Yet the same acts barely had any other internet presence – including zero social media credentials – and their names did not appear on any other music services (save for fans of their music ripping their songs off Spotify and uploading them to YouTube). Each had only uploaded a handful of songs to their profile, all of which achieved very prevalent placings in first-party Spotify “mood” or “activity” playlists – such as Deep Focus, Sleep or Peaceful Piano, which count millions of followers on the platform. There were a number of suspicious elements to these acts. The exposé listed 50 artists we suspected were fictional, and who, it was speculated, were playing a key role in a money-saving exercise by Spotify. Two summers ago, Music Business Worldwide ran a report on “f ake artists” appearing on Spotify, which caused ripples across the global music industry.

The frontman appeared to hint that the Pistols – for many, the purest distillation of the punk aesthetic – may have been flirting with artifice all along.įast-forward to the streaming-dominated music industry of 2019, and Rotten’s pugnacious kiss-off doesn’t only sound depressingly prophetic – it’s actually become a business model.

That classic line, delivered by Johnny Rotten in January 1978 during The Sex Pistols’ farewell show at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom, remains the stuff of legend. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

Who are the top spotify artists