Findings

While looking for an upload of the Chrono Trigger OST on YouTube, I came across this playlist:

The playlist boasts nearly 900k views, no small feat. As you can see in the screenshot, there is the very strange addition of the 1 Hour Clean Pop Songs Playlist 🎧 Clean Pop Playlist 2025 🎶 Clean Pop Music Mix 🎵 Clean Pop Mix video. This video (created two years ago by the way) is in the playlist FOUR times, about once every 15 tracks. Additionally, the “Clean Pop Mix” is uploaded by the same channel that created the Chrono Trigger playlist. Further yet, NONE of the Chrono Trigger videos were uploaded by the playlist creator.

Time to do some digging…

Upon visiting the “Revive Music” channel, we are greeted with a surprising lack of recent or consistent uploads. The channel boasts a hefty 1.12 million subscribers, yet their supposed social media presence is essentially non-existent.

Turning our attention to the star of the show, we are greeted with a plethora of “currations”. I would love to tell you just how many there are, but I’m not bothering with the YouTube API just for that (sorry).

Taking a look at some other playlists, we see a similar story unfold.

Kendrick Lamar - GNX

Nearly, eight million views, three occurrences of Workout Music Mix 2025 💪 Best Gym Music Playlist 🏋️‍♂️ Training Music Playlist 🏃‍♂️ Gym Motivation by our friends at “Revive Music”, and seemingly 3 random songs from other artists, ie. not Kendrick Lamar.

Wicked: The Soundtrack

Almost two million views, but hey! Only one occurrence of our friend 1 Hour Clean Pop Songs Playlist 🎧 Clean Pop Playlist 2025 🎶 Clean Pop Music Mix 🎵 Clean Pop Mix There is also the appearance of the music video for Aidan Fine's Undercover, which from what I can tell is the official upload for the track.

Aphex Twin - ​​Selected Ambient Works Volume II

Something a little less popular with about seven thousand views. But alas, no addition of any “Revive Music” “content”!

Wrap Up

My assumption here is that the “team” over at “Revive Music” is tracking the analytics of these playlists and slipping in the videos they have uploaded so that they can collect on the ad revenue that comes with subjecting the listener to their “mixes”. Trojan Horse-y? For sure. Just a hunch? Also for sure. I’m not sure exactly how to go about combating this weird little ecosystem on YouTube as their built in reporting system certainly isn’t useful. At the very least, I will be disliking the videos to help tune the algorithmic recommendations. What I do know is that you can find me absolutely bumping "Corridors of Time".