Is music a meritocracy — an art form that privileges natural talent over everything else? Sociologists Matthew Salganik of Princeton and Duncan Watts of Microsoft have conducted a number of studies to determine what makes a song popular.
This can create a ripple effect, with songs becoming more and more popular because they already are popular. Social influence has a powerful effect on which songs become popular. As art is a form of communication we often share and experience socially, it makes sense that we like art that we believe will connect us to others.
Our instincts to spread what we like, and to like what others like, mean that what seem like small advantages for a song — perhaps a well-placed promo on Spotify, or appearing on the soundtrack of a Netflix show — can lead to a big chart presence.
A good review at the right time or being used in a viral meme on a slow news day could help more people discover a song just out of happenstance. Songs that get an initial bump can ride that wave, so more people seek them out, buy them, and boost their popularity.
This cycle can lead to one song, good or not, becoming a hit, while another disappears into obscurity. In the music industry, success is often more about popularity than quality. And although achieving popularity may seem formulaic, doing so relies as much on luck as on calculation.
The difference between a Sugar Man, a Dylan, and a Post Break Tragedy depends a lot more on luck than is commonly acknowledged. Talent still does matter, according to economist Robert H. The people who win generally are very good. The Beatles were very good by most qualitative metrics.
More likely, the band also managed to be in the right place at the right time, on top of everything else. The success of The Beatles tours drove them to want to branch out into different countries. Once they did they began their conquer of America on Feb. The Beatles first concert in America exploded at the Washington Coliseum. To the delight of The Beatles they had become more and more popular in America over the tour.
The Beatles had become that popular over their tour they were to become the first entertainment act to stage a concert at a Stadium. Some who have publicly acknowledged the influence that the Fab Four have on their music are:. The above are only a few artists who have willingly admitted to the degree with which The Beatles have influenced their musical style.
The Beatles influenced how music was made. They changed how it was released to the masses and how it was listened to. Before The Beatles, music was mainly recorded and released on. These records primarily contained two songs and maybe some extra filler media.
The whole point was to sell their singles, so that is what was released. The Beatles felt the entire record was the goal. They released whole albums, often not including their singles on them at all. They also normalized album art, creating some of the most beloved album covers ever. They are much imitated but never really repeated. The Beatles also created what would become known further on down the road as music videos.
Before The Beatles, live music was completely different. Not only did they drive their fans crazy by performing on television shows, but they also created what would become known as the stadium tour. The Beatles embarked on a tour like no other, booking venues that other artists had never even thought of playing. No one had ever thought of playing Shea Stadium and in , The Beatles played there to 56, fans, selling out in under twenty minutes.
Their impact is still felt across not only the music industry today but also the world. I'm looking at the picture now. It shows the Beatles, as they would remain, together, John, Paul, George and now at last Ringo in place at the drums, taken in that afternoon before one of their first public appearances on 22 August And now I am looking at another photograph that shows the four in the very last photograph that would ever be taken of them - from 22 August , exactly seven years later, to the day and, from the looks of the light, perhaps the hour.
There is something eerie, fated, cosmic about the Beatles - those seven quick years of fame and then decades of after-shock. They appear in public as a unit on 22 August and disappear as a unit, Mary Poppins like, exactly seven years later. Or take their beautiful song "Eleanor Rigby". Though Paul McCartney can recall in minute detail how he made the name up in , it turns out that in St Peter's Woolton Parish Church cemetery, just a few yards from where Paul first met John on 6 July , there is a gravestone, humble but clearly marked, for one Eleanor Rigby.
Paul must have made an unconscious mental photograph on that fateful day and kept it with him through the decade. Even things that they did in a pettish rush become emblematic: they took a surly walk across Abbey Road because they were too exhausted to go where they had meant to go for the album cover, and now every American tourist in London walks the same crossing, and invests their bad-tempered stride with charm and purposefulness and point.
The Beatles remain. It is no accident that the Queen's Jubilee, that other one, ended with Macca singing four Beatles songs. It wasn't just nice; it was only fitting.
Though it's a shame Ringo wasn't there to do the drumming. There's a popular video my kids like called "stuff people never say". Well, they don't say "stuff", and one of the things the video insists that people never say now is "I don't like the Beatles.
Everyone liked them then, and everyone likes them now.
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