sex, love and evolution: making hits on the ‘billboard’ charts. Now that it’s December, “best-of-2011” lists for books, movies, and music are beginning to appear. If new research by evolutionary psychologists Dawn Hobbs and Gordon Gallup is on the right track, the songs selected as favorites of the year will be thick with lyrics about courtship, fidelity, mating, and parenting. Or to put it plainly, about sex and reproduction. That’s because, Hobbs and Gallup believe, the human psyche evolved to pay keener attention to “embedded reproductive messages” than to messages about other subjects. Hobbs and Gallup analyzed lyrics for 174 songs that made it into the top 10 on the Billboard charts for pop, country and R&B during the year 2009. First, 18 themes related to reproduction were identified, using a sample set of songs. These themes ranged from “genitalia” (exemplar: Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”) to “long-term mating strategies” (exemplar: Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek”). Then, using the defined themes, the 2009 songs were coded. A few differences were found across the three genres — commitment and rejection popped up more in country music, for instance. Overall, 92 percent of the songs carried reproductive messages, with an average of 8.76 per song. The key finding emerged once further analysis was done: the bestselling songs in all three genres included significantly more reproductive messages than those that did not make it into the top 10. read on, posted on npr
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sex, love and evolution: making hits on the ‘billboard’ charts.

Now that it’s December, “best-of-2011” lists for books, movies, and music are beginning to appear. If new research by evolutionary psychologists Dawn Hobbs and Gordon Gallup is on the right track, the songs selected as favorites of the year will be thick with lyrics about courtship, fidelity, mating, and parenting.

Or to put it plainly, about sex and reproduction.

That’s because, Hobbs and Gallup believe, the human psyche evolved to pay keener attention to “embedded reproductive messages” than to messages about other subjects.

Hobbs and Gallup analyzed lyrics for 174 songs that made it into the top 10 on the Billboard charts for pop, country and R&B during the year 2009. First, 18 themes related to reproduction were identified, using a sample set of songs. These themes ranged from “genitalia” (exemplar: Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”) to “long-term mating strategies” (exemplar: Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek”). Then, using the defined themes, the 2009 songs were coded.

A few differences were found across the three genres — commitment and rejection popped up more in country music, for instance. Overall, 92 percent of the songs carried reproductive messages, with an average of 8.76 per song.

The key finding emerged once further analysis was done: the bestselling songs in all three genres included significantly more reproductive messages than those that did not make it into the top 10.

read on, posted on npr

ethnic music tests limits in china They have toured Europe, played alongside marquee names like the band Coldplay and earned plaudits in the international press. But here in China, the growing popularity of the Mongolian rock band Hanggai has not exactly inspired adulation from the authorities. During a recent music festival the band organized in the suburbs of Beijing, Hanggai stacked the roster with musicians who, like the band’s members, are known for combining traditional ethnic music with contemporary genres. There were performances by Mamer, an experimental musician from the Kazakh border region of China who plays a long-necked lute, and Zhang Quan, a peripatetic folk singer from the arid northwestern plains. The event, undiminished by the erratic sound quality and overpriced food, attracted a swarm of state security officers who monitored the crowd with suspicion, impatience and a hint of curiosity. A growing roster of alternative performance sites and music festivals has allowed Chinese ethnic minority musicians like the members of Hanggai to enjoy an unusual degree of financial security and cultural prominence. But in China, where the central government maintains a firm grip on popular media and cultural events, minority musicians walk a fine line: play it safe and they may lose their audience; go too far and they may lose their stage. About 8 percent of China’s population, or more than 100 million people, belong to 55 state-designated ethnic minority groups. Centuries of isolation and autonomy have made many of them linguistically and culturally distinct from the majority Han. But over the past 30 years, a variety of social, economic and political forces have pushed them toward assimilation into mainstream Chinese culture. The lure of well-paid work in the cities draws young people away from traditional village life. Television and popular music have eclipsed traditional forms of entertainment. Moreover, many groups feel marginalized by Beijing’s policies that regulate minorities. Economic incentives that have lured millions of Han Chinese to the country’s western, southern and northern fringes have created socioeconomic rifts along ethnic lines. posted in the new york times
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ethnic music tests limits in china

They have toured Europe, played alongside marquee names like the band Coldplay and earned plaudits in the international press. But here in China, the growing popularity of the Mongolian rock band Hanggai has not exactly inspired adulation from the authorities.

During a recent music festival the band organized in the suburbs of Beijing, Hanggai stacked the roster with musicians who, like the band’s members, are known for combining traditional ethnic music with contemporary genres. There were performances by Mamer, an experimental musician from the Kazakh border region of China who plays a long-necked lute, and Zhang Quan, a peripatetic folk singer from the arid northwestern plains.

The event, undiminished by the erratic sound quality and overpriced food, attracted a swarm of state security officers who monitored the crowd with suspicion, impatience and a hint of curiosity. A growing roster of alternative performance sites and music festivals has allowed Chinese ethnic minority musicians like the members of Hanggai to enjoy an unusual degree of financial security and cultural prominence.

But in China, where the central government maintains a firm grip on popular media and cultural events, minority musicians walk a fine line: play it safe and they may lose their audience; go too far and they may lose their stage. About 8 percent of China’s population, or more than 100 million people, belong to 55 state-designated ethnic minority groups. Centuries of isolation and autonomy have made many of them linguistically and culturally distinct from the majority Han.

But over the past 30 years, a variety of social, economic and political forces have pushed them toward assimilation into mainstream Chinese culture. The lure of well-paid work in the cities draws young people away from traditional village life. Television and popular music have eclipsed traditional forms of entertainment. Moreover, many groups feel marginalized by Beijing’s policies that regulate minorities. Economic incentives that have lured millions of Han Chinese to the country’s western, southern and northern fringes have created socioeconomic rifts along ethnic lines.

posted in the new york times

study: narcissism on rise in pop lyrics.

A psychology professor at the University of Kentucky analyzed hit songs between 1980 and 2007 and found a correlation between egotistical song lyrics and increasing narcissism in society. Michele Norris talks with Dr. Nathan DeWall about his study.

gogol bordello playing immigrant punk.

wishing i could take a bus with all my fellow tumblrs on a field trip… or a protest.

willingness to listen to music is biological, study of gene variants suggests.  ”Our willingness to listen to music is biological trait and related to the neurobiological pathways affecting social affiliation and communication, suggests a recent Finnish study. Music is listened to in all known cultures. Similarities between human and animal song have been detected: both contain a message, an intention that reflects innate emotional state that is interpreted correctly even among different species. In fact, several behavioral features in listening to music are closely related to attachment: lullabies are sung to infants to increase their attachment to a parent, and singing or playing music together is based on teamwork and may add group cohesion.”  posted in  science daily  
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willingness to listen to music is biological, study of gene variants suggests.  ”Our willingness to listen to music is biological trait and related to the neurobiological pathways affecting social affiliation and communication, suggests a recent Finnish study. Music is listened to in all known cultures. Similarities between human and animal song have been detected: both contain a message, an intention that reflects innate emotional state that is interpreted correctly even among different species. In fact, several behavioral features in listening to music are closely related to attachment: lullabies are sung to infants to increase their attachment to a parent, and singing or playing music together is based on teamwork and may add group cohesion.”  posted in  science daily

 

from aljazeera english: rappers emerge from manila’s violent slums.  this video is about three minutes long.  it depicts some of the harsh conditions that filipinos live in and the role of music in providing a means of expression for despair, aggression, hope and perseverance.

the catcher of songs, alan lomax proved that the poorest of places held the richest cultural treasures.

“The following year found Lomax— accompanied by his new bride, Elizabeth—in the mountains of Kentucky, where he wrote his boss at the Library of Congress about the dangers of ballad-hunting. “It seems I am very nearly ready to lay down my life for the Library, for one evening I was nearly stabbed by the most religious man in Clay County. This sixty-year oldster was mortally jealous because I was helping his perfectly rotund wife up and down some steep clay banks and finally turned on me with his knife open vowing that he intended to rip the guts out this young black son-of-a-bitch.” The week-long expedition to Clay County alone yielded 50 records for the Archive, including “two feud ballads, some fine fiddle music, banjo picking, camp meeting hymns and the like.” posted by eddie dean in the wall street journal

ugh… reading too much statistics and loosing my connection with the flesh and blood of some of this research.

outfoxthefox:

THIS IS RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTSMAJOR.

And I smiled so big through it, and started singing along. 

strange fruit sung my nina simone.