That might be what bothers me. The more wrapped-up artists feel to create a hit song (with labels feeding their music through the machine), the more it may impact their ability to create good art in the process.
Yeah, but I feel like it's only gonna have an effect on some of the artists who are already big at radio anyway. I'm not saying it's good news; I'm just saying it's far from the end of the world as we know it. (I feel fine.)
Possible repercussions aside, I think it's an interesting study. I think it's true that there are some very typical things that the brain of the average listener will respond to. It's interesting to see that exceptions like "Da Da Da" (annoying little prick of a song though it might be) can sometimes score big despite that, but every now and then I think the mainstream likes to briefly flirt with novelty. Hear some weird-ass song in enough of the right places at the right times and it will worm its way into your brain, like it or not.
It'd be interesting to do a study of how fans of different musical genres, ranging from very popular music to very obscure music to music that was popular a long time ago (jazz or classical, etc.), and see what things specifically get their brains going. I don't think that'll lead us to any reliable algorithms for making good music, but I'm always interested in understanding ourselves a little better.
NP: "Against the Grain", Earthsuit
