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."

Comments

Just like /.

[Mrs. Grundy]

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.

Re:Just like /.

[od05]

If you were to post this ten times you'd get modded up.

Re:Just like /.

[drumist]

Ah. That explains why your post has a score of 3 right now.

Re:Just like /.

[farrellj]

So, could one say that music, and Slashdot is a "social disease"?

ttyl
          Farrell

Re:Just like /.

[rssrss]

It is also just like middle school (shudder).

Re:Just like /.

[Firehed]

But do first songs always get rated at +5 or -1? I thought not.

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*

Re:Just like /.

[zlogic]

When I get mod points, I usually try to mod up unmoderated posts. There is often really insightful/interesting stuff hidden under (Score:1) and at the bottom of the page, which most moderators seem to ignore. Modding a (Score:4, Insightful) with lots of replies further up doesn't make sense to me. It's already perfectly visible, and that's the whole point of moderation: to identify good stuff and make it more visible that uninteresting stuff.

It's the Garmlich effect.

[rothic]

"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

Re:It's the Garmlich effect.

[jrockway]

> If you don't like popular music, that doesn't make it "crap."

True. The fact that it's crap is what makes it crap.

Re:It's the Garmlich effect.

[Kenshin]

Ah. I see. They touched on a nerve.

You must secretly sing the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps" in the shower.

"Nothing attracts a crowd..."

[no_opinion]

"... like a crowd."

Re:"Nothing attracts a crowd..."

[Aspirator]

Obligatory Monty Python Reference

Brian (Talking to crowd): You need to be independant minded.
Crowd: We are! We are!
Person in crowd: I'm not!

How else would we get

[BillFarber]

Air Supply?

Would the Beatles have made it today?

[yagu]

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?

[Drishmung]

George Starostin describes his introduction to the Beatles somewhat differently. As in someone really not exposed to them who now has very definite views.

Re:Would the Beatles have made it today?

[mblase]

Would the Beatles have made it today?

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 today.

Re:Would the Beatles have made it today?

[westlake]

today stars are foisted, created, presented to the consuming public by fiat, not a great surprise

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?

[damiam]

The beatles fucking sucked. Off-tune, off-time.

No one is saying that the Beatles played/sang with perfect technique. That's not necessarily the mark of a good band. Their technique was good enough for them to get their music across.

They became popular mostly due to their haircuts, and the fact that they were doing something new.

Exactly. They were doing something new. They were innovative and creative and they changed the face of music. Take a songwriting class sometime and you'll see how much of modern rock/pop is based on ideas introduced by the Beatles. Even if you don't listen to a lot of their stuff (and I don't), it's stupid to deny that Lennon/McCartney were musical geniuses.

Re:Would the Beatles have made it today?

[Bo'Bob'O]

They almost didn't. If a classically trained producer who just happened to hear 'something' in it that caught his ear in passing, they might never have gone anywhere.

We might never have heard of Stravinsky or Picasso had they not established themselves as masters of the current form of art before they went in very new directions. Had Picasso started his carrier painting like that, I doubt we would have heard of cubism.

I think the problem today is we have become so used to gloss that we are unwilling to except anything that isn't perfect. People find theater ridicules because it doesn't have edited perfection of film. We don't accept games that are a bit rough around the edges. Anything without the marketing and gloss of a big company is an "Off-Brand." Now, many, if not most, of us outgrow this, but I think few of us can say we are completely immune to it. It doesn't help that so often off brands really are crap.

So we forget, we grab the "name we trust" or listen to that band we heard on the radio all the time. Fortunately though, we have places for musicians to start out in, clubs, schools, little places, or little theaters for actors to tune their craft. We aren't in a place where new stuff is imposable, but it takes a lot of work from the artists, and an open mind from the audience.

So much crap in the radio?

[MikkoApo]

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.

Re:So much crap in the radio?

[kfg]

By that logic, you are an ape as well.

I am not an ape by logic. I am an ape because that's what I am and cannot be otherwise.

KFG

Barriers to Entry Falling = More Freedom

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

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.

People like to talk about music

[AK__64]

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.

Uh duh.,..

[phaetonic]

Hence the Top 40 stations and lists

GREAT!

[Shuh]

Now that I've posted, everyone is going to get in on this thread.

Re:GREAT!

[Mr. Flibble]

I refuse to become involved in this thread! Following the crowd is not my style.

the variable that was changed

[blue_adept]

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!)

Re:the variable that was changed

[mattmacf]

Not quite. From TFA:

The social-influence group was further divided into eight separate, non-interactive "worlds." Members of each world could not see the decisions of the other seven. The idea behind this was to observe multiple outcomes for the same songs and bands.

"If you look at Britney Spears, some people say she is really good. Others say she isn't good, she's just lucky," Salganik told LiveScience. "But by having just one argument, it's impossible to distinguish. However, if you have 10 worlds, and she's popular in all 10, then you can say she's actually good. But if she's only good in one, then you could say it was due to luck."

Although different songs were hits in each world, popularity was still the deciding factor, although the "best" songs never did very badly and the "worst" songs never did very well.

What you missed is the fact that "group B" was in fact subdivided into eight distinct, independent sub-groups. Rather than determining "WHETHER OR NOT the ratings were actually true" (Who is to decide whether a song is good? Critics? Fans? Other bands?) what the researchers did was take the same independent ratings (from group A) and give them to each subset of group B. It's not surprising that the "best" songs generally did well and the "worst" ones generally did poorly. What is notable is that different songs were hits in each "world," based (presumably) on the same set of independent data.

A key to music is the familiar.

[jellomizer]

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.

Re:A key to music is the familiar.

[happymedium]

If "the key" were actually this simple, we'd still be listening to Gregorian chants. Referencing a music theory class seals the absurdity of this argumnent. Where did the theory itself come from?

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 acoustic guitar in "Hey Ya!" New techniques are made to coexist with old ones, achieving substantially new effects--Radiohead's integration of electronic music into Kid A and Amnesiac, anyone?

Moreover, innovation is the key to longevity. Think of how long Radiohead and OutKast have been popular, especially by comparison to [insert top 40 hack here].

At the same time, derivative music sucks up market share like a crazed idiot teenager chugging energy drinks; by nature, it lends itself to intense but brief enjoyment. There's so much of it because the labels have to keep churning it out; all they can do is throw money at problems, and you can't buy creativity.

--hm.

Re:A key to music is the familiar.

[soliptic]

Not quite.

The key to good music the balance between the familiar and the surprising.

What is the soloist doing when he attempts to "build"? Actually the ideal process hardly ever takes place--that is, it is hardly ever the case that a conscientious soloist plays a thinking solo for a hard-listening hearer--but when this does happen, the key process is memory. The soloist has to establish for the listener what the important POINT, the motif if you like, is, and then show as much as he can of what it is that he sees in that motif, extending the relationships of it to the basic while never giving the feeling that he has forgotten it. In other words, I believe that it should be a basic principle to use repetition, rather than variety--but not too much. The listener is constatnly making predictions; actual infinitesimal predictions as to whether the next event will be a repetition of something, or something different. The player is constantly either confimring or denying these predictions in the listener's mind. As nearly as we can tell (Kraehenbuehl at Yale and I), the listener must come out right about 50% of the time--if he is too successful in predicting, he will be bored; if he is too unsuccessful, he will give up and call the music "disoganized."

Thus if the player starts a repetitive pattern, the listener's attention drops away as soon as he has successfully predicted that it is going to continue. Then, if the thing keeps going, the attention curve comes back up, and the listener becomes interested in just how long the pattern is going to continue. Similarly, if the player never repeats anything, no matter how tremendous an imagnation he has, the listener will decide that the game is not worth playing, that he is not going to be able to make any predections right, and also stops litening. Too much difference is sameness: boring. Too much sameness is boring--but also different once in a while.

-Richmond Browne

What else did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about a group who picks music based on what is sounds like?

Without that option, did anyone really expect people to pick music based on the names of the songs and artists?

If people use either of these methods, it's lame.
But, obviously, picking based on popularity makes about a billion times more sense that picking a song based on it's title. DUH!

What a retarded measure of nothing.

Re:What else did you expect?

[Tx]

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).

Re:They probably violated RIAA, MPAA and TV Patent

[symbolic]

I think the person that patented the method by which disease and pestilence are spread, beat them to it.

Mod me up!

[slart42]

Others will mod me up, too.

A social experiment

[Belseth]

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.

Re:A social experiment

[garett_spencley]

"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."

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

[brian0918]

"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.

Re:A social experiment

[gad_zuki!]

>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?

Re:A social experiment

[bxbaser]

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.

a couple of real-world examples

[zuki]

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...

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 /. 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?

How Darwinian!! Z.

Re:a couple of real-world examples

[Locke2005]

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.

You must be new here.

Re:How ideas on Slashdot get popular

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to disagree with you, but I've seen many pro-Microsoft (particular cases of course, or maybe just points of view) or anti-Linux rants get a +5 Insightful.

That is true, but, how many of those moderations are metamoterated as 'fair' as opposed to 'unfair'?

Of course, true statements often get moderated as insightful. Is it our fault that most statements against microsoft happen to be true?

Oh you mean statements like 'Microsoft is a monopoly because they were convicted as such' as well as 'Windows is so unsecure and unstable'?

The first one, the have never really been a monopoly, as they have always had competition in the form of OS/2, Linux, and MacOS. Comparing OS/2 to Windows 95 or even Windows 3.11, it was much simpler to connect to the internet as OS/2 could not handle dynamic IP addresses, only static. Linux is only now maturing into a real product, and even then it's still in its early stages

Microsoft also has competition in the form of Openoffice.org. They also had competition that wasn't nearly as good because wordperfect and lotus both wanted to stick with 'tried and true' dos. Netscape ended up going nowhere whereas Microsoft was continually improving their browser. The reason Microsft came up on top is they knew how to compete viciously in the market. That is what Capitalism is. Then when they thought they had little competition to worry about, the Mozilla project was building up underneath their radar, now they have competition in the form of Firefox, Thunderbird, Openoffice.org, and Various Linux distributions.

As for the second statement, I haven't updated in a while and I have not had to reboot in a while and I have not had any security attacks on my system at all. The deal with security is mainly with attachments. I do not open unknown attachments and yes, I use Internet Explorer and Outlook Express.

IMHO, I think there is moderations and metamoderations that are based on what a person believes rather than whether or not someone makes a good point. Maybe cmdrtaco could implement a metamoderation system where 8 users can metamoderate one moderation, and base whether it fair or unfair on the majority of metamods so that it can be a little more fair.

On music, I have heard several song on the radio that I don't care for, but my taste is different than someone elses. I believe that there are some song that are popular just because it's popular, others are popular because it's good.

Buying airtime

[jd]

New York is investigating scams in which hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in buying extra airtime for specific songs. I did not know this, but this is actually a crime. There are a lot of companies involved, apparently, but two very familiar names stuck out... Clear Channel and Sony. Sony has apparently settled, not sure if Clear Channel has.

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 radio stations in every State in the US. Cross-media ownership (eg: radio, TV and newspapers) rules have been relaxed, so the problem will likely get much worse before it gets better.

The easy answer would be to limit media ownership. One outlet in a city and/or two outlets in a State (for the US) or County (for England) should be ample and would make it much harder for labels to purchase airtime. Or, at least, more expensive and more tedious. It would neither inhibit freedom of speech nor commercial viability if "playlists" were banned, as well. "Top 40" charts and emphasis on those songs is fine, but essentially banishing all others (or banning artists for political reasons, as has happened) has little to do with any definition of freedom I'm aware of.

On the other hand, it might be easier to just clone the late John Peel and require all music stations to give him an hour's airtime per day. That would definitely work wonders for bringing the real talent out there to the listeners.

Ordinary fucking people

[Drunkulus]

I hate 'em

Re:Ordinary fucking people

[rkanodia]

Don't worry, we hate you too.

saves a lot of time

[DeveloperAdvantage]

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.

Bellwether

[jbum]

Connie Willis's novel Bellwether, which is about the science of fads, deals with this phenomenon in depth.

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.

MOD PARENT UP EXTREME !!!!!1

[Anonymous Coward]

...and mod this down ULTRATROLL

Re:Crap Rock

[vux984]

Why is the crap of the 1970 and 1980s considered "classic" today?

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 soundtrack to our lives. Listening to it we relive bits of it.

Hell, its even true for songs I despised at the time. I hated "Don't Worry be happy" when it was big, but hearing it now is a nostalgia trip; I seem to have fond memories of hating it. ;)

Rose Tinted Glasses

[Jesapoo]

yeah... You realise that this is what people have always said?
"Music in the [20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's - select as appropriate] was way better than the nonsense nowadays"
Think about how many songs from those eras are actually still popular today. 99% of music has ALWAYS been crap, and we only remember the good 1%.

Re:Crap Rock

[FLEB]

There's also the fact that 20-30 year old music has had quite a bit of time to let the cream rise to the top (or barring the cream, at least the most well known). I've found that I can probably sing along to 3/4 of the stuff on a classic-rock station, and that's probably not extraordinary. When you consider the sheer amount of music that was produced in those years, the classic-rock radio stations (or most other genre stations, for that matter) are only giving a sliver subset... there was much more "music of the times".

"-1 troll" utterance gets +5 Insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:"-1 troll" utterance gets +5 Insightful

[phlosoft]

This is perhaps due to a psychological phenomenon whereby skilled people are more aware of their own shortcomings than are unskilled people, and in this case, are more likely to realize that their comments might be interpreted as trolling by others.

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-unaware .html

Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

Re:"-1 troll" utterance gets +5 Insightful

[gavri]

Maybe it's only the ones that get +5 insightful/interesting that you see. The ones that say this will probably get moderated -1 troll and then actually do get modded down -1 Troll you don't see because they are "beneath your current threshold"

Re:"-1 troll" utterance gets +5 Insightful

[bahgheera]

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.

Re:"-1 troll" utterance gets +5 Insightful

[somersault]

I'm pretty sure I browse at -1, I dont get told any of the troll/insightful stuff..

Also have been shocked at being modded a troll once in the past (or was that twice) when I thought I was just expressing my opinion *shrug* maybe I'm a troll. I should do that thing 'oh I'll probably get modded down for this but..'. I dont even know what the point of the whole mod points thing is, seems fairly arbitrary and hopefully most people like to read all posts, not just the ones that are deemed 'interesting'.. >_> otherwise we may all end up missing the posts where people actually spout facts instead of just hearsay and their opinion. My own opinion can swing wildly from one side of an argument to the other while reading /. , and we may never know in some cases which posters have the facts right..

No, no no, you've got it all wrong...

[MayorDefacto]

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!

Whoever modded this up didn't RTFA

[porcupine8]

The point was, Group B didn't download the songs that Group A rated highly. They downloaded the ones that were downloaded the most times, regardless of how highly they were rated. Songs rated lower were just as likely to become popular as songs rated highly. And in different Group Bs (there were B.1-B.10), different songs became popular, always independent of the ratings given. There were a few songs that never did particularly badly or well, but no song was always really popular or always really unpopular, no matter the quality.

Summary is misleading - gotta RTFA!!

[porcupine8]

As I've had to point out to a couple people already, the summary is misleading. It makes it sound like highly-rated songs became popular. This was not the case. Songs that were downloaded more often kept getting downloaded more often and became popular - regardless of whether or not they were highly rated!

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.

Actually, no.

[porcupine8]

It's more related to the fact that articles with lots of comments tend to snowball into even MORE comments, into the hundreds. While those that only get a couple dozen tend to stay in the low numbers.

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.

Really?

[PsychoBrat]

Well... let's see if it works; somebody mod this +1 Funny!

Not really...

[MacDork]

It's just seems that way to you guys who only read +3's,+4's, and +5's. You never see the conflicted mods... For example, I made a recent post that defended an unpopular opinion around here. You never saw it because it only scored +1 informative. It got modded 50% informative, 30% Overrated, 20% Flamebait. At least 4 different mods there, -2, +2.

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.

Re:Not really...

[radtea]

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.

False. The probability of a song becoming popular in the group that saw the download numbers was poorly correlated with the rating given the song by the group who did not see the download numbers. These two pieces of information are sufficient to untangle the relative importance of perceived quality vs popularity. Any competent statistical analyst would know that.

Simply because you cannot see how to do something does not mean it cannot be done, or that that people who designed an experiment that you are not competent to analyze are stupid. This study has all the information required to show that we do exactly what you say you would never do: we tend to follow the crowd, regardless of the crowd's taste. I have no doubt I do this, and I am equally sure you do. This sort of group-think tendency is one of the fundamental aspects of human behaviour that makes us such successful animals, able to form large social groups and communities spontaneously on the most flimsy bases.

Denial of a scientific result because it runs contrary to what you would like to believe about yourself is very popular in places like Syria and the Whitehouse just now, but it is no sort of behaviour for any self-respecting human being living in a secular age.

The Lemming Effect...

[ktakki]

Turns out popularity bred popularity, which explains why there's so much crap on the radio.

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.

lastfm charts

[comradevik]

I fully agree with the article but then i also think that thsi music gets pushed by producers and record companies. sometimes its "cool" because it keeps airing on MTV and the crowd will follow to watch. But I think that's only for a short time. what is popular sometimes doesnt correspond with what the majority actualy listens to. I was just lookign at the LastFM charts and bands like Radiohead and Beatles are always on top. Sure MTV might push Britney Spears on top but it will never replace the music that is better by quality. I will rush to download a song that's popular to hear it and listen to it for a while but if the music is bad it will eventualy get off my playlist and Beatles will stay.

What are you complaining about?

[KarmaOverDogma]

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?

Just because *you* don't like radio...

[NotQuiteReal]

Just because *you* don't like a radio station doesn't mean others don't like it. Maybe you are listening to the wrong radio station? Maybe your radio station doesn't exist.

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?

The conclusion is bubcus

[CandideEC]

The average intellegent person uses the work of others to build on when attacking a task. If I where presented with a ton of songs to download it would take quite an investment to download and listen to them all to find out whats good. I would use the songs number of downloads in an attempt to lighten the load. Of course I would prefer to sort by ratings...like I would at amazon or newegg...but if ratings are unavailable I would go with downloads. This has nothing to do with being affected "socially". I am using others time to lighten my work load. Unless there are a very limited number of songs I don't see any other way to go...who is going to base there pick on artist or song name? That correlation sucks compared to downloads. Not that I think downloads is perfect...but it makes a nice razor.

Re:Think Bayesian...

[Ando[evilmedic]]

You Bayesians sure are a pain in the ass.

Raving lunatics.

Popularity

[vanyel]

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.

Well tell me how THIS HAPPENS?!?!?!

[WheelDweller]

A sure sign of the endtimes: Barry Manilow is back on top!

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_displa y.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001993401

Now mark THIS an "off-topic"....

In fact, no

[Opportunist]

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.

A Poor Study

[Se7enLC]

The study grouped people into two groups "Independant" and "Social Influence". The problem is, they have no control group, as BOTH groups are real people, and thus have social influence already.

The way the study worked (from my understanding of the article) is that one group could pick songs by title and artist and the other could search by title, artist, and popularity. The results were that the same songs were popular in both groups! Wow, Amazing! All you did was prove that the outside influence on the study was the same! People don't need a list of "most recently downloaded songs" to know what they heard on the radio. I imagine that a lot of the people in the study (when given the opportunity to legally download as much as they wanted) went to another site to find what music is popular and looked all of them up. Or asked their friends "what should I download?" thus reproducing the same effect.

What would have made an interesting test is to have NO artist or title information at all (Artist 123 - Song 6) and run the same test. The problem would still exist (when people recognize a song, they would rate it higher or download it more often), but you would have to listen randomly and rate songs based on actual quality, not on popularity. It would be like a radio station but random instead of being force-fed the popular songs 5 times per hour.