I was referred to a very interesting blog post from the people at Hypem. Anyone who is reading this post/blog probably knows what Hypem is, if not, check it out.
Based on a tip from a few bloggers about artists/blogs who were creating numerous fake accounts in order to boost their songs/blogs on the Hypem Popular page, Hypem took the initiative to look at the popular page artists across the entire Hypem site and find out who may be cheating. What they found was quite surprising.
At least 20 different artists were found manipulating the popular charts, some who we have reviewed on our site in the past. I found this to be very disappointing as some of those artist’s music was sub-par compared to other stuff on the Hypem site. Their greed makes me so mad– but greed is a big part of the world, and that will never change.
I’m not saying i wont review/listen to these artist if they send BBC music, but my opinion has altered course. Below are the lists of CHEATERS
You can check out the original post here
Update: after reading my post and talking to some peeps, I feel that I should give everyone a chance. Some artists use PR agency which may also be at fault here. If u feel that you have been wronged contact BBC with an explanation, i will update this post accordingly)
It's funny, yes these bands deserve to be reprimanded for their actions, but what about Hypem? If they could so easily figure this stuff out when they go in and check, why couldn't they have been tracking it all along? it's not the most shocking thing to have happened– they allow people to sign up for accounts without sending a confirmation to their email, thus no way of even minimally checking that the people are real. It's a very odd choice.
Something tells me there could be some fishy activity going on.
Reprimanded?Jesus Christ who cares?? There are two wars and an economy on the brink of collapse and people are in such an uproar about some bands padding votes on hype machine. Hype machine just got embarrassed when they thought they were gonna lose "precious credibility" so they so they wanted to quickly point fingers. I cant believe this is the kind of crap people are blogging about. All I want is new music.
This whole situation makes me laugh, Hype Machine gets embarresd because they think people won't take them seriously. All because some artist or artist fans/PR groups took advantage of a faulty system. So they list every artist they think participated in this behavior, to take the attention off themselves for being the ones who messed up. It just makes me question what else hype machine does or forgot to do to affect the voting. Gotta Love the Hype
yeah, i agree, but what really grinds me gears is the fact that there is so much better music out there then some of those artists who were caught – to get 773 favorites on a stupid coldplay mash-up is ridiculous, what about the artist who actually make original music, who are stuck a few pages down, they don't have a fair chance cuz there are stupid douchy ppl who decide to take advantage – it will happen in the future, someone will find a way to cheat again, but at least now, the playing field has become a little more leveled
"Oh my god yall, the popular list is tainted and I'll never be able like/listen to anything again without an accurate popular vote! I couldnt possibly find my own music on the plethora of other blogs instead of making such a fit about a single poll". Freaking sheep. Baaaaaa
So I sort of provoked the Hype Machines post when I notified them that the Weekend Warriors were clearly cheating to climb the charts. When Hype Machine didn't respond, I looked into the Weekend Warriors and noticed that they had been on some Paris Hilton show and seemed pretty well connected for a rising band. I assumed Hype neglecting to address the Weekend Warriors as cheaters meant that some sort of payola scheme was at play. Upon raising this issue in an elbo.ws forum Hype dealt with it and eventually posted the names of "cheaters." What I find odd about this is, a lot of the bands accused of cheating did it once several months ago before hype determined the charts by favorites. The whole thing stinks of shit to me because there must be larger bands doing it than the 20 unrecognizable ones who did it once 8 months ago.