The reason why music savvy feels board with Billboard ‘Hot 100’

Week 5: Media, ideology, and hegemony II: media systems
Look at the top 10 songs in the Billboard ‘Hot 100’ (www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100). To what extent do you agree with the claim that the industrial production of media and the commodification of culture lead to a homogenization of content (i.e. less diversity of content)?

It has been argued that industrial media development and cultural commodification contribute to homogenisation of particular cultural product like music. I strongly agree with this idea because we can see the homogenization of structure of a song on the top 10 songs in the Billboard ‘Hot 100’.

Current music distribution is dominated by streaming service platforms like Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube, etc. According to Techcrunch, Spotify, the top music streaming service had announced that it acquired 232 millions of monthly active users and 108 millions of paid subscribers in the end of June 2019. Music industry is one of the industries that experienced disruptive change and rapid adaption of digitalisation and homogenization in the past decades. 

Effect of the drastic change and homogenization is appeared in the structure of song. Looking at the Billboard.com on the week of December 17th, 2019, "10,000 Hours" performed by Dan + Shay & Justin Bieber is ranked 10th. According to the Billboard.com, this song is characterised by Justin Bieber's first appearance on a Country chart. 9th is "Lose You To Love Me" performed by Selena Gomez. 8th is "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" performed by Brenda Lee. Being released in 1958, this song is a seasonal revival thanks to Christmas. "Roxanne" performed by Arizona Zervas is ranked 7th. This song is Zervas's first entry of 'Hot 100'. "Good As Hell" performed by Lizzo is 6th. "Memories" performed by Maroon 5 is ranked 5th. This track is their 22nd out of top earning 40 single. 4th is "Someone You Loved" performed by Lewis Capaldi. "All I Want For Christmas Is You" performed by Mariah Carey and released in 1994 is ranked 3rd. This song is undoubtedly listeners' all time the best song in Christmas. 2nd is "Circles Post" performed by Malone. Celebrated 1st is "Heartless" performed by The Weeknd. This tune is a lead single from The Weekend’s latest album.

Overall, song title tends to be short. 7 songs' title's words are no more than 3 words. Number of Songs which have only one word for the song title is 4 like "Heartless" or "Memories". Both "All I Want For Christmas Is You" and "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" are songs have more than 5 words for song title however they are released more than 25 years ago. In addition, almost all songs' vocal part begins immediately if the song is played. Why these features can be observed on the top 10 songs in the Billboard ‘Hot 100’? There is a research shed light on relationship between structure of song and attention economy led by digitalisation. Technological change has influenced the way listeners consume music as Léveillé Gauvin, a musicologist, states in his thesis "Drawing listener attention in popular music: Testing five musical features arising from the theory of attention economy". Gauvin concludes that after the digitalisation, a structure of a song has become more attention-grabbing. Gauvin conducted a unique research using 303 songs of top-10 music tracks in U.S between 1986 to 2015. These songs are appeared on Billboard Magazine's Year-End Hot 100 charts. 

In analysis, Gauvin found several features in songs which produced during the period. According to the research, Gauvin reports that the number of words in a song's title is comparatively decreased in the period. This feature is considered to contribute to improve memorability which is important for raising attention effectively and efficiently on social media. In addition, an amount of time before first singing voice on a song's intro is comparatively shortened. Length before the ‘hook’ which means first appearance of a song's title is shortened as well. On the other hand, main tempo which considered to contribute to make listeners arousal is increased, Gauvin states.

In current music industry, we can find cultural commodification and homogenisation because Gauvin’s research is possibly applicable to current top 10 songs in the Billboard ‘Hot 100’. It also could be said that the features we can find in a song are function fit to attention economy. (664words)