Slashdot Log In
How Songs Get Popular
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Feb 09, 2006 06:45 PM
from the why-stuff-sucks dept.
from the why-stuff-sucks dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers created an artificial music market of 14,341 participants split into two groups to pick music from unknown musicians. In one group, the individuals had only song titles and band names to go on. The individuals in the other group saw how others had rated the songs. Turns out popularity bred popularity, which explains why there's so much crap on the radio."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Just like /. (Score:4, Insightful)
MOD PARENT UP EXTREME !!!!!1 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Just like /. (Score:3, Interesting)
ttyl
Farrell
"-1 troll" utterance gets +5 Insightful (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh well, this will probably get moderated -1, Troll but it had to be said.
Parent
Re:"-1 troll" utterance gets +5 Insightful (Score:4, Interesting)
A 1999 article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology entitled "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments," studies this phenomenon: http://www.phule.net/mirrors/unskilled-and-unawar
Parent
Re:"-1 troll" utterance gets +5 Insightful (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Actually, no. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the mod ratings are (ostensibly) based on quality, which in this article was shown to have nothing to do with popularity. Group B did NOT download songs based on the quality ratings that Group A gave them - only based on the number of times the songs were downloaded. Popularity was totally independent of rating/quality.
Parent
Really? (Score:3, Funny)
Not really... (Score:4, Insightful)
I read +6 Troll, Flamebait, etc... A lot of mods don't know what the hell they're talking about and if it goes against groupthink, it goes down in Flamebaits. When it does, there are people there like me to pick it up and give it an informative, insightful, or interesting boost. Not everyone runs on default mod settings here at /. Genuine flamebaits and trolls are getting much rarer. I see a lot less GNAA and WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDDDDDEEEEEEEEE crap here these days. (With the exception of Apple Trolls. They never go away. They even get Cover Storys in Forbes. [forbes.com] "Likely to top 4 Million units" for iPods. Dipshits... they sold 14 Million [apple.com]) Most of the down mods go to people who simply think differently lately.
Now, so that I'm not totally off topic... the article describes a system where one group could only listen, see track title, artist name, and download. The second group could see all that and could see download counts as well. Wow, the ones that were downloaded most got the most attention and additional downloads... Duh. That's not scientific. There's no F'ing experimental group! Why didn't they have a third group that could see everything group #1 saw, and *randomly generated* download counts? If I see a song has been downloaded numerous times, listen to it, and it's crap, I'm sure as hell not downloading a copy to save if it sucks. I don't care how many people listen to something, but I would consider download counts an indicator of what I should try first... At least until I realized the download counts were meaningless. If they repeat the experiment with the third group and that group downloads random crap like lemmings then maybe they have something worth reporting... Otherwise, they've proven nothing.
Parent
Re:Just like /. (Score:3, Funny)
It's more like that stupid overly-popular bitch that everyone always does whatever she does likes a song, and the senseless trendfollowers are forced to like it, and it plagues out. *shudder*
It's the Garmlich effect. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's the Garmlich effect. (Score:5, Funny)
True. The fact that it's crap is what makes it crap.
Parent
Re:It's the Garmlich effect. (Score:3, Funny)
You must secretly sing the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps" in the shower.
"Nothing attracts a crowd..." (Score:4, Funny)
Re:"Nothing attracts a crowd..." (Score:5, Funny)
Brian (Talking to crowd): You need to be independant minded.
Crowd: We are! We are!
Person in crowd: I'm not!
Parent
How else would we get (Score:3, Funny)
Would the Beatles have made it today? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how much the degree to which today's world is "connected" compared to the days and emergence of the Beatles and Stones (much less Beethoven, et. al.) contributes to the "lesser quality" of today's popular music? I have to think this is a significant factor, and an unfortunate one.
So, today stars are foisted, created, presented to the consuming public by fiat, not a great surprise. It's too bad though. I even wonder a group as good as the Beatles, or a composer as great as Beethoven (Ludwig, my opinion) would have much of a chance for recognition for their real talent -- probably not so much. Too bad.
For those of this generation, food for thought. (and, sorry for all of the sentence fragments.)
(Also, readers should visit the links at the bottom of the referenced article, there are some pretty interesting additional articles about human nature and music (and I have NO interest in that magazine).)
Re:Would the Beatles have made it today? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course not; the question is inherently absurd. Their music was popular mainly because it was radically different from anything that people were listening to on the radio at that time. Since then, they've influenced musicians thousands of times over on both sides of the Atlantic.
But new styles still make it big now and then. Think of the fads of ska or swing dancing in the 1990s, or the gradual rise in popularity of rap from a niche in the early 1980s to the mainstream
Re:Would the Beatles have made it today? (Score:3, Insightful)
explain to me how this differs from (and is inferior to) a traditional patronage system in which an aristocratic elite gets to decide who performs in public at all.
Re:Would the Beatles have made it today? (Score:3, Informative)
So much crap in the radio? (Score:5, Insightful)
Buying airtime (Score:3, Interesting)
Part of the problem with media conglomerates is that you can buy a LOT of media outlets in a single transaction. Clear Channel, I believe, owns numerous
Barriers to Entry Falling = More Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
So I'm quite content to have actual listeners help shepherd in popular bands rather than have mediocre cookie cutter crap foisted on me by megacorps.
People like to talk about music (Score:3, Insightful)
There are some really interesting studies on how people react in certain situations, responding to peer pressure and all that. Good stuff.
Uh duh.,.. (Score:4, Insightful)
GREAT! (Score:4, Funny)
Now that I've posted, everyone is going to get in on this thread.
Re:GREAT! (Score:3, Funny)
I refuse to become involved in this thread! Following the crowd is not my style.
the variable that was changed (Score:3, Insightful)
The acticle doesn't really dwell on this, but if that's not what they were doing, then what's so surprising about the fact that both group A and group B found the same songs to be "good". (d-uh, they're actually better songs!)
Whoever modded this up didn't RTFA (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
A key to music is the familiar. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A key to music is the familiar. (Score:3, Interesting)
In music, an element of familiarity is important, of course, especially for mass audiences, for whom music is little more than its social context. But familiar elements (chord progressions, instrumentation...) can be recombined endlessly. Combinations that once seemed incongruous become normal--e.g. OutKast's use of
A social experiment (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A social experiment (Score:3, Insightful)
Yup that is also a very common marketing trick too. It is exactly why every single new movie that comes out is "The #1 Movie In America!!!" and why every single new book is "The Best Selling Book" etc.
Re:A social experiment (Score:4, Insightful)
Everything is worthless unless people want it.
Parent
Re:A social experiment (Score:5, Funny)
People are mindless conformists! So what flavor of Linux do you run?
Parent
Re:A social experiment (Score:3, Insightful)
a couple of real-world examples (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a funny one, on a recent flight I was sitting next to the manager for some very well-known heavy metal and rock acts, who flatly declared that if U2 was a new band today, they wouldn't have a chance in hell of getting signed the way they did in 1983 when their breakthrough album propelled them into stardom. The people he deals with both at the label and promotion level would never take a chance on something that original.... Which of course means that after years of this kind of behavior, the general public's ears do not have a desire for anything new or unusual.
I could very well see a broke Jimi Hendrix today, still playing $100 fill-in gigs at Cafe Wah in the Village (still around too) and no one giving a rat's ass about his life-changing guitar playing because it would be too strong and outside of the norm....
Here's another example, last year a major game developer allegedly saw an increase of sales of their flagship PS2 game to the tune of 5,000 more units per week when they tweaked the music on their current TV campaign and featured background music that was more familiar to their target audience.....
This if doesn't seem like a game of chance and talent anymore, that's because because it isn't. Like P-Diddy said, it's all about Da Benjamins.
Still, it comes down to this: if you are going to do it, do it because you like it, not because of the expected returns.
If you actually have talent, you might go a lot further on that than the empty promises and broken stardom dreams most end up shelving when they get their girlfriend pregnant.
On another (closer) note, maybe someone should transpose this study to
How Darwinian!! Z.
Re:a couple of real-world examples (Score:3, Funny)
You must be new here.
Ordinary fucking people (Score:5, Funny)
saves a lot of time (Score:5, Insightful)
Bellwether (Score:4, Interesting)
The title comes from a middle english word used describing a practice in sheep farming. Sheep tend to follow each other. But farmers would sometimes use a castrated ram with a bell around his neck to lead the rest of the flock. The ram would tend to move first, but in a very subtle, nearly undetectable way.
At the center of any cloud of popularity must be a seed of initial impulse - the bellwether.
No, no no, you've got it all wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Hold auditions at local malls, car lots, county fairs, etc. to find hot young white jailbait
2. Tart up aforementioned jailbait and teach them some slammin' dance moves
3. Get a committee of marketing people together to craft some lyrics that are as sexualized as common decency (read: FCC) will allow. Bonus points if corporate sponsors can synergize their product into the lyrics somehow (if not, don't worry, the product placement people will cram as many soft drinks, cell phones, and designer handbags into the video as possible later)
4. Get some underpaid, under-recognized sound engineers (read: geeks) to put together a cathcy little number on the sequencer. Don't worry about horrendous vocals, those can be corrected in the final mix.
5. Shoot video. Don't worry about making it creative, just fill it with Bentleys, Prada, diamonds, and lots of writhing, Cristal-soaked booty. Bonus points if the video is so over-the-top that a controversy ensues (don't worry, MTV doesn't show full videos anymore anyway-- they'll just show the 20 seconds of the video that isn't offensive on TRL and we can make a mint by selling the "uncut" version on iTunes.)
6. This is the most important part: PAYOLA, PAYOLA, PAYOLA! How will your song ever get popular unless all the top-40 stations play it once an hour, every hour? Make your check out to Clear Channel, and they'll take care of the rest.
7. ???
8. Profit!
Summary is misleading - gotta RTFA!! (Score:3, Informative)
The whole point is that the ratings (ie, quality) of the songs had little or nothing to do with their popularity - low-rated songs became popular as often as highly-rated songs! And in different test groups (there were 10), different songs became popular, still independent of ratings.
The Lemming Effect... (Score:3, Interesting)
True, up to a point. There's a network effect here, since groups of people use common cultural touchstones as a means of relating with each other (e.g., talking about a movie, an album, or a sports team). A teenaged girl will buy Britney's album because her friends bought Britney's album. A system administrator will rent Office Space and will understand the references to "PC LOAD LETTER" and the red stapler when they come up in conversation (or in posts on Slashdot).
But none of these works would make it into the collective culture if they hadn't gotten past a gatekeeper.
The gatekeepers of our culture are the people who manage movie studios, publishing houses, and record labels. Producers, editors, and A&R people are risk averse people in risky businesses. Every album that's recorded, every book that's published, every movie that's produced means that hundreds of thousands, millions, or tens or hundreds of millions are risked in a venture that might not even break even. And even if such a venture does break even or run a modest profit, these people look upon such a return as a lost opportunity for a best seller, platinum album, or blockbuster hit.
So, they hew to the lowest common denominator. They play it safe. They run endless focus groups, listening parties, sneak previews. They catch the sequel disease: witness the Harry Potter phenomenon, the bidding war for Seattle grunge groups after Nirvana's breakout album Nevermind, multiple Lethal Weapon movies. Two movies about asteroids obliterating the Earth, two movies about monster volcanoes, two movies about Mars missions, all released within months of each other. Could the two Matrix sequels hold a candle to the first movie? Do I have to invoke the crawling horror of Star Wars I, II, and III?
It's rare that a unique work emerges from our popular culture, something so distinctive that imitating it would be a sacrelige. A Schindler's List, a Don DeLillo novel (I'm hard pressed to find a major record label example, since I mostly listen to indie acts -- that's where the unique talent has fled).
It's telling that Spielberg gets to make a work like Munich or Schindler's List because he's made billions for Hollywood. George Clooney said as much about Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck; after these films he'll owe the studio an Ocean's Thirteen. Sequelmania is Hollywood's answer to risk. Hence the crap that's clogging our culture.
Twenty years in the music industry taught me a one of many hard lessons: the risk averse A&R guy loves to know that your band sounds like someone who's made money for them. "We wouldn't know how to market you guys" is not what you want to hear from them. "You're in the business of marketing bands. Fucking learn." is not what they want to hear from you.
I ended up forming an indie label. It made all the difference.
k.
What are you complaining about? (Score:3, Funny)
I used to really get bent out of shape when I went up and down the radio dial and heard different music and different artists throughout the day. So much variety! It was so hard to figure out what was good and what to choose! Now, thanks to Clearchannel, Congress and the FCC, not only do radio stations sound the same up and down the dial, but they play the same songs all day long, day in and day out. Life is so much simpler this way; I no longer have to make decisions, since they can just tell me what is good by virtue of playing it all day long. Plus, all the commercials make for great content, too.
Mega radio knows exactly what I like: Shake 'n bake/Cookie Cutter Radio. Play a song until it is *beyond* dead, and then only play what they think the public will like, based on what other radio stations just like them are playing. And then there is payola in its various guises, to keep the playing field "predictable and stable" (i.e safe) for the major labels.
By the way, who are these "Sirius" people ayway?
Just because *you* don't like radio... (Score:3, Insightful)
Some people like to listen to rock, some like country. Others like "contemporary" or whatever. Others still, listen to NPR and some listen to Rush Limbaugh. Not many listen to all of the above.
Radio is not about pleasing you it is about making money by attracting enough listeners. MP3 downloads not withstanding, you are not entitled to free entertainment that you like.
Just as there are not enough listeners for an all-opera-all-the-time station. Maybe there are not enough listeners to support your odd taste in music (maybe you want all-opera?). If you think most people have crappy musical tastes, what do you think most people will think of your choices in music?
If you don't like the radio, buy your own music. If you don't like the normal labels, try "independent" sellers. I have purchased several albums from "cdbaby.com" - but, you know what? Much of the music is unremarkable... maybe the labels do know something about picking music that people will like?
Sometimes you do find a gem; one indy album I bought was the www.solvingforx.com album. At least I like it, but that's the problem - there is no objective standard to test music. So, you are left with markets, marketers, hucksters and hype. People like what they like, or what they think they like; What's the difference?
Popularity (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They probably violated RIAA, MPAA and TV Patent (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What else did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Crap Rock (Score:3, Interesting)
The nostalgia trip; Regardless of whether the music was intrinsically good it still conjures up our past, at least for those of us who lived through it. We're all familiar with the example of being transported to childhood with the smell of baking bread, for example. Same with music.
I have oddball memory associations with all manner 'utter crap' music. Friends, parties, dates, stags, road trips, summer vacation, concerts, etc etc...pop is the