Maybe the system discovers that _more_ variety increases the selling - heck, any decently programmed AI program could find it quite easily: people _like_ new musical styles.
Yes and no. People typically like new musical styles that are different *but not too different* from what they've heard before. How many people onlist have listened to any electronic music by Ianis Xenakis? I like weird classical electronic stuff a lot, and even *I* don't like his recent stuff, although I think his music from the 1950's is fantastic. To me his new stuff sounds mostly like variations on white noise.
On the other hand, I love the style of electronic music done by Paul Koonce. Some people would define this the same way I defined the bad Xenakis stuff, but for me their styles are very different. But they are much closer to each other than they are to pop music.
Here's a good example. Go to
http://www.music.princeton.edu/radio/show6/show6.soundfiles/koonce.mp3
or
http://makeashorterlink.com/?R21E253A3
This is a Koonce piece called "Breath and the Machine." Listen starting at about 3 minutes 50 seconds and ending at about 5 minutes. How do you like *that* musical style? I happen to like it a lot, but I also like No Doubt and Juliana Theory and Ani DiFranco and The Ramones, and yes, even some Eminem. The last 5 I mentioned are almost identical to each other when compared with how different they are from the Koonce example.
Composers and musicians have to strike a precarious balance of being different, but not too different if you want more than a few people to listen to your music.
Grunge was considered by many to be a "new style" of pop or rock music. The key here is "of pop or rock music." It shared many characteristics with the rock that had gone before. Industrial was considered a new style. Like grunge, it has more characteristics in common with the rock and pop music that came before that it has characteristics that are different. The same can be said for trance, dub, hip-hop, techno, or any other "new" style within the past 30 or 40 years.
Now don't get me wrong (why do I end up saying that so often in posts?); I don't think the computer program mentioned in the original story posted by The Fool is a good idea. I just want to make sure we all realize that when we say we want to hear new styles of music, we usually mean new styles of music that are pretty similar to the styles of music we already like.
Reggie Bautista
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