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Fake Playcounts Are Killing Music
Crazy what some people are doing to give off the perception of 'success' http://www.5chicago.com/features/april2013/how-to-become-a-fake-soundcloud-superstar/index.html
The main reason this is happening is because a lot of people at press and radio (and to some extents I've heard festival promoters) are looking to play counts to decide if something is worth covering... then again, this didn't lead to Rebecca Black becoming some media-championed 'thing', but obviously it helped Gotye.
Have you seen any weird things where tracks have had huge amounts of plays but nothing else really happening?