Justice – “D.A.N.C.E.” video
[props to http://www.discobelle.net]
How much love can a blogosphere give a ‘band’ with only 5 songs? Answer: a lot. And we’re not helping solve the problem, as we love these men with their dirty beats, funky basslines and porn sideburns as much as the next bleary eyed laptop jockey.
But as much as mon amour is pure and vrai, it feels a little pointless contributing what feels like yet another (and superfluous) vote for the already-elected. In a Columbia study published last year in Science, people were asked to listen to, rate and, if they chose, download songs by bands they had never heard of. Half the 14,000 participants were shown the prior download figures for the songs, while the other half were simply shown a list of titles.
The result was that in the first, or “social-influence” group, the most popular songs were much more popular (and the least popular songs were less popular) than in the independent condition. In other words, as The New York Times put it, in their piece about the study “the impact of a listener’s own reactions is easily overwhelmed by his or her reactions to others.”
The reason is that when people tend to like what other people like, differences in popularity are subject to what is called “cumulative advantage,” or the “rich get richer” effect. This means that if one object happens to be slightly more popular than another at just the right point, it will tend to become more popular still.
And there’s the rub: are we not subject to this same prejudice with every post we write, and each corresponding click we make selecting songs to download? Are we blogging about a band or downloading a song simply because we keep seeing it show up on so many damn “tastemaker” playlists, thus predisposing us to assume it’s good – or, worse, that we need to like it to be cool?
Are we listening with our eyes?
Ok, that conclusion was tongue-in-cheek-edly pompous. But it’s late and I am procrastinating sending out press packets of our new remix album. I HATE sending out press packets.
For now, my fellow francodiscophones, drop what you’re doing and add http://www.hatesomethingbeautiful.com to your bookmarkblogrollRSSnetvibes, because there are three new Justice-y things there now:
1. A new Uffie + Justice track, possibly an alternate version of a forthcoming track from the forthcoming Justice album, which drops July 10…
2. …and for which the magic geniuses at HSB have procured a tracklist, as such:
1. Genesis
2. Let There Be Light
3. D.A.N.C.E.
4. Newjack
5. Phantom
6. Phantom Pt. II
7. Valentine
8. The Party
9. DVNO
10. Stress
11. Waters of Nazareth
12. One Minute To Midnight
3. AND FURTHERMORE a couple o’ Justician remixes I’d never heard before:
MP3: “Skitzo Dancer (Justice Remix)” – Scenario Rock
MP3: “Me Against The Music (Justice Remix)” – Britney Spears
So. Go there.
Also: nothing to do with Justice or HSB, but worthy of mention are a few cool traxx I found whilst trolling the world o’ electro bloggage recently. Enjoy. Back to stuffing envelopes for me. So very glam, this rock stardom thing.
MP3: “Music Sounds Better On A Holiday” -Stardust + Madonna.
MP3: “The Brainwasher (Erol Alkan’s Horrorhouse Dub)” – Daft Punk
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