This Sneaky YouTube Hack Just Helped Post Malone Make It To No.1
18 October 2017, 10:51 | Updated: 11 December 2018, 15:36
The rapper's track 'rockstar' topped the Billboard chart this week but a clever trick by the record label may have helped it along.
Post Malone has just hit a serious career milestone with his latest single, 'rockstar' featuring 21 Savage, hitting the Number 1 spot on the US Billboard Chart, beating the likes of Cardi B and Logic.
However, as The Fader points out, the reason why may involve a sneaky YouTube hack that has been used by his record label over the last few weeks.
Basically, there is currently no full length version of 'rockstar' available on YouTube, Republic Records instead posting a clip back in September that just loops the chorus for 3m 38s, the same length as the full track.
The video then has links to where you can stream the song on Spotify and Apple Music in the description. All comments are disabled.
Even though the video doesn't feature the full song, apparently every view counts towards the streaming total of the track. The looped clip is currently getting over a million views per day with a total at over 43 million at the time of writing which has undoubtedly helped it climb up the charts.
So, fans looking for the full track would hit the video, realise it's not the full version and then have to go looking elsewhere, giving the label an extra boost all the while. Pretty sneaky...
Is it clever marketing? Or just clickbait? Either way, YouTube is clearly changing the way music charts work in the future and we are sure this won't be the only trick labels and artists have up their sleeve.
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