Interesting. Does it mean less churn just at the bottom of the rankings? What if you made the same plot, but included only songs that made the top 5 or top 10?
My theory is that it mainly has to do with consolidation of radio stations and the advent of nationalized playlists (or whatever you call corporate mandated playlists) and computerized playlists. Prior to Regan-era rollbacks of regulations that were meant to keep radio regional (if I remember correctly no one company could own more than 10 stations) popular music was intensely regional. You'd have artists who would spend months as regional favorites before other stations caught on.
Also, the record companies did not worry about market saturation either, and encouraged their artists to pump out the singles. You'd be surprised how many times The Beatles knocked themselves out of the number one spot.
This, and before the '90s a song almost never opened at the number 1 spot (another symptom of top down corporate playlists); however this is now a common occurrence. I imagine this also gives the song a little more longevity as people haven't heard it a million times once it finally hits number one.
![image showing How long songs spent in the chart each decade [OC]](92873eda-d781-54b3-a152-cf066c8daf7a.jpg)
Civ4ever on July 14th, 2017 at 14:32 UTC »
Interesting. Does it mean less churn just at the bottom of the rankings? What if you made the same plot, but included only songs that made the top 5 or top 10?
kellermeyer14 on July 14th, 2017 at 14:56 UTC »
My theory is that it mainly has to do with consolidation of radio stations and the advent of nationalized playlists (or whatever you call corporate mandated playlists) and computerized playlists. Prior to Regan-era rollbacks of regulations that were meant to keep radio regional (if I remember correctly no one company could own more than 10 stations) popular music was intensely regional. You'd have artists who would spend months as regional favorites before other stations caught on.
Also, the record companies did not worry about market saturation either, and encouraged their artists to pump out the singles. You'd be surprised how many times The Beatles knocked themselves out of the number one spot.
This, and before the '90s a song almost never opened at the number 1 spot (another symptom of top down corporate playlists); however this is now a common occurrence. I imagine this also gives the song a little more longevity as people haven't heard it a million times once it finally hits number one.
Sherlocksdumbcousin on July 14th, 2017 at 16:20 UTC »
Is one of the dependent variables the number of songs in the Top 100?
I don't get this graph... What is the y-axis? (decades, yes, but the height of the chart for each decade)