How is it possible for this track to have so few plays on Spotify?

Submitted ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨BurningnnTree@lemmy.one⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

https://lemmy.one/pictrs/image/c1547895-c161-4fa8-bf94-b8cace653290.png

I noticed that the track “Canon (Primo)” by Justice only has 5,815 plays on Spotify, even though every other track on the album has millions of plays. How is this possible? I know it’s just an interlude track that you wouldn’t listen to unless you’re listening to the full album, but still, this play count makes no sense. What’s going on here? (I’m hoping my attached screenshot shows up here)

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

xmunk@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s 27 seconds long - Spotify on shuffle won’t (AFAICT) play songs below a certain length on shuffle unless you specify like them.

So it’s probably people listening to “Justice Radio” and never being given that song.

source
EK13@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It seems that Spotify doesn’t accurately count plays for tracks under 30 seconds. I had a look through some of the albums I know of with short tracks and here’s what I found:

Humanz - Gorillaz / Most popular track: 214m plays vs 11 second interlude: 1,185 plays

Absolution - Muse / Most popular track: 259m plays vs 22 second intro: 32,174 plays

California - Blink 182 / Most popular track: 158m plays vs 16 second track: 42,616 plays

3 Feet High and Rising - De La Soul / Most popular track: 12m plays vs 17 second track: 1,117 plays

The Eminem Show - Eminem / Most popular track: 1.9b plays vs 22 second track: 42,050 plays

In fact I found the MGMT album 11•11•11 has a 26 second long track with no reported plays.

So while it’s probably true that people are listening to fewer full albums than they used to in the days of vinyl or CD, it seems more likely to do with Spotify only paying royalties on tracks over 30 seconds and the discussion surrounding that.
source
- BurningnnTree@lemmy.one ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Very interesting, thanks!
  
  source
WastedJobe@feddit.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
AFAIK to count as one play, a song needs to be played for more than 30 seconds (source: friend used to work at a record label), so to me it’s surprising it has any plays at all.

source
- Atemu@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Might have been from before that was enforced or a temporary bug.
  
  source
  - Cinner@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Or # of people that listened to the entire album twice.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - Venator@lemmy.nz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Maybe people listening at half speed? 😂
    
    source
- RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Thought this was a sick burn, until I realized the track length.
  
  source
- Venator@lemmy.nz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Interestingly it has more plays on YouTube music: Image
  
  source
rmuk@feddit.uk ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
So I’m not a programmer but I work with a few and they told me that due to the way that certain processor architectures store integers as floating-point numbers, this can happen when a track is listened to exactly 5,815 times.

source
- Gammaray333@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Hahahahahahahahaa made me laugh
  
  source
deegeese@sopuli.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Youngsters don’t listen to albums anymore.

source
- FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Did we ever? Except maybe on the first play through?
  
  Once tapes started being more popular than ever, it became easy to record your own mixtape. So that predates me by a generation or so
  
  source
  - Regalia@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I mean, I’m young and I have a full on digital collection of albums on my drive.
    
    I don’t like mixtapes for regular listens because I might like the songs in the album if I like one song already.
    
    I do like mixes if I just want to listen to a specific kind of music.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I did for a bit with tapes and CDs, then didn’t for a good long while, but about a decade ago I got into vinyl, which I think is super cool because it’s somewhat difficult to drop the needle right where you want to… and at the same time, listening to one side of a record just feels like a much more atomic experience, and some artists actually build the album so that it adds another layer to the art.
    
    source
brokenlcd@feddit.it ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Ayyy another justice listener, nice; how are your speakers doing btw?

source
- BurningnnTree@lemmy.one ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Hello fellow Justice listener ✝ My speakers are getting tired of playing Generator (new track) over and over
  
  source
  - Donut@leminal.space ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There’s a new track? Aaahhhh!
    
    source
  - brokenlcd@feddit.it ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Mine are getting a bit of an upgrade… I found two 26" speakers ripped from an old stage set and a bag of identical tweeters in my dad’s old stuff, I’m currently soldering together a crossover circuit and an amplifier that won’t die while trying to run this whole mess; you can bet a bomb threat is gonna be called when genesis and waters of nazareth hit
    
    source
Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I wonder how often Stress gets played now… 🤔

That song is aptly named. It really does sound like stress embodied through noise. And it is stressful to listen to. lol

source
CorrodedCranium@leminal.space ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Maybe people who are listening to the album have removed it from their liked/downloaded songs?

If I shuffle through a playlist and find a song that doesn’t add much or just acts as an intro to an album I usually remove it eventually.

source