[api]

Stuff like this reminds me a lot of sugary simple-carb-laden junk food. The holy grail of popular marketing is to find a way to tap into some kind of simple and probably very evolutionarily ancient "craving" or "desire" pathway in the brain. Seems like they've learned a whole collection of hacks to do this with music, and are now just cranking out manufactured pop music full of those hacks. Combined with repetition in the radio (familiarity, another cognitive bias), they can churn out predictable hits.

The question is whether people will ever get smarter and start being picky. We've seen a bit of this in food. The whole/natural/craft/whatever foods movement contains a fair amount of superstitious nonsense, but at its core it's ultimately about consumers being a lot pickier about what they eat. I think the overall effect is good -- people eating healthier food and deliberately turning down addictive nutritionally devoid junk. Maybe we'll eventually get an equivalent movement in music.

[zild3d]

Plenty of markets have a similar effect. If you only take a shallow look into the market you will find the junk that is heavily advertised, but there are always experts/aficionados deeply involved in the craft. And this is true in music as well, I don't see why a "movement" is needed.

millercoors : craft beer

Beats by Dre : Beyer Dynamic

Lipton Tea : loose leaf

top 40 : jazz/metal/classical/progressive rock/...

[wvenable]

> The question is whether people will ever get smarter and start being picky.

The market for music is typically youth. So people probably do get smarter, start being picky, and stop being youth. But there's always another generation right behind.

[agumonkey]

At the same time other factors kicks in. As you get older you have less free time, you may or may not want to discover new things, you just listen to some easy songs on your way to work, and start to like them because they're part of your daily routine.

[davidgerard]

On the other hand, there's the factor of the hip music (not the top 100) getting box sets twenty years later ... because that's when the music fans have jobs and money.