The science of pop music hits
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
What makes a song a hit? It's all about the buzz[/b]Study finds that peer pressure plays significant role in success of musicThe Associated PressUpdated: 3:12 p.m. ET Feb. 9, 2006WASHINGTON - Does a hit song have to give 'em the old razzle dazzle in Chicago or join Meat Loaf in search of paradise by the dashboard light? Does Beyonce need to check on it, or can it simply walk the line to success with Johnny and June?The mystery of what makes a hit has perplexed song writers and marketers as long as there has been popular music.And in the end, the next hit song may be ??? like love ??? unpredictable.But a new study has come up with an intriguing clue: People will select a song if they think others like it.In other words, at least one key to musical success is the buzz, or bandwagon effect.The same is true for books and other products, says Duncan J. Watts, an author of the study appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science. "Successful things tend to be more successful," he says.Once an author has a best seller, the next book he writes is likely to also become a best seller, and once a brand name has recognition it is more likely to do well.It's unpredictableThe possibility that musical popularity may be unpredictable could, in a way, be comforting to music marketers, said Watts, a sociology professor at Columbia University."The fact they have such difficulty predicting what's going to be popular doesn't mean they are incompetent," he said. "There are all these stories of famous acts that weren't picked up by someone," he noted. "It's just inherently unpredictable.""The (study) results are certainly consistent with the motivations for payola. ... Getting it out there and getting it on people's radar screens increases its likelihood of it becoming popular," said Watts. Payola involved marketers bribing disc jockeys to give their records more air time.In their search for what makes a song a hit, Watts and colleagues Matthew J. Salganik and Peter Sheridan Dodds recruited 14,341 participants through a teenage interest Internet site, asking them to listen to music, which they were asked to rate from 1 to 5 and could then download. The researchers provided a selection of 48 songs by up-and-coming bands that the participants were unlikely to be familiar with. The music was selected from http://www.purevolume.com, a Web site where bands can create home pages and post their music for download.The study was done twice. Each time, young people were divided into groups, with about 1,400 of them in an "independent" group and about 700 in each of eight "social influence" groups.In the independent group each participant was on his own, while those taking part in the social influence groups could see which songs others were choosing to download and keep.The participants didn't all check out every one of the 48 songs, some listened to a few, some to many of them, Watts said.Following the treadIn the social influence groups, once some songs started to be downloaded, others would try out those songs too, sort of the way a best seller list gets people to try out a new book, Watts commented.In the independent group, with no guidance from others, each person had to make his own decision.Some songs proved more popular than others, but not always the same ones that became popular in other groups."The best songs never do very badly, and the worst songs never do extremely well, but almost any other result is possible," the researchers concluded.For example, the song "Lockdown" by 52metro was ranked near the middle ??? 26th ??? by participants in the independent group who had no knowledge of others' opinions. But in one of the social influence groups, it came in first, while in another the same song came in 40th out of 48."The findings are of considerable sociological importance," Peter Hedstrom of Oxford University in England said in a commentary on the study, saying that it provides added evidence that social influence is a major factor in explaining people's actions."Popular songs became more popular and unpopular songs became less popular when individuals influenced one another, and it became more difficult to predict which songs were to emerge as the most popular ones the more the individuals influenced one another," Hedstrom observed.The study, "Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market," was funded by the National Science Foundation, the McDonnell Foundation and Legg Mason Funds.Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.?? 2006 MSNBC.comURL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11257662/
Comments
and hours were spent just to figure out what everybody already knows.
Jeez, chill with the anti-academic attitude. If you want to talk about wasted money, why don't you start with
$25,000,000$250,000,000 Alaskan bridges.I thought this was a pretty good study in terms of its construction and methodology. I mean, even if it seems to conform with common sense, it at least provides a statistical rationale for market trends that's useful, both sociologically and for businesses.
You were being sarcastic?
Another thing is, I know enough examples where everybody talked about a unknown band, they got all media coverage from magazine to radio TV and net, and than they failed.
Why ??? Isn't that , in a certain way, peer pressure too ??
What is with the bands where everybody said "oh fuck it they never gonna make it again" and than they got the biggest album of the year ??
And what is with the artists that have a name already, they comeback, everybody is hyped, every media is running wild on the story and than they sell gold status or less ??
I dont know. I think there is a lot truth in the study, but there are enough examples which are totaly against it.
Peace
Hawkeye
Actually, the study bears out the exceptions that you mention too: when people are left to their own independent listening, it becomes MUCH harder to determine what hits and what doesn't. The study does not - at all - suggest that listening habits are akin to people acting as pop lemmings. What it reflects though is that MOMENTUM is what pushes certain albums from the level of a cult hit to a runaway, best-selling smash.
Take Santana's ""Supernatural", one of the best-selling albums of the last 10 years: NO ONE thought this would sell 10,000,000+ in its first year (now somewhere beyond 25,000,000). I interviewed Clive Davis about this and his explanation was pretty straightforward: there were two solid Top 40 hits off this album hitting the charts at the same time; that was enough to propel interest in the album and start the ball rolling. After a certain point, when 'Supernatural" was making news for selling so well, for being Santana's comeback album, etc. it peaked the curiosity of others wondering what the buzz was all about and that, in turn, fueled more sales.
Obviously, this pattern doesn't happen with every album but the study doesn't suggest that you can necessarily pre-program what people will WANT to listen to. What makes a pop hit is still dependent of finding enough of an initial critical mass of support; despite people's cynicism, you can't really manufacture a hit with any certainty. If that were the case, the music industry wouldn't be bleeding money and there weren't be so many failed records filling the bargain bins.