That's a weird thing to assume. Popularity and top charts are never about fun, it's hellish work and attention engineering. Music industry knew this since at least Bing Crosby.
The only thing that elevated music was when people could see others choices and select music just snowballed to popularity.
Most of reality is shaped like that. Once you see that Elon musk was just in the right asshole location, then you can release the shackles of the "meritocracy" that obscures just random chance and personality choices.
That sounds like René Girard's "mimesis of desire" in which we desire the things because we observe other people desiring them.
Since learning of it I frequently ask myself how much I actually want something, versus "How much do I want this because I feel that I _should_ have it because I saw others desire it?"
Have there been any other studies that attempt to confirm this theory?