To read this content please select one of the options below:

Bustin’ Out: The Evolution of Novelty and Diversity in Recorded Music

Giacomo Negro (Emory University)

Balázs Kovács (Yale University)

Glenn R. Carroll (Stanford University)

The Generation, Recognition and Legitimation of Novelty

ISBN: 978-1-80117-998-0, eISBN: 978-1-80117-997-3

Publication date: 20 January 2022

Abstract

Using a novel measure incorporating stylistic and acoustic data on recorded music from 1967 to 2017, we search for trends in the evolution of musical diversity in 125,340 albums. We find that temporal patterns of diversity differ for stylistic and acoustic data. We also find that the patterns differ dramatically by genre. Some genres, such as blues, jazz, and pop-rock, decrease in diversity over time; most other genres increase in diversity. The causes of these different trends present a puzzle for future research. We also find different patterns for recordings that made the Billboard 200 charts compared to all recordings, suggesting an association between selection processes driven by consumer popularity and diversity. Moreover, associations of diversity and industry structure found in prior research do not hold when we analyze data beyond the smaller sample of the more popular recordings found in Billboard. These findings have implications for many prior studies based exclusively on best-selling recordings

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

Ron Harris (Emory) and Mason Jiang (Stanford) provided expert research assistance. We appreciate comments on earlier drafts from Mike Hannan, Elena Pesavento, Shiya Wang, the members of the Stanford Macro Lunch group, the editors, and the participants to the 2021 Creative Industries Conference.

Citation

Negro, G., Kovács, B. and Carroll, G.R. (2022), "Bustin’ Out: The Evolution of Novelty and Diversity in Recorded Music", Cattani, G., Deichmann, D. and Ferriani, S. (Ed.) The Generation, Recognition and Legitimation of Novelty (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 77), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 51-87. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20220000077007

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited