As a rule all charts should be taken with a grain of salt. You have to remember that up until the 70s/80s the music industry was pretty openly run by the mafia (yes the actual mafia), so bribery and chart manipulation has always been part of the music industry.

Take the RIAA and certifications for instance. During the days of physical sales, the certifications were not actually based on unit sales (nobody was keeping exact count in the pre-computer days), but on units shipped. It was not uncommon for record companies to have back room deals with record stores where a million units would ship first week, and the store would hold unsold units past the return/refund date in the written distribution agreement, and the label would still honor the return. But, by that point, the reporting period will have passed to qualify the record as Platinum even though it only actually sold like 600k units. 

 

And let's not even start with radio, especially post clear channel. As for streaming, Young Thug confessed to botting Gunna's album first week in order to block Abel from #1 (which he did). I would be shocked if that isn't a common practice among record labels. And with stuff like autoplay in the mix you know **** is going down.

Not al all. They are so obviously fake.

Nope. It's probably 'conspiracy brain', but I've been convinced for a while now that numbers are being manipulated (this is not specific to any artist). Admittedly it's not really based on anything other than the fact that in an era where the most important thing is how much $$$ is being generated;  there's no way labels aren't cheating when the algorithm allows them to manipulate things to a bigger extent than ever before. 
 

Yes, radio is still sketchy too. Two things can be true. 

Streaming is definitely manipulated but all forms of consumption are. I actually think it's the most reliable model we have seen to date. Unlike pre-2010s, we can see the actual listening habits of the general public. There was no way to track recurrent consumption during the physical and digital eras, people would just stream the iTunes file or spin their CD. And when I say recurrent consumption, I literally mean consumption outside of the initial purchase.

 

Nowadays, we also get to see how much people are actually engaging (or not engaging) with bodies of work. You can see which albums people are mostly listening to for one or two songs versus which are being streamed in full. Before streaming, you couldn't know which sales happened because someone wanted to listen to just one or two songs or not.
 

Also, there's one good way to look at streaming critically and deduce your own opinions on what you think is manipulated or not. See which songs, albums, and artists have consistent consumption across different streaming platforms. Spotify and Amazon are the easiest to manipulative due to autoplay and Alexa. For example, some songs which are already top 30 most streamed Spotify were barely top 500 on that Apple Music list. That's… sort of questionable, even if the platform has decreased in popularity post-COVID era. 
 

TL;DR yes I trust streaming numbers overall, but not blindly and there are undeniable issues like with any method of consumption. I just think this is the most reliable to date. Although, the argument on if streaming is as "impressive" or "valuable" is another discussion entirely.

Nope I don't trust them much

 

I trust only when other data matches streaming numbers. Like for Taylor her playlisting is low but her numbers are always consistent across all platforms.

 

 

Bruno Mars is one of the most autoplayed artist currently,  if you have noticed every month one of his older hit will rise and other will decrease drastically. 

 

Billie's BOAF as much as I love it and a massive hit , it's on track to dethrone BL due to massive autoplay.  So you are telling me it's bigger than BL?? Nope just autoplay is consistent 

 

DWAS is another such case , massive but heavy autoplayed and playlisted thanks to Bruno. ( Not blaming Gaga here)

 

Tate McDonalds is another such artist , every month they try to push her on autoplay 

 

 

if you remove streaming and website digital sales BTS wouldn't be here today... so no, I don't trust it x

There are some obvious outliers like that nauseatingly fraudulent Jin song that's in Top 5 somehow () or some catalog songs gaining or losing randomly every month or so but for the most part, they reflect real-time consumption. The only ones who completely disregard streaming as a bogus method of consumption are those whose faves are either struggling to transition into the streaming era or who have been rendered obsolete by the GP a long time ago and it's evident every time this discussion is brought up.

 

It's also no worse in manipulation tactics than say, radio, that literally resulted in coinage of the term "payola". Sure, methods like Autoplay are also a form of manipulation by trying to shove songs down people's throats that they normally wouldn't listen to but listeners can always skip and choose to play something else (Spotify for instance, doesn't count a stream as valid till the first 30 secs are played) unlike radio where songs that have been payola'd by the record label remain in heavy rotation despite low callout scores/streams and those airplay points count towards the charts.

 

39 minutes ago, BorderBoy said:

How can you say you don't know about her career and say she's fairly local? Gurl is huge in Latin America, Spain and some parts of the US so..

I meant local to those places. And when's the last time she had success or a known hit with the GP in the US? I didn't mean it in a derogatory way 

21 minutes ago, FolkLover1989 said:

Nope I don't trust them much

 

I trust only when other data matches streaming numbers. Like for Taylor her playlisting is low but her numbers are always consistent across all platforms.

 

 

Bruno Mars is one of the most autoplayed artist currently,  if you have noticed every month one of his older hit will rise and other will decrease drastically. 

 

Billie's BOAF as much as I love it and a massive hit , it's on track to dethrone BL due to massive autoplay.  So you are telling me it's bigger than BL?? Nope just autoplay is consistent 

 

DWAS is another such case , massive but heavy autoplayed and playlisted thanks to Bruno. ( Not blaming Gaga here)

 

Tate McDonalds is another such artist , every month they try to push her on autoplay 

 

 

Talking about autoplay hits, you missed Cruel Summer sis.

Demon Hunters is the new Encanto / Frozen so I don't think we should be surprised by its domination, not to mention that it's still #1 on Global Netflix.

Why does anyone give a **** lowkey? Just listen and enjoy, not everything's gotta be sportsified. 

4 minutes ago, Stuart said:

Demon Hunters is the new Encanto / Frozen so I don't think we should be surprised by its domination, not to mention that it's still #1 on Global Netflix.

netflix also lie about their numbers btw 

Since it is proven there are streaming farms then no, I dont

 

 

14 minutes ago, mike_int said:

Since it is proven there are streaming farms then no, I dont

since Spotify have both filtered and unfiltered numbers, so I believe it. 

it's not perfect but pls at least we have those numbers. we all know the biggest fraudulence was happening until 1991, all of those „best sellers" and their fraudulent „records sold" 

 

"The magazine used a survey method, in which staff members called record stores and retail outlets all over the U.S. and took the managers' word on what had been selling during the past week.

At best, the system was flawed. A clerk could have a bad memory or a bias for or against certain artists. Some managers likely skewed their answers based on what stock they had and the money they could make. (If you've got dozens of unsold copies of Slippery When Wet in the racks, why not claim that's the best-seller?) In addition, the stores would omit so-called genre albums – country, alternative, hip-hop, metal – when it came to reporting for the overall album chart, even if those discs had outsold mainstream pop albums.

At worst, the methods were susceptible to fraud. Record label representatives "encouraged" store clerks to over-report sales to Billboard by visiting with armloads of gifts. It was another form of payola."

 

1 hour ago, Infernal Paradise said:

The only ones who completely disregard streaming as a bogus method of consumption are those whose faves are either struggling to transition into the streaming era or who have been rendered obsolete by the GP a long time ago and it's evident every time this discussion is brought up.

it's hilarious cause they have no problem with pre nielsen scan physical sales when that's when the real manipulation happened 

2 hours ago, K$Ellie said:

One Of The Girls is the most obvious example, like you're not gonna convince me that was a smash fff

I hear that song everywhere tho, that's def a smash hit

As others have said, obviously all consumption is manipulated by the industry. Streaming is probably the most accurate consumption ever, though. Things were even shadier pre-soundscan. 

Course not

Definitely not. Born this way album is a great example of obvious fake streams.

2 hours ago, Saturno said:

Talking about autoplay hits, you missed Cruel Summer sis.

And it was not autoplayed. The biggest tour of all time helped it. 

Edited September 21, 2025Sep 21 by Calvin

well obviously some songs' streams are manipulated and others aren't let's just say that

2 hours ago, Saturno said:

Talking about autoplay hits, you missed Cruel Summer sis.

Oh I wish it was 

46 minutes ago, Calvin said:

And it was not heavily autoplayed. The biggest tour of all time helped it. 

Actually it wasn't autoplayed at all

 

The streams of that song are literally proportional to Eras Tour 

2 hours ago, DivaCup said:

I meant local to those places. And when's the last time she had success or a known hit with the GP in the US? I didn't mean it in a derogatory way 

I didn't think you meant it in a derogatory way so no worries.

 

She never actually hit a smash hit in the US but she did try to crossover in 2002 with Border Girl album and it charted at #11 on Billboard while the lead single Don't Say Goodbye hit #41 on Billboard as well. But she's popular among the Latin community in the US even with her Spanish-language music.

Edited September 21, 2025Sep 21 by BorderBoy