The Pop Music “Bug”: How Social Networks Influence Music Popularity
In the article “Here’s How Pop Music Brainwashes You Into Liking Truly Terrible Songs”, we see how the opinion of a crowd determines the success of a song and how music taste spreads along social networks. This article references a study in which some people were given a list of songs ranked in popularity from most to least and others from least to most, all thinking they were given the list sorted from most to least popular. This study concluded that people are more likely to listen to music that they think is more popular, regardless of their individual taste. This agrees with what we learned in networks, where people will often disregard the knowledge they possess to instead follow the opinions of crowds. This “network effect” can be attributed to data showing that the music industry’s top 1% produces 77% of its total revenue.
Additional information supporting this network effect is found in the article “The Science of Ht Songs” where another study on music popularity was conducted. In this case, music was distributed to one group without popularity data and another group with popularity data. The group that had the popularity data listened to the popular songs more often. This could be the result of two different phenomena. Either a “song overload” situation in which the music market is so saturated that the easiest way for users to find music that suits their “taste” is to listen to what is popular. The other case is that people listen to what is popular as a way to connect to others. No matter the cause, however, information cases influence what seemly appears to be your own very individualistic “taste.” Much like the spread of memes, epidemics, and products as discussed in class, networks are formed between people through things and we find it to be incredibly effective due to our overpowering desire to form connections with those around us.
Links:
https://www.mic.com/articles/116288/this-study-shows-how-truly-bad-music-becomes-insanely-popular
https://www.livescience.com/7016-science-hit-songs.html