This news item from Digital Music News is really depressing, but so predictable too! They compiled the ten most-played songs across terrestrial radio, Spotify, iTunes and YouTube in the US, and surprise, they are almost all identical!
You would think that a tool like Spotify would give people all the freedom in the world to discover new artists, to listen to an infinite variety of music, but it turns out that people use Spotify to listen to Carly Rae Jepsen, Gotye, Maroon 5, fun, Justin Bieber, Flor Rida, The Wanted, One Direction,… basically the same artists blasted on commercial radios all day long. It is the same story with iTunes and YouTube, with minor variations, and in the four top 10 lists you find the same boring Carly Rae Jepsen-Gotye-Maroon 5-fun-Flo Rida lineup! It is even worst when you consider that people are even listening to the same damn songs!
What’s new? People are sheep, this is why they are so easily fooled by political and religious ideas, they all follow the current tendency, and accept to like whatever they are fed with. It just confirms that human nature is just not that imaginative and independent, and is not often able to look outside the box.
But what does it mean? That radio is still influential despite all these other services? Technically, people who use Spotify shouldn’t spend hours listening to the radio, but the uniformity is there nevertheless, radio listeners and Spotify users all end up listening to the same thing!
Personally I never listen to commercial music radio, honestly how many times can you stand to listen to Gotye’s ‘Somebody that I used to know’ in an afternoon? Still I know that this song is very popular, somehow the popularity of the song transpires in the culture around you. So between a very limited playlist and an infinite one, the majority of people will go with the limited one because most people are not adventurous, or just plain lazy and very boring.
