As must of you probably know, the 'best' song(s) aren't necessarily the most popular by the general public. What most influences people to like or dislike a particular song, or artist's rendition of it? According to a recent study by Columbia University, Peer (group) pressure seems to play a big part. If a member(s) of your respected group \likes or dislikes a song, it's been found to heavily sway the opinion of others as well, even if they previously liked/disliked the song.

Checkout the FOLLOWING articles for more details & results of this recent Columbia University study.

"Scientific American Magazine" article: "Hit Song" unpredictable, and heavily influenced by peer pressure

"Live Science" article: The Science of Hit Songs

- Scott

That's an interesting reading.

I believe most people who took part in the research did not have their own taste for music and therefore accepted the other's opinion.

George

Hi Scott:

Peer pressure is significantly greater with today's adolescents and teens. The music publishers and studios are doing their best to take advantage of this "phenomenon" and when coupled with Payola, the average songwriter is fighting an uphill battle.

I wonder how the IPod movement is going to ultimately influence the direction of popular music?

All my best,

Dave Rice

I'd say marketing plays a big part in a song's success.

You can have a really great song, but if no station wants to play it or no 'big time' producer wants to market it, you're not gonna be the next Big Star. I could be wrong though.

kn you are spot on i reckon...its ALL marketing!! even if you are a singer/songwriter trying to develop a fan base you are in effect marketing your stuff, its just to a much smaller audience...a+r people usually look for something that is already a market proven sales generator... not many, apart from independents (god bless em!!!!) will try something different unless it already has follow on underground/indie circuits..
and to scott, i reckon that the peer pressure angle is a reality, certainly taken advantage of by the majors.

actually george i tend to disagree, simply based on my experience when i was young, whenever that was!!!(and im not unique so i would have to assume many others did the same as me)...i had lots of bands i liked secretly, so i had a developed preference, but within our group at school, we usually pretended to like what was "flavour of the month" just to fit in...BUT we all still had our "real" favs

So you say teens are afraid to voice their own opinion because they feel more comfortable to repeat the other's opinion. That's even worse than not having a taste for music.

I still think those result show the unability of the teens from the second group to form an opinion.

I observe a similar phenomena at the marketplace. Many people tend to line up in the long queues because they think goods of better quality are sold there. Stands with no queues are usually avoided regardless of the quality of the goods which are sold there. That's a matter of marketing, you'd say. So why music should be different?

George

Scott,

I wish I knew why some musically simple tunes are hits and some of the good ones aren't.

I used to have this discussion with my dad who was a professional sax player until the day he died. When the Beatles came out he thought their music wasn't very good. I sat him down and we listened to some of their good tunes like "Something" and "Here There and Everywhere". I said to him "dad are Alley Cat and Cab Driver really better tunes musically than these?" He had to agree that they really were simple nothing songs. Yet they were popular.

That being said here are the reasons that I've come up with:

Good beat for dancing - "Alley Cat", "Elvira", "Stayin Alive".

Cute catchy lyrics - "Rolling on the River", "She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah".

A melody that you can walk away humming -"Your Cheatin Heart"

A cute story - "Leroy Brown"

A socially timely tune - Any 60's anti war, love one another, peace type song I can't remember the titles but the lyrics for this type of tune go "Somethings happening here, Stop children what's that sound, and " Go ahead and hate your neighbor go ahead and cheat a friend'.


Popular love songs when you fell in love -"Never My Love", "At Last" and similar type songs.

Songs related to a specific event - "Edmond Fitzgerald"

Patriotic tunes - "God Bless the USA", "Ballad of the Green Berets"

Finally there ARE good tunes that are done well that do become popular - "Rainy Days and Mondays", "After the Loving" and "Inna Godda Da Vida".

Tom