It look like Spotify might be making changes to their artists pages by removing the “monthly listeners” stats.
This was first pointed out by Kurrco on X (formerly Twitter), who cited Playboi Carti’s page which, in a screenshot, did not show the rapper’s “monthly listeners” where it normally does. I took a look at Spotify for myself and I can still see Carti’s stats (49.4 million monthly listeners), but it could be something in a beta testing.
Not all spotify accounts are reflecting this change
Interestingly, rapper/producer RUSS previously shared some thoughts on this exact aspect of Spotify’s stucture, writiong in a post on X: “Spotify should remove the public display of listener counts and streams. It’s a catalyst for unhealthy comparisons. It creates misleading metrics like “monthly listeners” and incentivizes people to cheat so they can inflate the perception of popularity.”
RUSS contoinued, “Hiding the numbers would reduce the pressure to compete on inauthentic metrics and encourage a focus on the music itself. Look at Apple Music…there are 0 convos about how music is performing on there or if streams are fake…because you don’t know!! lmao as it should be.”
“It’s nobody’s business how the music is performing outside of the artist and their team. We live in this weird time where everyone feels entitled to know everybody’s business because of social media,” RUSS added, then concluding, “I get it tho, from Spotify perspective having the numbers public makes it a sport which in turn drives engagement etc etc.”
RUSS says streaming numbers are not fans’ “Business”
In more recent comments, Russ was a guest on the And The Writer Is… podcast, where he elaborated more on his thoughts around Spotify’s public statistics.
“I think Spotify should just remove the numbers from the public, like the stream counts, how many followers the playlists have, all that,” Russ continued. “It’s not anyone’s business except the artist, the company Spotify, and if you’re signed to a label.”
Russ then added, “It’s almost like Spotify is showing the business part of the music business just show the music why you showing the business, see what I’m saying? Like, you showing stream counts, now has fans involved in the business…you end up falling into this comparison game.”
“I shouldn’t even know what like the Weeknd song just did in the first 24 hours,” RUSS added,
“like why is that? It’s not my business, you know what I mean?” See the full interview here.
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