Back from Madrid with a roller-case bearing obscure books and 1 € Maghrebi CD-rs…
[audio:Khaled-Rai_Arai(DJ_SMS_mix).mp3]Khaled – Rai Arai (DJ SMS mix)
+
speaking of books…
A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read “The Lost Symbolâ€, by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it.
A World of Hits, The Economist
the other things I liked in that article (which popped up in front of my eyes earlier today via somebody’s tweet but I lost track who !):
“In 2008 Britons in their 40s spent more on pop and rock music than teenagers or people in their 20s, according to TNS, a market-research firm. As young people with more unusual tastes abandon music shops altogether, the market becomes skewed towards safe, established pop acts. ”
(implied that yout-loss is also due to downloading)
““Both the hits and the tail are doing well,†says Jeff Bewkes, the head of Time Warner, an American media giant. Audiences are at once fragmenting into niches and consolidating around blockbusters. Of course, media consumption has not risen much over the years, so something must be losing out. That something is the almost but not quite popular content that occupies the middle ground between blockbusters and niches.”
that said I listened to the top 2009 hits in pop over at w&w. hideous shit. but I never heard any of it all year ! I’ve never heard lady gaga. one of these days I’ll bother. that’s the beauty of the multi-scene now.
nice track.
good quotation – but celebrity books are dying a bit in the UK these days.
the same is true for music – or any other art, actually.