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How Songs Get Popular
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."
"It's the law of physics that states that if one girl screams for something, it will make other girls scream ... until all girls within a five-mile radius are screaming. Once you get girls screamin', you can't stop 'em! They're crazy!" --Chef, South Park
"... like a crowd."
Air Supply?
I now sure there's a patent on a business process of promoting junk as solid gold.
or does the tailor who sold the king his clothes have prior art?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Now that I've posted, everyone is going to get in on this thread.
In other news, water is still wet.
I think the person that patented the method by which disease and pestilence are spread, beat them to it.
Others will mod me up, too.
You must be new here.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I hate 'em
If you were to post this ten times you'd get modded up.
...and mod this down ULTRATROLL
>You create a craze by convincing people they are missing out. Remember Beanie Babies?
People are mindless conformists! So what flavor of Linux do you run?
Well... let's see if it works; somebody mod this +1 Funny!
Invisible to moderators.
It is also just like middle school (shudder).
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
I for one am thankful that no matter where I go in the nation, I can be sure that every station of the same genre (assuming there is more than one) will sound just like home. Thank goodness for consolidation of radio.
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?
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
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*
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
You Bayesians sure are a pain in the ass.
Raving lunatics.
A sure sign of the endtimes: Barry Manilow is back on top!
a y.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001993401
WTF? He's not had a song in 20+ YEARS....and he's outselling rappers?
Billboard has the story:
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_displ
Now mark THIS an "off-topic"....
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
I can't think about it. I'm still reeling over the word 'quartile'. I'm going to use it at least ten times today.
Hands down the illest ventriloquist this side of the Mississippi River, Hah!
Music gets popular 'cause it's made popular. Some music corp "discovers" (or, which is getting increasingly more likely, creates) a popstar or group, hypes him, her or them, stuffs them into shows like Top of the Pops where they are labeled the "newcomers of the year" or similar crap, then they sorta-kinda sing some song (which is 50% a cover version of a once-popular song nobody in the age range of 14-20 knows anymore, 30% some basic vanilla popcrap and 20%, depending on the song, mindless basedrum or the violin line of a classic song) and we got a new star.
Now the CDs of this star are being sold (with this song being the only one on the CD worth listening, if at all), about 2-3 months later, before everyone forgets who that guy was the system gets repeated with the "new smash hit" (on another CD, with other fill-crap to boost the content of the coaster to about 30 minutes).
After that, nobody ever hears from the guy anymore. Because we have a new "newcomer of the year".
And all the mindless music drones buy the crap. Because they need it to be up to date with music. You don't know (insert singer drone)? Where are you from, some other planet? Ha ha ha.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.