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Who remembers the Beatles? The collective memory for popular music.
- Source :
- PLoS ONE; 2/6/2019, Vol. 14 Issue 2, p1-14, 14p
- Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- How well do we remember popular music? To investigate how hit songs are recognized over time, we randomly selected number-one Billboard singles from the last 76 years and presented them to a large sample of mostly millennial participants. In response to hearing each song, participants were prompted to indicate whether they recognized it. Plotting the recognition proportion for each song as a function of the year during which it reached peak popularity resulted in three distinct phases in collective memory. The first phase is characterized by a steep linear drop-off in recognition for the music from this millennium; the second phase consists of a stable plateau during the 1960s to the 1990s; and the third phase, a further but more gradual drop-off during the 1940s and 1950s. More than half of recognition variability can be accounted for by self-selected exposure to each song as measured by its play count on Spotify. We conclude that collective memory for popular music is different from that of other historical phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 14
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 134546238
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210066