Drifting to the top? Disentangling mechanisms influencing the turnover rate of popular music
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10142117 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Scott Westenberger (0000-0002-7492-7664, Stanford University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 42-74 |
| Publication date | 2021-07-27 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Mathematical Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-250X • E-ISSN: 1545-5874 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0022250x.2021.1956918 |
| OpenAlex | W3184676071 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 45 |
What causes turnover on the Billboard charts? The neutral model of cultural evolution, which assumes that taste is transmitted via an unbiased copying process, provides precise predictions regarding expected popularity distributions and turnover within a popularity-ranked list. Recent advances in this line make it possible to characterize the likelihood of music taste transmission mechanisms by investigating departures of observed turnover rates from neutral model predictions. Here, I bias the neutral model to investigate four alternative conceptions of individual music taste transmission (song quality, individual status, social network, and anticonformist) and use agent-based simulations to examine the impact on turnover. I then compare modeled with empirical turnover data from the Billboard Hot 100 over the period from 1958 to 2021 and find that observed turnover patterns are reproduced only in an anticonformist model simulating the systematic rejection of the most popular songs. This finding was unexpected and challenges the notion of a generalized “preference for the popular.” Overall, this study contributes to ongoing debates regarding the mechanisms involved in the transmission of taste and the mechanics of fashion change
Copying · Econometrics · Economics · Epistemology · Mechanism (biology · Microeconomics · Political science · Popularity · Preference · Quality (philosophy · Taste · Turnover · Computer Science · Music History and Culture · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social Psychology
Regular rates of popular culture change reflect random copying
Random copying, frequency-dependent copying and culture change
Biases in cultural transmission shape the turnover of popular traits
Structure and tie strengths in mobile communication networks
Error and attack tolerance of complex networks
Statistical mechanics of complex networks
When Market Information Constitutes Fields
AIC model selection using Akaike weights
Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks
Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks
Identification of Endogenous Social Effects
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The Origin and Evolution of Cultures
Cultural transmission and evolution
Sound recording popularity charts
Information and the Skewness of Music Sales
A Matter of Taste
Stylistic Variation in Evolutionary Perspective
Leading the Herd Astray
Power Laws and Market Shares
Anything But Heavy Metal
Changing Highbrow Taste
Birds of a Feather Sing Together
When Politics Froze Fashion
Mapping Shared Understandings Using Relational Class Analysis
The Strength of Weak Ties
| Highly cited | No |
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