. Sometimes, when you see a bigger artist on a tour package, the smaller or supporting artist on that package paid the artist or their management to take them out on tour. I was working with a band that was really starting to get some buzz, but we couldn't get them on any big shows to expand the audience. Label head called me and told me we needed to pay a specific band to take them out. I had a relationship with the band. One of my best friends was the guitarist, but the singer hated them and felt threatened by their buzz, so he kept saying no even though everyone else agreed to the tour. I offered to pay them because I knew they were broke. He threw out a ridiculous amount of money. I called the label and told him how much. He had his lawyer draft the contract and wired the money into the bands account. We announced the tour and people were fighting to book the dates. Now we ended up canceling the tour and I personally lost over 10 grand dealing with "diva artists" but there is a lot going on behind the scenes in music.
I used to do this too. Had the number one artist page at one point by doing it but they banned me right after lol
Lil baby had hit over hit over a little while back and tried to go on tour and had to cancel multiple shows due to low ticket sales, makes sense.
This 😂 embarrassing
Yeah I remember this, super embarrassing
"THE MACHINE" that labels have is just a streaming farm, but if you REALLY have the ability to gain fans organically at the same time, nobody notices.
Lil baby his 2020 album “my turn” is still on the billboard 100 albums selling like 15k + every week. Thats not fake.
I think that tour flopped because he is just not that interesting in person, a lazy performer, and most people wont want to be around his general audience.
@@conke7765yeah, I can see this being the reason. A lot of modern rappers just aren’t interesting performers and it’s especially disheartening that a lot of them barely even rap during shows, but mainly sing over canned vocals.
The reason for fake streams and followers in music isn’t just for attention from strangers. It’s negotiating power. Artists and DJs get more opportunity based on their numbers. It dictates if you’re opening, headlining or even getting booked at all. When new artists approach booking agents and labels the first thing they ask about is your streaming/social media numbers. Artist development is dead. They look for established acts which is why people fake their numbers for opportunity. The illusion of popularity online matters more to industry people than the actual music.
Exactly bro! I make music myself and it’s pretty good but labels wouldnt dare look my way because of social media numbers. Shit wicked out here
Appreciate you covering my Twitter situation. Love bro!
I SAW the Chad Focus documentary with Michael K Williams and it really blew my mind. Being an artist myself it's kind of empowering to see someone who's blowing up like that.
French Montana also used bot streams to make Unforgettable diamond certified
🎯🎯✅️
Payola is common practice in radio and TV, so it is absolutely normal that labels pay for streams
Common practice and illegal. So yeah of course they are legally buying streams and doing anything they can to exploit the system
It made me happy to see Michael K Williams in a clip, RIP
Saw that bit and I shouted, "that's Omar! 😂
i cringed a little at "vice documentary maker" but it was good to see him again for a sec lol
@@nononononononononoonono me too a bit but I’m definitely biased considering he played my favorite character in my favorite show ever
Shi like this is why i like youtubers who make videos about “watching a music video with 0 views” or “listening to a song with 0 plays” cause they arent following the rest of the world and doin exploring songs for themselves not for what they see everyone else play
Still got a long way to go in my career but I ran up over a million streams with no manipulation. Keep working y’all ❤
I keep having Doja Cat “paint the town red” on Spotify, I never searched for the song, don’t want to listen to Doja cat but Spotify keep pushing her songs you can’t escape them even if you don’t want to listen to them, i heard her song hundreds of times all against my will.
might wanna check whoever uses your account
thanks for doing research on this, this has been around forever
Great video! As an artist I appreciate this FRFR!!!
Never been to a Matty video so fast and I'm hyped about it ❤
You do some intense research for your vids no doubt, big respect!
As a artist on the come up. I appreciate genuine views because it keeps us connected as a community. There’s no integrity in the music now a days, everyone is trying to make music and it’s too over saturated with nonsense and shady people who don’t want to use their powers to help the right people. Too much greed. If I gotta take the longer route to keep the actual love for my work and to have fans who care about quality then so be it. At least they know they are valued by me when they give me a listen.
What’s ur artist handle?
❤️🔥
Tea i wanna know too
@@killertaquito27Big Cousin. Search “Blue Money Ft Stalley”
Proud of you matty i remember when you just had 20k subscribers keep up the good work
20k alot when u cant get past 86 subs in 10 years when u haven't paid like me.
@@SkyGlizzyRecordsyour rapping style needs work bro I almost fell asleep. Also rapping is way different than being a TH-camr
@@brianboyle9330 I'm retired after my 38th album. That diss record I dropped was mainly for clout. This is not my OAC on this 1 here.
I was making a point that he probably paid for his subs and talking about rappers that did the same thing. But yall do what u want. Like I said I'm retired from music now bcuz people made my art form worthless by paying for views and im just concentrate on other things like my merch store now.
If you know about how record labels were manipulating jukeboxes back in the day and radio stations more recently to get songs on the number one chart onto certain places for certain amounts time It's always been a thing and now that it's streaming of course they're in it
Keep up the great work Matty! I feel like you could do a whole video on who is actually listening to French Montana 😅
The streets we listen to his mixtapes
@@InsaiyanTech I'm glad I left the streets lol that guy is a clown
@@Woozy.0 what does that have to do with the fire shit he got you act like a ninja got a be fan of the person it’s just music either way that goes for any artist
@@InsaiyanTech no offense to you for liking his music bro, he's just like the previous generations version of Nav
@@Woozy.0 nah Nav was never doing Mac and cheese mix tapes and coke boys sound Tbh I don’t really know who I can pin as Nav type of music like that but Nav do go hard.
th-cam.com/video/XfzqnKcoEx8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=VuaYOoBLL-dzE8_r this French was for the streets like I said new French is for the masses to try to make generational money that’s all.
th-cam.com/video/FDep8HpxSJM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=kJ172sMY1DXvEidm
dude it seems like your channel is popping off here recently! very well deserved my dude love the vids!
Michael K Williams had a major role in the show The Wire, I recommend watching it
This why music is so fake nowadays! Ppl go off popularity looks rather than authenticity of an artists or bands emotional connection with the music they create. When it’s abt the numbers, music is led by money!
I think one of the easiest ways to see and observe this is when an artist will pop up on my recommendation list on Spotify...i enjoy the track, then i look up the artist on google and they ain't got any other music at all. It's like they're an AI rapper or something. So strange.
PayPal also includes media coverage. Your favourite’s label might have paid for them to be on the cover of a magazine, especially smaller print pubs because they don’t have the money yet
Inde artist here. The solution is to buy our art directly. We make more that way that we ever do streaming
banger vid like always dude
Back in the day, major labels would buy bulk copies of their artists albums within the first day or so of the release to make it appear as though the artist went gold or platinum in sales on the first day of release and in hopes that the hype of that would cause more real fans to go buy the album. It got out because some of those sales were being processed a day before the album release (without a presale), so it made it obvious on who obvious on who else could be buying the album except the label themselves. It was common malpractice amongst major labels, but if I remember correctly, I think Clive Davis was one of them that got caught. Anyhow, it was definitely in the news and in online articles. This was in the early 2000’s, maybe even late 90’s.
The fact that there's sites that you can pay to bot your streams is crazy. That should be illegal....it really should be
Excellent content and commentary 💎
i feel like its so weird nowerdays as well, sometimes an artist wont even buy the streams but the bots are still there as soon as the track drops. I’tslike the bots have a hold of accounts already set up somehow.
Nope, those are still bots being bought. If they're there, then they were paid for by somebody to be there.
Finally bro. I’ve been waiting for you to get a draftking sponsorship. I didn’t wanna sign up until I could use your code for a free $5.
😂😂😂
Major bot
This has been going on for so long…
Funds and venture capitalists do the exact same with stocks and financial assets by moving substantial amounts of said assets.
This is not stopping nor is it easy to completely prove how illegal it is on the music industry specifically.
Whoever said name five French Montana songs changed my life 😂
My boy Matty - we gotta introduce you to “The Wire” and a character by the name of Omar my friend. You’re really going to appreciate Michael K. Williams then. R.I.P to a real one. 💜
My work plays one of dj kahled's new songs every hour every day, the system just pops it in the list. Asking around I was told he made a deal with the company. I'm so tired of hearing it.
It's no surprise in my opinion how big artists are getting exposed for botting streams. I feel about 90% of 'mainstream' artists bot their plays to make them look more influential than they are. Roughly 10-15% of plays are likely botted so it isn't like they are losing a huge margin, but a decent enough margin that could throw them off some deals/opinions.
Best way to help artists is to go to shows and buy their merch from their merch stands. That’s the closest you can get to giving money directly to the artist.
Here's to the payouts:
Spotify calculates their payouts based on how many subscribers they have - and then obviously how many plays the songs have.
Let's assume Spotify had 10mil subscribers and makes 100M$ that way.
50% of that goes to artists - 50M$
Now these 50M$ get distributed to all the songs.
So if there is a total of 50M monthly Streams, every stream is worth 1$.
If now one song gets botted the fuck out and sits at 10M alone, leading the total streams to 60M, every stream is only worth like 0.8$, making every non-botted song losing out on money.
Hope this makes sense, btw yes this is far from the real numbers and only rounded up in my head (actual streams paying out like 0.004$ max) just to get the point across.
As they 1up each other they're digging the hole deeper. Soon the barrier to entry will be so high you cant get noticed. On top of that, at some point if theyre steadily increasing theyre going to exceed real people streaming. Then theyre in the negative. This could make the music industry implode.
honestly , i'm curious if this is also applied to the kpop industry. i know that the fans are extremely dedicated to streams , either on yt or spotify. artists like bts , blackpink (and their solo work) have reached astronomical numbers in hours ( lisa's solo has received 73.6 million views within 24 hours, breaking the record for the most-viewed music video in a single day from a soloist ) .
Definitely bp. Since K-pop groups are signing with American labels now, I imagine at least those groups and the big three kpop companies use streaming farms. Bts probably fakes a some streams but considering how both these groups can fill out concerts with real people, their popularity is still real compared to other artists that fake their streams
Had the same thing happen with a new drake video. Literally just randomly started playing.
Keep track of ya music and the real supporters that are your cult fans and never cheat yourself stay organic and build from the ground up and most importantly make good music they'll find you🤘🏾💯
the music I listen to is so niche that big numbers have never reeled me in. so this shit truly has no affect on me. The general population has no taste
I definitely listen to more niche music than you do lol.
Let’s also just remember that every smaller artist that pays for playlisting is a part of a playlist that the curator most likely put bigger songs in too!!! So that means when they are faking smaller artists streams it also is going towards those bigger songs too. Faking everybodys streams
im germany this has been a topic for like 6 years
the common excuse for these artists is that someone else bought them to harm them
Draft kings is a scam
Man's gotta make money, I guess.😂
100%
how
Gambling isn't a scam lmao it's the definition of "gamble" you know you're risking to win.
Na you just don’t know what you’re doing.
I wasn’t even signed and I did a pay to promote thing. All fake streams. The guy made it seem like he had this sophisticated business plan for my song and how he was gonna market it with his team. Threw him $100 to get me 2K streams lmfao. He lives in Sweden and this was clearly his side hustle. Insta profile was full of a bunch of expensive watches, clothes, sightseeing in Sweden, etc…
I knew it was fake when I emailed him three times telling him I have yet to see any plays and that it had been over a month, well past the deadline. He shot me an email back, told me not to worry, and by 3 PM that day, I already shot up $1K plays. The way it spiked was so obviously fake, I can’t believe this guy thought I believed it.
Lil Tay did the same thing with her song. Randomly started playing on my Spotify when I was driving listening to a completely different song, hacking users to get plays it’s crazy!
mattyB coming out with the exposé banger!!
Basically the practice of paying to boost an artist's music isn't new, just evolved over time.
You can silence the phones so you don't hear all of them playing songs lol....
There’s a lot of evidence that ppl are faking streams but a lot of hip hop albums but pretty/semi big artists can’t sell above 40-50k 🤷🏻♂️
Matt thank you for blessing us 🙏🏿
Yeah Michael Kenneth Williams died two years ago. Great actor, he was in The wire and Boardwalk Empire. Don't tell me you haven't watched the wire matty.
ummmm. i’ll add it to my watch list lol
The Wire is top tier
That’s why physical copies are much superior.
True
Unfortunately, people can manipulate those too.
Matty always coming in clutch 🫡
Michael K Williams was an accomplished actor and not just a vice employee. I know you didn’t mean disrespect, just don’t want him to go out like that.
💯
Agreed. Loved The Wire
6:44 Sooooo... Hacking people's accounts to give pity streams? Can't wait to see how low the bar sinks next year if possible.
This can be easily explained by the labels and/or artists. It's simply a new form of marketing/advertising in the climate in which we currently exist (online streaming/social media). It's much cheaper than traditional marketing/advertising as well. You'll get many more eyes and ears this way. Gotta keep up with the times. It makes perfect sense.
I can't believe j Cole faked his streams 😢
I can believe it tho. He’s not relevant and entirely overhyped . Even JCole is depressed because he knows this about himself it’s very obvious he’s faking it
You can tell by the shows they do if artist always at rolling loud but not headlining they own show you who faking you can’t the fake shows
This is so sad man... its minor right now, but we are kind of witnessing the slow death of an art form. Money and capitalism are taking away the good things in life.
"Vice documentary maker Michael K Williams"
I laughed out loud. cmon man
hyped to see this one
They need to eliminate view count and subscriber counts for every platform in everyway ... Force the people to think for themselves!
Im glad you brought Kosher up because hes " BLOWING UP" but his shows are full of tiny audiences
BLP Kosher fire in my opinion. So even if his streams/views were fake, I wouldn't mind having his music playing in the background.
Mathaniel B came in with another banger! Thanks for another vid, been a while.
I remember when Matty has 4-5k subs. The growth is insane! Congrats!
Damn found you when you had the first Hyperpop video now you doing big shit keep it up dawg
Great content Matty 😊❤
I saw another video a while back talking about how artists get killed off by the music industry for their insurance and to own their music and stuff like that. In fact bob Dylan once said he still makes music so that he is more valuable to the industry alive than dead.
And it's a little suss that the guy that made the documentary died and the documentary got taken down. I'd be careful posting this stuff.
This scam being revealed this year got these MFs sweating LOL. Once Russ talked about it, the cat was out the bag.
Nicki exposed it w/ cardi and it seems like sense she said this, you literally watched the music industry take a drastic decline
@@destinixshakur smh
can’t say i didn’t see this coming tbh
If I ever become a time traveler this video will be my go to proof in my visits to the past lol
I’d say the biggest scam in the music industry is the industry itself. The way it’s set up from top to bottom is built to scam as much money from artists as possible. But, that’s just my opinion.
I get basically no streams or listens attempting to do the shit the right way but at what point does it get better the music I make is therapeutic I write my feelings and shit and make it an expression of myself but I feel like I’m only doing it for myself I wanna share what I do id rather have a failed career vs one built on lies and fake shit
We are currently living in the worst generation of music
Best in some ways, worst in other ways. Some of the best, brightest, and most unique music out there has been released in the last decade, but it's sometimes difficult to sift through all the stuff being promoted to get to it.
A Brazilian singer, Anitta, did this and also used her fans to pump the streams putting her song “Envolver” reaching number 1 song globally in spotting.
I share an account with my girlfriend, saw her listening to this one day and asked her but she said she didn't listen to French Montana
Also preciate the shoutout and the share! #nolabelsnecessary
Finally a new mattyballz video
Great video Matty!! Really enjoyed this and it got me thinking - I can't remember what music app a few years ago, kept showing i was streaming a song - one i didn't like or enjoy. At the end of the year,bit was my mist streamed song- you got me thinking now 🤔
Spotify deleted 2 songs of mine falsely accusing me of using fake streaming. When I just played my own music in MY OWN COMPUTER!!! It’s scary. I can’t play and support my own creation??
Matty dropping the best videos
Artists stream farm due to a variety of reasons but the biggest reason is because most platforms have a system that detects 3rd party account connections deeming paid botted views to be demonetized. When stream farmers use multiple devices, they’re using real accounts, it doesn’t get detected as a bot account or to a 3rd party app so they can make money off of the stream farm plays. Just food for thought.
It’s not the artist, it’s the labels! The Al label is making all the money with streams, so they are the ones who are faking streams! Not one artist knows how to code!
Stream farms are common knowledge. They have rooms with hundreds of phones snd computers where they play songs repeatedly
Rockstar with 21 was pure fire
This problem isn't just confined to the music industry. The New York Times bestseller list for books is 90% books that were purchased in mass quantities by the publisher.
My guy are you making videos from prison? We making it out the penitentiary with this one 👌
‘Run like Omar coming yo’
Michael K Williams was extremely talented. Put The Wire on your watch list 👍
Damn as a somewhat fan of G-Eazy, it kinda sucks that his team was faking his streams on his music because I always felt he had a solid fanbase and didn’t need to do that
00000000000000000000000000000000000
Batman wouldn’t be able to beat that out of me
you must be White who the fuck is a G-Eazy fan
Bro Michael K Williams was a whole actor🤣🤣 The Wire, The Sopranos, he was in mad shit.