For a while, I had something special. Something improbable. Something that made absolutely no sense and was therefore perfect.

Nuuk, Greenland, was the city where more people listened to my music on Spotify than anywhere else in the world.

Not London, Liverpool, Manchester or New York. Nuuk.

I had no explanation for it. I had never been there, never knowingly met anyone from there and certainly never launched a carefully targeted Greenland marketing campaign. There had been no Nuuk street team, no mysterious Scandinavian radio push and no promotional posters appearing beside the fjords. And yet, there it was in the statistics. Nuuk listened.

Naturally, I became far too attached to this.

It was not just data anymore. Nuuk became a kind of spiritual headquarters. Somewhere under the Arctic sky, people were apparently pressing play on my songs often enough to put the rest of the world to shame. I liked that. It gave the whole business of releasing music a wonderfully surreal edge.

If anyone asked where people were listening, I had the perfect answer: “Nuuk.”

It sounded invented, which made it even better.

And now Melbourne has ruined everything.

According to the latest Spotify figures, Melbourne has overtaken Nuuk as the city where my music is listened to most. I am trying to be grown-up about this. I am not succeeding.

Let me be clear, I have nothing against Melbourne. Melbourne seems lovely. It has music, culture, coffee, sport, trams and a reputation for knowing what it is doing when it comes to the arts. In fact, it is exactly the sort of city where an independent musician should be pleased to discover listeners.

That is precisely the problem.

Melbourne listening to my music makes sense. Nuuk listening to my music was glorious because it made no sense at all.

Melbourne feels like ordinary audience data. Nuuk felt like destiny.

Still, we are where we are. Somewhere in Melbourne, people are apparently listening enough to push the city into first place. I do not know who you are, but I genuinely thank you. Every play matters, and I am delighted that my songs are finding ears on the other side of the world.

I just wish you had shown a little more respect for what Nuuk and I had built together.

There was history there. Well, several months of Spotify statistics, but history has been built on less.

I like to imagine the people of Nuuk waking up, checking their phones, seeing Melbourne above them in the rankings and muttering, “This will not stand.”

I also accept that nobody in Nuuk is doing this.

That has never stopped me before.

Perhaps Melbourne simply wanted it more. Perhaps word spread. Perhaps there is one extraordinarily determined listener playing my songs around the clock. Perhaps somebody has accidentally left a playlist running in a café for three weeks. At this stage, I am not asking too many questions.

I am simply accepting the numbers.

There is something wonderfully strange about being an independent musician now. You can sit at home, write and record songs, release them through streaming platforms, and then discover that people thousands of miles away are listening. You do not know them, they do not know you, and yet somehow the song travels.

That still amazes me.

When you are not chasing fame and fortune, these little bits of information become oddly meaningful. I am not studying Spotify statistics because I expect to wake up famous. I look because it is fascinating to see where the songs go.

Sometimes they go somewhere obvious. Sometimes they go to Melbourne. Sometimes, wonderfully and inexplicably, they go to Nuuk.

And that is part of the fun.

The internet has made music global in a way that still feels slightly unreal. A song recorded at home can end up in someone’s headphones in Australia, Greenland, Thailand or almost anywhere else without the musician ever leaving the house.

That is extraordinary when you stop to think about it.

So yes, Melbourne is now number one. Congratulations. You have the title.

For now.

But I would not get too comfortable. Nuuk has form. Nuuk has loyalty. Nuuk has previously demonstrated a level of commitment to my music that frankly deserves recognition.

If the good people of Greenland decide to rally, who knows what might happen?

In the meantime, if you are reading this in Melbourne, thank you for listening. If you are reading this in Nuuk, you know what needs to be done.

And if you are reading this anywhere else, frankly, both cities are making you look bad.

You can listen to my music on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and the usual streaming platforms. Apparently Melbourne already is.