When Did Popular Music Become Standardized? A Statistical Analysis
And if the only two fair measures are popularity and who can make the most money on things, it tends to over-emphasize things that are conventional, rather than radical, because conventional things sell better. And so we’re just rewarding ourselves for following formulas. And the whole point of cultural creation is supposed to be breaking those for
... See moreDan Frommer • How the internet changed culture — and what it means
This period seemed to be short lived. Somewhere between 2002 and 2005, perhaps, it all changed. A combination of factors seemed to have converged and come to the fore. The disastrous Telecommunications Act of 1996 came to full fruition, by now having destroyed a ton of independent radio in America due to “radio homogenization”. The MP3 “revolution”... See more
Ryan Peter • The Day When the (Christian) Music Died
We live in an era of predictive analytics, in which creative decisions are increasingly driven by computer models that aim to try to predict what will—and will not—be a hit. Now, pause and think about how that works for a second, and you’ll see that it will inevitably lead to convergence toward, you guessed it: the Surefire Mediocre.
Brian Klaas • The Age of the Surefire Mediocre
“provide similar items to everybody, like, regardless of personal taste.” Hence the homogenization we are experiencing today.