ON KEY WITH RYAN

The streaming age has made metrics like an artist’s monthly listeners more prominent. This has led to a greater focus on how many units an album sells rather than its artistic quality. However, a major issue with these numbers is how physical sales, bundles, and vinyl can inflate an album’s total units sold, often misrepresenting the true number of streams or plays a project has received, and it has often been pointed out and criticized among many.

In the days before streaming, the path to high album sales relied on a different set of rules, driven by radio play, physical purchases, and, in the 2000s, digital downloads from services like Napster and iTunes. Yet, even with this massive shift in technology, certain artists have remained dominant. Icons like Michael Jackson, Elton John, The Beatles, and Taylor Swift have not only withstood the test of time but still hold records that seem unbeatable even in the streaming era.

Spending time online (I’m chronically online) has shown me a frustrating trend: artists are often judged and their albums are diminished based solely on monthly listeners and sales. This hyper-focus on numbers allows a lot of great music to fly under the radar. It appears that everything is constantly being compared to something else, be it previous albums, other artists, or streaming metrics. This culture of comparison is a significant reason why many deserving artists never get the chance to achieve the widespread recognition they deserve.

My personal approach to music is driven by how an album sounds and how it makes me feel. I’m a firm believer in the power of lyrics and instrumentation, and while I can appreciate popular music and keep an eye on the charts, my ears are always drawn back to the artists I genuinely love, such as early Roddy Ricch.

He’s a fascinating case study in the numbers-versus-quality debate. Many argue he will never top the success of his first album, holding everything he releases thereafter to an impossibly high standard. What’s interesting, though, is that despite any critical decline, he still holds onto over 10 million monthly listeners. Regardless of how you view his recent music, those numbers have never wavered.

Then you have artists like Clipse, who have had a passionate, devoted fanbase for years. But their numbers don’t fully reflect their influence, likely because their audience is older and had to get accustomed to the streaming era. Still, they were able to produce a quality album after a long hiatus, proving that artistic merit and a loyal fanbase can exist and thrive even without chart-topping numbers.

Ultimately, I’ve come to believe that music’s true value is found in the personal experience of the listener, not in its commercial metrics. Its worth shouldn’t be defined by comparisons, chart positions, or industry rivalries, but by how it resonates with you as an individual. This brings us to a central question: do you seek out new music by following trends and numbers, or do you listen to what you genuinely love, allowing it to have a personal impact on you regardless of an artist’s streaming statistics?