There are a couple of other articles on the study from other reputable new sources (nbc and bbc), but I can’t seem to find the study itself so who knows. They are just looking for tangible evidence of influence not quality. That’s why they stuck to top 40 and attempted to control for intangibles.
You just asked for evidence of influence. You didn’t ask for evidence of influence in music you liked.
How the hell should I know what songs people sing to themselves?
You’re a people I’m a people
If you don’t have any idea of what anyone else whistles (melodies that you know just from being around) then maybe music is not serving the same function at all in the world as it was during the time we are comparing it to. I could see that.
No my point is influence on the top 40, measured by computer would be different than “influence on music” maybe because music is not well represented on the top 40 and it’s a human art and function.
And we’ve barely touched the metal bands of the era. Sure, there was a lot of hairband fluff, but there was so much great metal. The 80s were a terrific decade for music.
Your going to have to clarify what you mean here. I’m not following. This sounds like it might be the making of its own thread topic though if you think you can gather it up into an OP.
Good point. Fantastic decade for metal.
The song I most often sing to myself is, for reasons I cannot explain, Warren Zevon’s “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”. I don’t think this is evidence that this song had a whole lot of impact, though. It’s not even one of Zevon’s better-known songs.
What are you even talking about? I said that '80s hip hop has had a greater impact on popular music today than '90s alt rock and you’re asking me about what other people whistle. I don’t know and I don’t care.
No love for Devo? - they started in the 70s, but the 80s were their height of popularity.
Measuring top 40 songs by computer according to snippets would have limited use for talking about an art form as a whole.?
I’m going to grab a random month from the 80’s…I’m lying. I’m going to grab a random month from 1983. I wouldn’t touch 85-88…though I might be surprised if i did.
Ok, October 1983 and let’s see what i get.
Eeesh…okay. Here’s the good stuff:
King of Pain (Police)
Sweet Dreams (Eurythmics)
Sexy and 17 (Stray Cats)
One Thing Leads to Another (The Fixx)
Burning Down the House (Talking Heads)
Delirious (Prince)
Suddenly Last Summer (The Motels)
Don’t Forget to Dance (The Kinks)
It Must Be Love (Madness)
Modern Love (David Bowie)
Admittedly there was a lot more dreck in the other 30 songs than I thought. Frank Stallone???
Anyhoo my own contribution
Great Albums
Peter Gabriel-Peter Gabriel (III)
Kate Bush-The Dreaming
Kate Bush-Hounds of Love
Pink Floyd-The Final Cut
Madness-Madness
The Specials-More Specials
Donald Fagan-The Nightfly
The Pretenders-Learning to Crawl
Tears for Fears-The Hurting
etc…etc…
I was into hair metal and pretty much limited my tastes to just that. From Helloween and Slaughter to Nuclear Assault, I loved them all. However I can now listen to most popular 80’s music without shame and quite enjoy it now.
Well sure, but that wasn’t what was being attempted. They were looking for evidence of influence in concrete traceable musical forms.
Question: how influential was hip hop
Answer: very, more than just about anything else if you are talking about influence on current pop music and we can tell by breaking the music into component parts and identifying commonalities unique to hip hop and post hip hop top 40 music.
If you want the non computer generated answer I will point you back to Taylor Swift and Beyonce.
Under no conceivable circumstances could Nuclear Assault or Helloween be considered “hair metal.”
Mainstream radio music in the 80s blew. But mainstream music in nearly every decade blows.
Most of my favorite music (Naked Raygun, Husker Du, Replacements, X) is from the 80s.
Your opinions on music are always strong. And idiosyncratic. I always spend the appropriate amount of time considering them.
You are being kinder to me than I was to you. Onward and upweird
I would say that whole project is very questionable from the concept to the input to the output. It measures only a small thing that you need to make a lot of assumptions about to find meaningful. It doesn’t mean that music has a future at all for instance. It would not know if music was original or spiralling up its own fundament. The top 40 can have a tendency to be a negative loop, rewarding things that don’t expand music creatively.
It thinks the Beatles were not the principle source of the 1964 rush of originality. OK, but then what was? I don’t get that point.
Look at the top songs of 1972. And compare with last years top 100. A computer might just miss the most obvious things about the difference. It’s a machine.
One more thing: It is quite possible to not listen to hiphop and have a complete musical life, amateur or professional, or just a fan. I just have a hard time believing it is that comparatively influential
Hip hop is influential in the usual sense of the word. You hear it everywhere all the time.