How Pop Music Became a Sport

Everything is social media. Everything is gambling.

My initial interest in music is that I love making it. Today, I have a new song out. It’s called “Give It To Me.” In the past, I’ve written essays about the creative process or planned long social media campaigns to promote my music. I didn’t have time for that for this song. But I love it nonetheless.

It was made with Max Rauch and Ken De Poto at Domestic Bliss studios in West Orange, New Jersey. The artwork was done by John Cozz. And it’s the hardest rocking song I’ve released in a while. Check it out while you read this week’s newsletter.

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How Pop Music Became a Sport

By Chris Dalla Riva

A couple of weeks ago, the popular Nigerian singer Davido released his fifth studio album, aptly titled 5ive. For an album by a well-known act with notable features, it did pretty well. It peaked at number one in Nigeria and number seven in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the album didn’t have as big an impact as was expected. In fact, it only moved 7,300 units in its first week of release in America.

I initially saw these sales number reported by Chart Data, a popular Twitter account that posts about streams and sales for the world’s biggest artists. In almost any situation, I wouldn’t think twice about a Twitter account sharing sales data about a popular artist. Then I started scrolling through the replies to the post:

• 🦋still pretty: 17 songs with 13 features and only 7.3k units were sold?? davido is actually finished and this is happening right before our eyes💔

• Big Wiz Soldier 🪖🦅: It was dropped in the least competitive week ever. Flopvido is flopped

• 6IXGOD 🦉: 7.3k units with all those interviews, merch and promos 😭😭

• ZEEZ 🌚: Lmaoo. Bro unit can’t buy a polo in today’s Nigeria. No wonder her couldn’t debut on Billboard 200 🤣🤣

These replies are strange. And I don’t just mean that because they are nasty. They are strange because of the way these people are talking. Why are they equating album sales with musical greatness? Why are they talking about how “competitive” the release week was? These are things that people who work in the music industry, people’s whose paychecks depend upon these things, care about. Davido’s week one album sales have no impact on your average music listener’s life.

But if you scroll through the replies to any post by Chart Data, you will find scores of people talking like this. They use sales and streams to try to prove that certain artists are better than others. And their go to word is “outsold.” For example, when two accounts were arguing if Beyoncé or Shakira were better last week, the Beyoncé supporter posted, “The gag is Beyoncé outsold Shakira lol” followed by a graphic showing the best-selling female artists worldwide.

People have been arguing about music for decades. I, for example, have spent way too many hours caught up in the age-old Beatles vs. Rolling Stones debate. But this is different. My Beatles-Stones debates usually devolve into people yelling about which songs or albums or better. These Twitter debates seldom even mention a song. They read more like people on ESPN using statistics to argue if Michael Jordan or LeBron James is better. In this case, shooting percentages are just substituted with album sales.

I know you might be surprised by what I’m about to say given that this entire newsletter is about music and data, but reducing music to numbers is often silly. When I use numbers in this space, I’m typically trying to enliven a discussion or illustrate a point. But in the corners on Twitter where intense fandom lurks, this quantification of music makes me sick. It’s numbers — many of which aren’t even reliable — deployed to generate pointless anger.

Albeit distressing, it is a musical trend. And musical trends are my business. So, where did this come from? What’s caused this linguistic shift in how we speak about music?

Poptimism Makes Music Like Sports

In a 2004 piece in The New York Times, critic Kelefa Sanneh described “rockism,” or “idolizing the authentic old legend (or underground hero) while mocking the latest pop star.” The alternative to the rockist position is usually termed “poptimism,” or taking popular culture as serious as all other art forms.

Kelefa Sanneh, the critic who helped bring the rockism-poptimism debate to the fore [Credit: Boston Globe]

In the last few decades, poptimism has been the default mode for much music criticism. Sure, Taylor Swift and Harry Styles are singing songs for the masses, but those songs deserve as much consideration as anything else. We can’t write them off as meaningless musical confections just because they are made for the masses.

This change in discourse has affected how fans interact with popular music. And you can see that in how people talk on social media. Pop stars are given primacy over other genres once considered more intellectual, or high-brow. In the world of poptimism, stats are central in a way that they aren’t to the rockist.

Social Media Makes Music Like Sports

Speaking of social media, it’s impossible to understand this shift in musical discourse without talking about how much time people spend arguing on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other platforms. Nuance typically doesn’t play well on social media. It’s much easier amid the toxicity to try prove a point with numbers. Despite being deployed to support an array of falsehoods, numbers give off an air of reputability.

TV Competitions Make Music Like Sports

When I reached out to

Monia Ali

, the writer behind a Fandom Exile, a newsletter dedicated to “investigating fan culture,” she suggested that some of this could be traced to musical competitions that emerged in the 2000s. In fact, some of the first references Ali could find of the “outsold” verbiage being applied to music go back to people on Twitter talking about American Idol in 2009.

Credit: Monia Ali

Of course, there’s always been competition between artists, but American Idol, along with earlier request shows like TRL, allowed fans to inject themselves into the competition. These shows make fans feel like they have a bigger stake in the outcome of their favorite artist’s career. It’s also naturally led to fans organizing buying and listening campaigns to get their favorite artists to the top of the charts.

Stat Accessibility Makes Music Like Sports

I don’t think any of this would be possible if musical stats were not so readily available these days. Most streaming services display play counts and artist rankings. Companies like Luminate and Chartmetric allow anybody to pay a fee to get access to a fleet of stats about every release. The RIAA even provides free information on sales certifications.

And none of this is going away. Quantification coming to more corners of the world is one of the most significant developments of the 21st century. Because of that, the discourse around popular music will continue to look more like professional sports. You can already see this sportification in another way: musical gambling.

Betting On Your Favorite Band

Rather than just arguing about who’s the greatest online, if music fans really believed in their favorite artists, they could try to make money by betting on their convictions through platforms like Kalshi.

Founded in 2018, Kalshi is a government-regulated exchange that allows you to gamble, or trade, on the outcome of nearly anything. You can bet on the temperature in New York City tomorrow. You can bet on who the next pope will be. You can bet on how many times the phrase “box office recovery” will be said in the next AMC earnings call. You can also bet on music.

Kalshi’s papal market as of May 6, 2025

And there are scores of music markets on Kalshi. You can bet on Grammy winners, number one hits, artist releases, band reunions, and so many other things. I don’t think it’s a leap to think that the same people arguing about artists on social media would start wagering money on their beliefs. But if you are considering doing this, please don’t.

Last week, I spoke with Gaëtan Dugas, a pseudonymous Kalshi user who has made a lot of money betting on music and movies. (I’ll publish our full conversation in a few weeks.) Nearly every bet Dugas makes is backed by mathematical models that he builds. While he’s benefited from his bets, he thinks other people should be very weary of trying their hand at beating these cultural markets:

I don't try to fool myself. I've done very well on this stuff, but I don't think that the majority of people can control their betting very well. They often lose more than they should be losing. It is a fairly large problem, and I think it's getting worse with the prevalence of sports betting. It's all over the place. It's so easy for a fun hobby to become a bigger problem in people's lives. I think it's definitely a societal problem, even though I benefit greatly from it.

As I was mulling over this piece over the last few months, I decided to wager some money on Kalshi for research purposes. I did not do any modeling. I just went off of my gut. Here’s how I did.

• Will Taylor Swift Win Album of the Year at the 2025 Grammy Awards? I wagered $97.21 that she would not win. I ended up cashing out my bet before the Grammys for $123.84.

• Will Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS top the Billboard 200 album charts during the week of January 18, 2025? I wagered $97.96 that this would happen. It did not. I lost $97.96.

• Will Kendrick Lamar’s album GNX spend more than 1 week at the top of the Billboard 200? I wagered $96.90 that this would happen. It did not. Lamar’s album topped the charts before Taylor Swift released a new edition of one of her albums just before Christmas, blocking the Compton rapper for the top of the charts for the rest of the year. I lost $96.90.

• Will Kendrick Lamar’s song “squabble up” top the Billboard Hot 100 during the week of December 7, 2024? I wagered $98.01 that this would happen, and it did. The bet paid out $121.

• Will Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song” top the Billboard Hot 100 during the week of November 30, 2024? I wagered $48 that this would happen. It did not. I lost $48.

After all of these trades, I made $1.98. In other words, I won’t be quitting my day job. It’s very hard to beat these markets going off of your gut alone. But I fear that other people, especially rabid fans, could face ruinous consequences by thinking otherwise. It’s better to spend your time listening to songs than arguing on Twitter. And it’s better to spend your money on concert tickets than betting markets.

A New One
"Give It To Me" by Chris Dalla Riva
2025 - Indie Rock

As I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, I have a new song out today. It’s a lively rocker about seeking truth in a world filled with subtle, yet pernicious lies. If you can identify the song that most inspired it, I’ll give you a free premium subscription to this newsletter for a month. [Hint: It’s from the 1970s].

An Old One
"The Gambler" by fun.
2009 - Indie Pop

A few years before they would hit it big with their smash “We are Young,” fun. was just one of many 2000s indie rock bands trying to make a name for themselves. And the ninth track from their pre-fame record Aim and Ignite has an apt title for this newsletter: “The Gambler.”

Gambling has been a common lyrical topic for a very long time. We humans just love to press our luck. But fun.’s use of the word doesn’t have anything to do with throwing dice or playing poker. It’s about the gambles we take repeatedly throughout our lives, the little bets and wagers that turn us into who we are.

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