Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Media reports have stated that the number of hit songs and albums performed by bands has declined over time. Possible reasons for this are organized into five theoretical areas: changing consumer tastes, technology allowing for solo projects, social media rewarding individual performers, financial incentives for solo artists, and record labels being less interested in bands. Within these theories, a portion of the blame has been pointed toward Spotify and their use of algorithms. Two data sets were constructed, the top 20 songs from Billboard’s annual Hot 100 chart for the years 1961 to 2025 and the top 20 albums from Billboard’s annual Top 200 chart for the same time period. Ordinary least squares was employed to determine that a significant decline in hits by bands had indeed occurred on both charts. A Mann-Whitney two-sample t-test was used to determine whether Spotify was to blame. The results indicate that Spotify is not to blame as the declining trend began years before Spotify came to the U.S. There is evidence that points toward changes in consumer tastes over time, as the decline in hit songs by bands correlates to an increase in the number of hits made using collaborations, particularly an increase in the number of hip-hop songs.</p>