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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."
That's right: an art piece is not "objectively" good, it depends on the context where it's consumed, and that context is largely defined by the popularity of that art piece among other people. Look at famous classical musicians that became appreciated only after they died, for example.
...or Van Gogh's self-portraits, for another example: they are thought of as masterpieces but only because lots of other people liked his other stuff; if all he ever painted were self-portraits, no one would ever pay attention to them (or him).
Btw what would be an "objectively" -- standing in isolation from all else -- good music anyway?
and any replies to this will probably get modded -1 troll
The beatles are very overrated.