Swedish Composer Identified as the Creator of Hundreds of 'Fake' Spotify Artists

Since 2016, 'fake artists' on Spotify have been a controversial subject. These are artists releasing music under pseudonyms with sparse online presence other than Spotify, and whose tracks feature on mood-based playlists on the platform.

A Swedish tabloid, Dagens Nyheter, recently brought this issue to the limelight once again. It highlighted how the indie label Firefly Entertainment has exploited the phenomenon by creating multiple fake artists to earn on the platform.

The tabloid has named Swedish composer Johan Röhr as a significant figure behind this practice, claiming he's used over 50 composer aliases and released music under at least 656 artist names. Röhr, previously involved in Sweden's Melodifestival and in orchestration for tours and TV, is now regarded as very successful, arguably more so than any artists he's previously worked with.

The report attributes over 2,700 songs to Röhr, under various artist pseudonyms. The songs under these names have accumulated around 15 billion streams on Spotify, which does not just make him one of Sweden's most played artists but also places him among the top 100 most streamed artists globally on the platform, surpassing icons like Michael Jackson and Metallica.

In terms of revenue, Röhr's private company reportedly earned SEK 70 million (approx USD $6.7m) between 2020 and 2022 from royalties, with SEK 32.7 million (approx USD $3.1m) in 2022 alone. The exact amount coming from streams of invented artist names is unclear.

These successes are largely due to the tracks' inclusion in Spotify’s Official playlists. A specific analysis points out that Röhr's songs appear in at least 144 official playlists under different pseudonyms.

Questions directed at Röhr were deflected to Overtone Studios, owned by Epidemic Sound, a company previously associated with similar 'fake artist' claims. Overtone's CEO acknowledged that Röhr has released music under different names and emphasized a pivot to fewer active artist profiles and more diverse creator collaborations.

Spotify has not commented on this specific situation but indicated that the platform allows artists to use pseudonyms and that these types of music help artists at varying career stages.

composer, streaming, Spotify