On August 6, Arcade Fire celebrated their third straight No. 1 album, Everything Now. But the band’s Columbia Records debut had glaringly low streaming numbers, and by the following week, it had dropped out of the Top 10 altogether.

Everything Now was the first of several albums this summer from bands who’ve typified indie rock, a classification once denoting release by independent label but now used as a genre catch-all. Grizzly Bear, whose last three albums were on Warp, last week released Painted Ruins through RCA, which like Columbia is owned by Sony. The War on Drugs, who’ve released three albums on Secretly Canadian, moved to Warner Music subsidiary Atlantic for A Deeper Understanding, out August 25. Though LCD Soundsystem, perhaps unbeknownst to fans, have released all of their albums jointly on leader James Murphy’s DFA Records as well as various major labels, American Dream will be their proper Columbia debut, come September 1.

These releases may present something of an acid test for “indie” music in the streaming era. Bands like Arcade Fire once epitomized how the internet was supposed to allow great music to reach wider audiences regardless of labels and radio viability. But in today’s attention economy, so-called “internet bands” looking to level up don’t have a home-turf advantage. With this rash of recent major label signings, the question seems to be: Can the Big Three help these bands better navigate the shift to streaming?

If anyone can do it, the majors—Sony, Warner, and Universal—have positioned themselves to be the ones. At least in Spotify’s case, the labels reportedly own almost 20 percent of the company. In 2015, Spotify specifically banned payola, following a report suggesting major music groups were paying for placement on playlists. Regardless, the majors are faring better than indie labels at getting their songs on streaming services’ all-important playlists, says Berklee music-business professor George Howard, an industry veteran who ran the Rykodisc label when it was still independent. “It’s ‘meet the new boss, the same as the old boss,’” he tells me, drawing a parallel to radio. “There’s certainly a defensible thesis that Spotify is the new kingmaker, and if they choose to make your career, they can.” (Spotify declined to comment for this story.)

Scott Rodger, who manages Arcade Fire, Paul McCartney, and Shania Twain, points me to various artists’ pages on Spotify. Arcade Fire have 5 million monthly listeners on the streaming service. Radiohead have 6 million, while Grizzly Bear, the War on Drugs, and LCD Soundsystem all have more like 2 million. But Imagine Dragons, while critically scorned, have 30 million-plus. And the most popular artists right now, like “Despacito” hitmakers Daddy Yankee and Luis Fonsi, along with Ed Sheeran and Calvin Harris, have upwards of 40 million. “With the world moving towards streaming, most indie or alternative acts simply don’t stream as well,” Rodger says.

The disconnect is clear from Arcade Fire’s first-week numbers. Everything Now totaled 7.9 million streams in its first week, compared with 46 million for the No. 2 album, Kendrick Lamar’s four-month-old DAMN., which returned to No. 1 the following week. Indeed, Everything Now’s first-week streaming total was the lowest for a chart-topping album since Bon Jovi’s This House Is Not for Sale in November. But streaming is a different business than selling. Based on figures Rodger shares with me, there were some 60,000 fewer iTunes downloads of Everything Now than of Arcade Fire’s last album, 2013’s Reflektor. Given Billboard’s streaming math, where 1,500 streams equals one album sale, it would have taken 90 million streams to make up that difference on the charts. “We’re probably still getting the same amount of people in real terms listening to the music,” Rodger says, “but it’s not volume enough to make a dent on streaming.”