3 ms·

Surely you’re not suggesting that the common denominator is continually getting lower and lower.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
If the market was mainly national and now it's increasingly global, why wouldn't it?
makeitdouble 3y ago
As there's more sources exposed to the public all around (not just a few radios and a few tv shows) and tastes diverge, that would be the natural outcome. Also people can seek their better targeted, more appealing music elsewhere so pop doesn't need to fill these shoes.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  Also pop is now more global than ever and intentionally targeting more global audiences, and so there’s a lot more to average about.
contravariant 3y ago
If the audience grows that is precisely what this hypothesis would predict.
Rury 3y ago
That is not quite what I was thinking. More like the industry is selecting for the optimum combination of common factors. For an overly simple example: - person A likes musical features W,X,Y,Z - person B likes musical features I,J,K,Z - person C likes musical features A,B,K,Z Z is a common feature they all like, so it's very popular. K is the next most common feature, but not quite as popular as Z. Making a song that only has features K+Z is bound to be more popular than one that is solely made of Q+D (which no one likes). Mind you, features could be anything from rhythm, time, timbre, melodies, as well as other emergent stuff. But having song with features K+Z is not Person C's favorite music, and rather a song which has features A+B+K+Z would be Person C's preferred music, but the industry doesn't select for that since A+B aren't common features everyone likes. And a song consisting solely of K+Z is simpler than one which has A+B+K+Z. However, making a song of solely of feature Z is too simple, and hence doesn't work. As if there's a minimum complexity requirement to meet in order to be a song. Hence K+Z works but a song solely of Z doesn't. And K+Z isn't necessarily anyone's ideal/preferred music, even though it's popular. Also, making a song of A+Z would probably stand to be somewhat popular, but not as much as K+Z. And so, a lot of popular songs seem repetitive, because they all use common features, such as feature Z in this example.
- binary132 3y ago
  Then the cardinality of the marketable featureset is inversely proportional to the feature diversity of market preferences, yeah?

If the market was mainly national and now it's increasingly global, why wouldn't it?

As there's more sources exposed to the public all around (not just a few radios and a few tv shows) and tastes diverge, that would be the natural outcome. Also people can seek their better targeted, more appealing music elsewhere so pop doesn't need to fill these shoes.

bobthepanda 3y ago
Also pop is now more global than ever and intentionally targeting more global audiences, and so there’s a lot more to average about.

contravariant 3y ago

If the audience grows that is precisely what this hypothesis would predict.

Rury 3y ago

That is not quite what I was thinking. More like the industry is selecting for the optimum combination of common factors. For an overly simple example: - person A likes musical features W,X,Y,Z - person B likes musical features I,J,K,Z - person C likes musical features A,B,K,Z Z is a common feature they all like, so it's very popular. K is the next most common feature, but not quite as popular as Z. Making a song that only has features K+Z is bound to be more popular than one that is solely made of Q+D (which no one likes). Mind you, features could be anything from rhythm, time, timbre, melodies, as well as other emergent stuff. But having song with features K+Z is not Person C's favorite music, and rather a song which has features A+B+K+Z would be Person C's preferred music, but the industry doesn't select for that since A+B aren't common features everyone likes. And a song consisting solely of K+Z is simpler than one which has A+B+K+Z. However, making a song of solely of feature Z is too simple, and hence doesn't work. As if there's a minimum complexity requirement to meet in order to be a song. Hence K+Z works but a song solely of Z doesn't. And K+Z isn't necessarily anyone's ideal/preferred music, even though it's popular. Also, making a song of A+Z would probably stand to be somewhat popular, but not as much as K+Z. And so, a lot of popular songs seem repetitive, because they all use common features, such as feature Z in this example.

binary132 3y ago
Then the cardinality of the marketable featureset is inversely proportional to the feature diversity of market preferences, yeah?