Field Notes from the desk.
Dispatches from inside the work. Forensic case histories from the Black Box desk, methodology papers from the research team, market briefs sized in dollars rather than rhetoric. Fifteen pieces in research this quarter. First filings posting May 2026.
Why a streaming spike in Helsinki is a question, not an answer.
Anomalies are cheap. Evidence is not. A short paper on the difference between a chart movement and a verified listening event.
The anatomy of a manufactured chart week.
A coordinated bot campaign has a fingerprint in the raw data. Streaming counts are only the first layer.
2,562 breakouts surfaced. How many were acted on?
The window between a genuine organic breakout and a commercial response is shrinking. Most artists with momentum signatures have no infrastructure to capitalise on them.
The Eastern European streaming anomaly: a case study in geographic fraud.
Streaming fraud is not random. It clusters geographically and operationally. A composite case showing how a coordinated playlist network generates high play counts with zero legitimate engagement.
Why your artist's TikTok spike will not appear in next month's streaming statement.
The conversion rate from social virality to DSP streaming revenue is poorly understood, consistently overstated, and structurally lagged. Most artists and managers are not aware.
Touring still follows streaming geography. Labels are still ignoring it.
In a significant number of markets, streaming data signals meaningful live demand that booking agents are not acting on. The gap is measurable.
How a distributor's ISRC block becomes your fraud exposure.
ISRCs issued within the same registration block can be exploited to mask artificial streams across a catalogue. Most labels do not understand the issuance chain - therefore cannot identify the attack vector.
How this works.
Each piece begins with a deep-research pass against the public literature, then gets drafted by the desk that owns the question. Status pills flip from In research to Forthcoming to Published as pieces move down the pipeline. To receive new Field Notes by email when they post, drop us a line.