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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 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).)
It took all the work to realize that. Just take some Music Theory Classes and it would make since. The key to Music and popularity is the familiar. It is brings up elements that are familiar then you tend to like it more then ones that bring up elements that are less familiar. So we grow up listening to music we tend to link it as familiar, to our ears so whenever we listen to other music we judge it based on what we know. So if you grow up listening to Pop, Pop is what sounds good and listening to classical will just feel wrong to you. Or even if you have a more broad range of music you enjoy there will be stuff from other cultures that will sound sour to you ears because they use a different key for music. So if you like listening to Brittany spears you will tend to like other Brittany spears songs because you connect to the music and her voice and other voices may not match. Because Brittany Spears is popular you will tend to listen to her more thus like it more, then say some lesser known band.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Go to most any store, supermarkets especially. Now stand and stare at an item on the shelf. Even if the isle was empty before within a minute or so at the most some one will be looking at the same shelf. I've quite often had people muscle me out of the way or at least stand in front of me. They will tend to stand there as long as you do and quite often won't pick something from the shelf. It's pretty common to draw a crowd. Marketing companies have known about this effect for years and used it to market products by hiring people to stand and look at displays. Humans are very territorial and are by nature very concerned that they will miss out on something or some one else will get the bargin and not them. If you anounced on the radio that sales were exploding for an album by an unknown group and that the stores would be sold out before the end of the day people would line up so they wouldn't miss out knowing no more about the group than everyone else wanted the album. Advertising works for a reason. You create a craze by convincing people they are missing out. Remember Beanie Babies? People were desperate to get them yet they were nothing more than a small stuffed animal and effectively worthless.
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