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Analysing number 1 songs

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  • Analysing number 1 songs

    What made Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" a No. 1 hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1983, and other songs, like Madonna's 1999 "Nothing Really Matters," flounder at 90 or below? New research from the University of Southern California suggests that back-up singers may finally be getting their due.

    Joseph Nunes, professor of marketing at the USC Marshall School of Business, together with doctoral candidates at the USC Thornton School of Music, analyzed thousands of songs from Billboard magazine's Hot 100 list to determine which combination of instruments and vocals comprised the most popular songs in the United States over the past 55 years. The Billboard Hot 100 list began compiling hit singles in 1958.

    The results of his research with Andrea Ordanini, professor of marketing at Bocconi University in Italy, were published in "I Like the Way It Sounds: The Influence of Instrumentation on a Pop Song's Place in the Charts" in Musicae Scientiae, the Journal of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music.

    Voices Carry

    "Using background vocals in your song increases your chances of reaching the top of the charts," said Nunes, a music lover and beginning guitarist fascinated by the psychology of music.

    The researchers analyzed all 1,029 No. 1 songs on Billboard's Hot 100 between 1958 and 2012 and each of the 1,451 songs that never climbed above No. 90. They secured audio recordings of as many of those 2,480 songs as possible and employed a team of graduate students, led by Ph.D. candidate Brad Sroka, at USC Thornton to code the types of instruments and vocals audible on each.

    The researchers found two combinations of core instruments and vocals most often present in No. 1 hit songs, like Prince's "Kiss" (1986) and Jay Z's "Hey Papi" (2000):

    - background vocals, synthesizer and clean guitar
    - background vocals, synthesizer and distorted electric guitar

    The core instruments that identified songs unable to move above No. 90, such as Aretha Franklin's "Try a Little Tenderness" (1962) and Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" (1986), fell into one of three combinations of core instruments:
    - acoustic guitar, acoustic piano and no strings
    - clean guitar and acoustic piano
    - bass guitar, synthesizer and no electric piano

    Even if other instruments were added to these core instruments, it did not change their likelihood of being at the top, or lingering at the bottom.
    The only common thread: Every hit song featured back-up vocals, while the songs at the bottom of the charts all excluded background vocals.

    A Different Tune

    Nunes and Ordanini also found that the number of instruments in a song can affect its likelihood of success.

    "Our results suggest songs that do not follow conventional instrumentation have the best chance of becoming No. 1 hits," Nunes said. "The average song has three to five instruments, but songs that feature a surprisingly low or high number of instruments -- at specific points in time -- tended to stand out."

    This pattern synced by decade -- hits of the mid-1970s through to the '90s featured more instrumentation, while songs from the 1960s and late-2000s with fewer instruments fared better.

    By coding musical pieces for different instruments, the researchers have added to the understanding of how musical properties influence preferences. Still, music is an art, not a science. They admit their analysis helps explain the success of a percentage of, but not all, hit songs.

    "There are always exceptions and reasons other than the choice and number of instruments for a song's popularity," Nunes said. "For example, the star power of Rihanna may overcome any effect of instrumentation."
    What makes a song sing? Backup singers -- ScienceDaily

    Much of this doesn't come as a surprise, but it is still always nice to see empirical evidence supporting commonly held views.

    That hit songs developed increased instrumentation through the 60s and 70s is to be expected as artists search for innovative ideas and studio equipment and expertise advances, a regression in more recent years is interesting. We should expect that art has a partial resistance to technical advance because people's tastes do not evolve in parallel with the discovery and advances in music in its entirety. Furthermore, human preferences have shown to be cyclical and partially dependent on the extent of their popularity, and I wouldn't be surprised to see similar patterns develop in music as less popular comes back into vogue to undermine itself because of its very popularity, withdrawing to the alternative scene before returning in time once again.

    The importance of backup singers and the identification of key combinations of instruments can be a lesson for producers and musicians, if you want no.1 hits, focus your song output on these formulas and your more likely to produce a winner. At the top of the industry, there is no doubt that this kind of strategy is being executed.

  • #2
    Considering who gets 15 awards and who doesn't. I'll be glad if the music takes the formula and let the musicians do their thing.
    No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

    To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

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