Can we let mob rule run music?

A lot of attention has been paid to listener preferences with respect to music recommendation, and with good reason. After all, music recommendation systems are meant to support the listener in her effort to find new, enjoyable music. And of course there is loads of data on listening habits. But we must be careful not to forget the experts - the artists, the musicians, the critics, and the musicologists. And we must remember, music is not a popularity contest - it is a complicated facet of our identity as individuals and as a society as well as one of the most important aspects of culture.

I think anybody reading this blog would agree that the artists at the top of the pop charts are often of dubious merit. Is this what happens when leave music to mob rule? Or can we blame the evil record labels of yesteryear for this phenomenon? I think we are all excited about the new digital age where the 'long tail' is accessible and increasingly navigable. But what happens to this long tail when we allow the same mob who put Brittney Spears on the top of the charts to dictate how we populate and search this new digital music space?

In case you think I'm just pretentious and that there is no evidence of problems in the mob rule of music, let's look at a recent study by Salganik, Dodds, and Watts. A group of nearly 15k listeners were presented a collection of about 50 unheard songs. One group was instructed to rate each song with no extra information. The other group was given the same instructions but also the average ratings for each song given by other members of the group. It was found that, "increasing the strength of social influence increased both inequality and unpredictability of success." For the group with social influence, the success of a song was only loosely correlated with success in the control group. The conclusion - the success of a song in a market with social influence depends little on the quality of that song.

So if we rely on techniques based solely on social influence (i.e. collaborative filtering) to make music recommendations what happens in the future? Will we loose our most talented jazz musicians, our historic folk artists, and our great composers in the vast obscurity of the long tail? Will classical music still matter?

Maybe the diversity of interests and the strength of new technologies will prevail - preserving the greatness of our musical heritage and expanding the horizons of our musical future. I'm sure there will always be groups of dedicated listeners who truly care about good music. And by definition, there is always room in the long tail. And maybe I'm going a bit Andrew Keen (who has some really nice points but I don't entirely agree with).

But as potential gate keepers for this new digital music space, why should we risk it? Why should we submit to mob music rule? I don't deny that collaborative filtering and related technologies are tremendously useful and exciting. I am just arguing that because they are inherently social, these methods cannot be our only gateway into the new digital music space.

Do I have a better idea? Well, maybe. This argument is behind my interest in networks of artists. By studying networks of artist collaboration or musical influence we are in a sense studying a map of the cultural context of music. Perhaps navigating these networks in an intelligent way could help power music recommendation systems that are less social and more cultural...