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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."
I think we all understand this. For instance here on slashdot this is the way the moderation works--things either don't get mod points or get the extreme value (not that I am hinting, dear bearer of mod-points, the you in particular lack independent judgement) . Pretty soon somebody will come along and mod this post down -1 as a troll. Seeing this, the next person with mod points will quickly mod it down as well--a kind of kick in the ./ groin if you will. If, on the other hand, the first person with points happens to have a wit worthy of Falstaff he will see the genuine insightful nature of this post and graces it with a +1. The result will be an avalanche of +1 placing this post among the few of well-meaning ineptitude that rises to empyreal absurdity. I'll leave it to the reader to determine which case illustrates the "Britney effect" mentioned in TFA.
I blame the recording industry and its marketing. Popularity might breed popularity, but unfortunately marketing bypasses "real popularity". Unfortunately there are still artists making music which isn't spoiled by even if the system tries its best.
Until relatively recently, the barriers to entry of the music business were sky high because of distribution costs. Now that distribution costs are going into a tailspin (iTunes & Bitorrent...Gracias!), the studios are scared out of their wits. Not because they're so worried about piracy, but because they can be cut out of the game entirely.
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.
Most people don't listen to music in a bubble, they talk to other people about the music and ideas get implanted in their heads. Also the way people talk about music makes a difference. If you say to me, that you LOVE this song and I HAVE to hear it, and download it and listen to it all the time, I'm going to look at you funny. But if you tell me in a laid-back, smooth and cool manner that this song is cool, I'll be more inclined to listen to you and less likely to write you off. It also works backwards. "I'm used to really like that song too, now I'm getting kinda sick of it..." Now you start to feel the same way, even just a little bit.
There are some really interesting studies on how people react in certain situations, responding to peer pressure and all that. Good stuff.
Hence the Top 40 stations and lists
Although it's not spelled out, this study tested whether those songs highly rated by group A, would become more popular in group B, WHETHER OR NOT the ratings were actually true; in other words, the truthfullness of the ratings was the variable.
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!)
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
From the mouths of Cowards comes wisdom. You're absolutely right, people find it incredibly hard to be random. Deprived of more meaningful criteria to base a selection on, they will use less meaningful, or even totally meaningless criteria. Ask me to choose between two cocktails that I've never heard of, and I'll probably choose the one whose colour I like best - I know it has no bearing on how good it's going to tase, but you have to choose, right? (Actually I'd ask for a scotch instead, but you get the point).
Oh no... it's the future.
This has become such a science, there is just too much at stake for people who routinely invest 6 and 7-figure sums of money into a new album. (And I am not necessarily speaking about record labels here, it could just as well be about the associated release tour, which by now generates far more income than the actual CD sales). Focus groups, endless studies of people's buying patterns, major pressure from the 'top' (i.e.: management) to conform to a predictable sound, etc...
/. and do a research on what posts get rated and modded the highest, and how this does influence the writers to conform to a certain style that they know will get them modded? ... and does this make their style more boring and predictable?
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.
Following the crowd probably evolved as a pretty good way of shortening the decision making process. If someone else ate a berry or mushroom and didn't get sick or die, then there was a pretty good chance that I could eat it too and would be ok. This saves a lot of time and energy instead of having to sort through everything by yourself.
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"Remember Beanie Babies? People were desperate to get them yet they were nothing more than a small stuffed animal and effectively worthless."
Everything is worthless unless people want it.
Everytime someone utters "This will probably get moderated -1 troll, but here I go anyway" ends up getting +5 Interesting or Insightful. I'm not trying to get off topic here, but I've seen this happen on numerous occasions.
Oh well, this will probably get moderated -1, Troll but it had to be said.
That's not the way music gets popular. Here's how it happens:
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!
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.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
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. "Likely to top 4 Million units" for iPods. Dipshits... they sold 14 Million) 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.
I used the same trick when i used to sell at swap meets and shows. one person from the booth would stand in front of the table when it got slow, never failed to bring a few more people over.
Popularity breeds popularity because it's easy: someone else has done the work for you. If someone else likes something, there's a much better chance that it's good than a random sample of all the music (or whatever you're rating), because 90% of everything really is crap. It takes someone determined to find the jewels to wade through it all to find the new stuff that really is both original and good. If you think something is crap because it's popular, aside from the arrogance and elitist attitude that implies, the same principle still applies, because it scales down to the people who like the same type of that you do: when one of your subgroup finds something, you'll probably like it too (and the multitudes will probably think it's crap in return). And popularity will breed popularity in your subgroup.