Researchers explain how musicians can craft their next chart-topper: People like to say that mainstream music all tends to sound similar. While this is true to an extent, an analysis of more than 26,000 songs by researchers at INSEAD and Columbia Business School shows that breakout songs - the songs that hit the very top of the charts - are those that conform to current musical preferences while infusing a modicum of individuality.
Noah Askin, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD, and Michael Mauskapf, Assistant Professor of Management at Columbia Business School, analysed the acoustic attributes of more than 26,000 songs that appear on Billboard's Hot 100 from its beginning in 1958 to 2016.
Data on 11 acoustic features, such as a song's key, mode and tempo, were collected from The Echo Nest, a music intelligence and data platform now owned by Spotify. Their results were recently published in the American Sociological Review in a paper titled What Makes Popular Culture Popular? Product Features and Optimal Differentiation in Music.
The researchers found that hitting the top of the charts involves finding the right balance between familiarity and novelty.
"The songs that reach the highest echelons of the charts bear some similarity to other popular songs that are out at the same time, but they must be unique in certain ways in order to differentiate themselves," said Askin. "Adele's songs are great examples of the perfect typicality: she has been tremendously successful with that little bit of differentiation."
Mauskapf added, "There's a perception in the industry that top songs can be reverse-engineered based on what audiences are more likely to listen to or buy. But our findings show that 'hit song science' will only get an artist so far - it's very difficult to predict what kinds of songs other musicians will release, and when audiences will find them to be "optimally distinct."
Noah Askin, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD, and Michael Mauskapf, Assistant Professor of Management at Columbia Business School, analysed the acoustic attributes of more than 26,000 songs that appear on Billboard's Hot 100 from its beginning in 1958 to 2016.
Data on 11 acoustic features, such as a song's key, mode and tempo, were collected from The Echo Nest, a music intelligence and data platform now owned by Spotify. Their results were recently published in the American Sociological Review in a paper titled What Makes Popular Culture Popular? Product Features and Optimal Differentiation in Music.
The researchers found that hitting the top of the charts involves finding the right balance between familiarity and novelty.
"The songs that reach the highest echelons of the charts bear some similarity to other popular songs that are out at the same time, but they must be unique in certain ways in order to differentiate themselves," said Askin. "Adele's songs are great examples of the perfect typicality: she has been tremendously successful with that little bit of differentiation."
Mauskapf added, "There's a perception in the industry that top songs can be reverse-engineered based on what audiences are more likely to listen to or buy. But our findings show that 'hit song science' will only get an artist so far - it's very difficult to predict what kinds of songs other musicians will release, and when audiences will find them to be "optimally distinct."