Bowie/Under pressure

[saprwh]

Why isn't Under Pressure in the list of Bowie's most popular tracks?

[wheredcolego]

Under Pressure was a Queen/Bowie collaboration. Spotify appears to tie it to Queen's catalog instead of Bowie's, probably because it was never on a Bowie album - it was released as a single in 1981, then Queen put it on Hot Space the following year.

[saprwh]

I don't think the fact it wasn't on an original Bowie studio album (it's on a 'Best of Bowie' album by the way) should prevent it from being attached to Bowie's catalogue. And des that happen in any other case of a collaboration on Spotify?

[wheredcolego]

Good point, although I wasn't necessarily suggesting that it shouldn't be tied to his catalogue as much as I was guessing as to why Spotify wasn't tying it to his catalogue.

However, now that I think about it a little more, I have a new theory that makes a lot more sense:

• The list of "Popular" tracks for any given artist is generated based those with the highest play counts. 
• It IS tied to Bowie's catalogue (several different versions, in fact - the one on Best of Bowie and a handful of live versions). 
• It's also tied to Queen's catalogue. Even though they're the same recording, The Hot Space version and the Best of Bowie versions are treated as separate tracks.
• The "Top Result" when searching "Under Pressure" returns the version from Hot Space, which leads to more clicks on Queen's version, which leads to it being listed in Queen's top 5 "popular" tracks.
• To get to the Best of Bowie version, it takes a few more clicks, so its play count is significantly lower. 
• 10 other Bowie songs are played more often than this more-difficult-to-find version of "Under Pressure". 

I gotta say... this isn't the rabbit hole I thought I'd end up at the bottom of this morning, but I'm OK with it. 😄

[saprwh]

Well, I'm glad you went down that rabbit hole as that is probably it - well thought out!
It's a shame that Spotify don't have a way of integrating click numbers for the very same song/recording...
Thanks