I pulled the live stats route on dajai.io at 16:13 UTC on September 30, 2026, before I wrote this. The payload is the only number I am willing to print. It is not a press release. It is a file the site already serves, and it disagrees with the profile pages in a way that matters if you are the person quoting the catalog.
The ledger we own
The catalog block said 16,648 tracks. Of those, 15,938 had a play count attached. The cumulative plays on that file were 9,749,719. The gap is 710 tracks sitting in the catalog with no play count on them. I am not going to invent a zero or a guess for those 710. A missing count is a missing count. When I say how the catalog is doing, I say 15,938 counted tracks and 9,749,719 plays, and I say the file is larger than the counted slice.
That is the ledger I control. It lives with the site. It updates on a short cache, five minutes on this pull. If I quote it tomorrow I have to pull it again, because plays move and I have watched this same endpoint move before. A number from a blog post last week is not a number. The file is the number.
The ledger SoundCloud reports
The same payload includes two SoundCloud profiles, and they are not the catalog.
The dajai-io profile reported 19,143 tracks, 366 followers, and 79 playlists. That track count is higher than the owned catalog by 2,495. I do not know, from this payload, which uploads are in one list and not the other. I know they are different lists. Adding 19,143 to 16,648 would be a lie told with two true numbers.
The supercooldaj profile reported 203 tracks, 889 followers, 8 playlists, and 192 reposts. Fewer records, more than twice the followers of the archive profile. The loud door is not the big room. If someone asks which profile "is the catalog," the honest answer is neither. The catalog is the file on the site. SoundCloud is a host with its own counters, and the two hosts do not even match each other.
I use the archive profile when I mean the long upload history. I use the smaller profile when I mean the one with the crowd standing at it. I do not average them, and I do not let a caption pick whichever figure sounds larger that day.
What the stores will not show
The same pull is blunt about the other platforms.
Apple Music's public API does not expose play counts. The artist page is linked. A play number is not in the response. I will not type one.
Spotify's public API exposes a popularity score from 0 to 100, not raw plays. Monthly listeners need a different login. I do not have that number in this payload, so it does not go in the essay.
YouTube came back as no credentials. The route said so in plain text. A channel count I did not read is not a channel count. The hint in the payload is that a key and a channel id are unset. Until they are set, the honest YouTube line is that this route does not know.
An independent catalog gets into trouble the day the caption needs a round number and the API refuses to give one. The fix is not a round number. The fix is to quote the ledger that actually answered.
How I quote this in public
Three rules, all of them from getting burned by sloppy addition.
First, name the ledger. "Catalog plays" means the cumulative figure on the live stats route. "SoundCloud tracks" means the profile field called tracks. They are not synonyms.
Second, date the pull. This essay is September 30, 2026, 16:13 UTC. A week from now the plays will be different. If I am still saying 9,749,719 in October, I am quoting a ghost.
Third, leave the stores alone until they hand over a figure I can point at. A link to an artist page is not a play count. Popularity is not plays. An empty YouTube credential is not a quiet channel. It is an unread channel.
The catalog is large enough without inflation. 16,648 tracks in the file, 15,938 of them with a count, 9,749,719 plays on those counts, an archive profile that lists more uploads than the file, and a smaller profile with more followers than the archive. That is the picture. It is already a lot. It does not need a made-up monthly listener number sitting on top of it.
FAQ
Which number should a fan trust?
Trust the one that names its source. Catalog plays come from the site's own stats route. SoundCloud followers come from the SoundCloud profile in that same route. If a caption does not say which, do not add it to either pile.
Why is the SoundCloud track count higher than the catalog?
Because they are different lists. On this pull the dajai-io profile said 19,143 tracks and the catalog said 16,648. I am not going to pretend I reconciled them in an afternoon. Until a track is in both places, it belongs to the list that actually contains it.
Can you publish Spotify or Apple Music play counts from the public API?
No. This pull says Apple Music does not expose plays, and Spotify's public API exposes popularity rather than raw plays. I do not print a figure those endpoints do not return.
What about the 710 catalog tracks with no play count?
They are in the file and they are not in the 9,749,719. I leave them out of the play total instead of calling them zero. A missing count and a zero are different facts.