Repetition, Music, Streaming

The best hooks hook because you wanna hear them again and again and you hear them again and again because you play the song with the hook over and over. That’s a secret of music, if you don’t wanna hear it again it hasn’t really done its job because if you don’t wanna hear it again and again then purely on a commercial basis, why would you buy it?
That made sense for decades and it is the way we do business in the world of pop music, repetition is the unit rate, the gold standard: repetition x amount of listeners = popularity . You can’t become popular through sales alone, you need people to listen and listen and listen and why am I telling you this?
So you listen and you listen except one of the effects of streaming is you stop listening. Or rather you stop listening to the same album, even song, there isn’t time. If you get over 20 new albums every single week to listen to, there is very little time to double back. Whatever magic music weaves now it isn’t the magic of old, you don’t listen to it and think that you are finding the deep insides of an album, you can’t unlock or maybe even notice great albums the way you once did. Because one of the ingredients is missing, time. It is the place where the music meets the listener, where you need to risk a valuable commodity in the hopes of a huge reward.
Essentially, it is the anti-Bob Lefsetz, the opposite of you have 30 seconds to make an impression, ready steady, get out. Somethings take time, somethings need repetition and even music you like you can’t delve far enough inwards. You remain on the outside looking in