If you've been on music Twitter or TikTok lately, you've probably seen videos claiming waterfalling is "dead" or that Spotify changed something that makes releasing singles before an album a bad strategy.
Here's the reality: nothing has changed about how Spotify's Popularity Index works. What's changed is that more people are finally learning how it works—and some of them are drawing the wrong conclusions.
How Spotify's Popularity Index Actually Works
Every release of a track gets its own Popularity Index score. When you release "Get Out of Your Head" as a single, that single release has its own score. When you later include that same track on your EP, the EP version starts at zero with its own separate score.
Streams across versions get added together for your overall numbers, but the Popularity Index scores stay separate. This isn't new. This is how it's always worked.
What Waterfalling Does (and Doesn't Do)
When you waterfall—releasing singles, then bundling them into an EP or album—listeners who discover your newest single are more likely to hear your older tracks too. Those streams increase your overall numbers and your streams-per-listener ratio, both of which matter for algorithmic playlists.
What those additional streams don't do is boost the Popularity Index of your original single release. The streams on the EP version count toward the EP version's score.
This is where the confusion comes in. Some people see this as a "downside" of waterfalling. But it's not a downside—it's just neutral. The extra listens don't hurt your original track's Popularity Index. They just don't add to it.
The Best Approach (If You're Eligible)
Spotify's Countdown Pages let you release singles that live as part of a forthcoming album from day one. Every stream of that single, before and after the album drops, counts toward a single Popularity Index score because there's only one instance of the track.
This is genuinely the better approach—if you're eligible. You need roughly 5,000-6,000 active monthly listeners to access Countdown Pages—which typically means at least 20,000-30,000 total monthly listeners.
What Smaller Artists Should Do
If you're under that threshold, waterfall away. The benefits are real:
- More overall streams
- Higher streams-per-listener (which algorithms love)
- More surface area for discovery
- A consistent release cadence that keeps you in front of listeners
The "downside" everyone's worried about—split Popularity Index scores—is minimal for artists at this stage. Your goal is building an audience and generating momentum, not optimizing a metric that matters more at scale.
Once you cross 20-30k monthly listeners and unlock Countdown Pages, switch strategies. Until then, don't let clickbait videos talk you out of a strategy that works.