To Score Hits on Spotify, Artists Are Gaming Search Results

What’s trending after #hotgirlsummer?

Try “Hot Girl Bummer,” at least if you’re on Spotify. As Elias Leight at Rolling Stone notes, several musicians are cleverly — and sometimes accidentally — naming their new singles after popular celebrities or tweaking titles of hit songs and albums to gain attention on streaming services.

Sometimes it backfires: Singer-songwriter Noah Gundersen felt the wrath of Taylor Swift fans (“Swifties”) for naming his new album Lover and releasing it on August 23, which was the same day the far more popular Swift released her album of the same name.

“It was bizarre to get trolled by a bunch of teenagers who felt like we were intentionally ripping off their queen,” Gundersen told Rolling Stone.

(Never mind the 1,000+ other albums with the same title … Peggy Lee called from 1964 and would like a word with you, Taylor.)

Having a song title named after a trending artist (Sam Feldt’s “Post Malone”) or a near-enough to a big hit (blackbear’s aforementioned “Hot Girl Bummer,” which is currently performing better than Megan Thee Stallion’s “Hot Girl Summer”) means a track will pop almost immediately in Spotify’s search bar.

As songwriter-producer Warren “Oak” Felder notes, “[It’s] almost like title-clickbait.” He also says artists gaming the Spotify search engine tend to use longer titles and unusual capitalization to get noticed.

While this is a particular trend in Spotify and other streaming services, it’s not necessarily a new idea. Back in the ’60s, as Leight points out, several artists rushed to make their own versions of “The Twist” when that song was a hit, and Taylor Swift herself caught everyone’s attention by naming the first song on her debut album “Tim McGraw” … well before Spotify was a factor on the charts.

Editor’s Note: RealClearLife, a news and lifestyle publisher, is now a part of InsideHook. Together, we’ll be covering current events, pop culture, sports, travel, health and the world. Subscribe here for our free daily newsletter.