 Every popular song sounds the same. Here's why. That's the title of this video. We'll put it in the link in the description. But there's a specific segment of this video that we want you guys to hear. Check this out. Scientists have studied 464,000 songs and found that both melodies and sounds of instruments are becoming much more similar. Songs are also becoming shorter because of this and streaming platforms are prioritizing those shorter songs mainly because shorter songs are less likely to be skipped. And even if we disregard the studies that I just mentioned, you don't really need one to see that the majority of popular music is painfully similar in its respective genres. I believe a lot of this is due to the fact that when record labels gain back their influence after briefly losing it, they began developing technology that would make them even better at promoting generic popular music. And from a business standpoint, it makes sense that a label would want to put out safe music, music that they know people will like. In the past two decades, labels have even acquired technology that they can use to analyze music and predict what songs will be hits. They can use services such as Hit Predictor or Shazam to see what songs will blow up. Apparently Hit Predictor was able to predict 48 out of the top 50 radio hits in 2013. There are actually even entire companies such as Next Big Sound which are dedicated to analyzing music and finding the next big sound. Previously executives at record labels would just make these decisions based on their gut, but now they can rely on this data. And you're probably thinking that if labels keep pumping out this generic music, people will eventually get tired of it. And while that may be true for some people, science says it actually isn't for the majority. In a study done by Columbia University in 2006, they showed some people music websites with a bunch of songs and told them to download their favorites. Some sites had rankings of the most popular songs, and some didn't. It showed that people who saw the rankings were more likely to download the popular songs. They then did a second experiment where they did the same thing, but this time they sent out websites with the actual download statistics, and then some websites with fake download statistics. The experiment proved again that believing that a song is more popular made people, oops, made people more likely to download it. Another study done in 2011 shows that the brain produces dopamine when people hear songs that they have played and heard before. So essentially what this all means is that a label can have teams of people working on making a boring song. They can put the song onto the streaming services and manipulate it so it gets more popular. You hear it over and over again, and you end up liking it. And boom, you have a chart tapping, Hot 100, number one song, and you're rich, and you're famous, and the label's making tons of money. And for all those reasons, that's all it takes. Take that information and go get rich people. He says some shit, man. He says something to hit me, man, you know, with the whole dopamine release when people hear familiar music. And that makes me think of, you know, it's one of those things where artists may notice it, like, why are you like, oh, all these, artists and audio files, all these songs sound the same. But then, like, the general consumer isn't thinking about that. Or if they do, like, they're glad, you know, based on what he's saying, they're like, hey, this does kind of sound like their last song. And I like that last song. So I should like this one, you know, man, let's keep this vibe going. So I agree, man. I agree. I agree with everything you said. Well, first of all, shout out to Maddie Balls. I really don't know you like that. But I love this video that I got put onto you by keep all creating and creating stuff like this. So y'all can check him out on YouTube. But that's a couple of things here. One, he talked about the idea of people downloading from the music. It may more likely to download music based on already having streams, right? Or interaction, social proof, right? We already know this and it works. And many people want to hear that again and think, well, oh, man, people just want to listen to what's popular and they don't have any taste. Nobody cares about underground artists versus big artists. I implore you guys go past the service level. Not just about that. I know that's always the first thought and way to go. But typically the bitter thought is in the is in the actual answer, right? That thought that makes you bitter like, oh, man, they just don't appreciate that's usually more your personal feelings and ego. There's the actual answer. Yeah, like when it really comes down to because you can't use that, why you can't actually utilize that and you're not in control. What puts you in control is realizing what it comes down to. And that comes down to convenience, saving time. How many times can I talk about the fact that we're here with so much information time and time again? And we're just trying to figure out how to make the best decisions for our lives possible. That's it. Everybody is like, what's the best person to date? What's the best school to go to? What's the best job to work? How can I make more money faster and and do it as it was less risk, right? For entertainment, how can I watch the best movie that I'm going to enjoy instead of wasting my time? And how can I spend as little time possible? Listen to it. I've been looking for it. Ask a friend. Look at what reviews and shit like that and streams. They're like reviews. You just assume because it's been listened to that that other people must like it. So it must not be trash completely, which means I'm not going to waste my time by giving it a chance, right? Because if I listen to something with zero, I don't know that's that's a risk. And it is a risk. Even that's who like our in this and we're always looking for new artists and stuff to hear. You go on to a smaller artist profile. But hey, this is top song has 10,000 streams. The rest of the songs have 200. You gonna be like, I listen to this 10,000 just with the people saw here. Yeah, let me see what they saw in this one versus the other. Right. So it's a natural thing for us to do. It's a natural thing to say, you know what? I want Amazon. Let me buy this product that has 3000 reviews versus that seller with the product that has zero reviews. It's all kind of risky. Even if I can get it returned because Amazon's pretty decent with returns. I'm gonna have to buy it and be disappointed. Then send it back. All right. It's just a risk. That's all it is. So we have to like just continuously come to grips with that. We're all doing that same thing in many spaces and places. And the only way to opt out of that is to be consciously working against it. And nobody's gonna be doing that 24 seven. Even the underground artists themselves are still doing that. Like I said, you could be looking at your favorite artists and be like, dang, this is the new album. This song has a lot of stats. You might have time to let me just hear one real quick to kind of get a pulse of what the rest of it's like, this is the one that I did. This is the one that has all of you. So let me check that one out. Right. So look, it is what it is on that side. And then he made another statement. So some artists and managers are just waiting for lucky moments when the ones who are killing it have systems to consistently take artists to another level over and over again. And if you want to see what that looks like, we just did a collab where we not only show the system that we use that's resulted in Billboard hits, some of the biggest viral moments on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. But also we got JR McKee to break down how he took an artist from zero to one of the biggest hit songs of 2022 and getting a Grammy in January of 2023. This is recent stuff, not old tactics. If you want to check it out, go to bramannnetwork.com slash Grammy because JR gets into the details of looking at the data decisions that got made, how much content got created and how they adjusted the content over time for different parts of the campaign. This is real behind the curtains type of stuff. So again, go to bramannnetwork.com slash Grammy. If you want to check this out and apply it to yourself. Back to the video. Talk about songs getting shorter. Songs getting shorter, which is another thing, improving the lightness for them to be listened to, which helps boost the algorithm, of course, all of them gets more awareness and leads to it being a hit. That was another one, but it was the other thing that you addressed too that you talked about the ad. When you said, um, scientists show that we get a dopamine hit when we hear songs we heard before. There it is, right? What do you think that comes from? Why do you think that is? I think that people are lazy and we like to enjoy things that haven't been enjoyable to us before because sometimes learning that something to figure out something else is enjoyable for you is work and a risk. Like you said, right? So I could take the risk. Maybe I like this new sound. Maybe I don't. Or I can just leave really heavy towards the thing that I know I already enjoy and I already like most people are going to pick that one. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So that's what I was thinking. It's just like, we heard it. We like it. We know we like it. I want to hear more of this. I can see that from two perspective. It was like, yes, I'm about to experience something I've already decided I liked. So it's cool. I don't have to go through that period with my guard up wondering if I'm going to like it, observe actively. That's a real energy for me to pay attention. Yeah. Oh, shit. And I might not like it. All right. We're constantly working to not pay attention. So as a quick aside, do you know why time seems to move faster when we're adults than it does when we're children? Because we pay more attention to it. We pay less attention to time when we get older. Yeah, I'll pay more attention. So let's go. We pay more attention to time. But that's actually proves the point further because when you're paying more attention to time, time would actually move slower. Right? It's because we're not paying as much attention because we've seen so many things and information is so accustomed to. We just move. And because we're constantly trying to figure out how can I make less decisions? So we fall into these habits, right? I already know what I'm going to put on. I don't have to think about brushing my teeth, right? I don't have to think about all these different things. So we make decisions ahead of time as we build these habits. That's all it basically is, right? So we use less energy. And we're more aware of the world and the environment. Kids, everything is new. So you're paying a whole lot of attention to everything and you're consuming and if you're being stimulated and when you're paying attention to something, time moves slower. So if you think about, you probably haven't done this since you were a kid, but this is a clear example of how no, if you pay attention to time and move slower, when you wait for your motherfucking class to be over and you just keep looking back at the clock and this thing like, hey, bro, this is taking forever. This is the longest five minutes of my life, right? Like, we all been there in school and we've been there and working in some places in times that life, right? Time moves slower when you're paying attention to a thing and move slower when you focus on it. But as an adult, to prove that same point about new experiences, when you go on vacation and extended vacation, you have all these new experiences in your new place. It feels like you go into this time warp, right? And then you go back to your same world pace and then things move like fast again, because you're already accustomed to it. You're not getting all these new experiences. So the days don't feel as long. So with that in mind, right? What was that last place that you said again? Oh, the dopamine, right. So all of that stuff, it relates because like nostalgia is a very, very real thing for us, right? New experiences is also a very real day. However, new experiences take more time and energy. And when you're moving at your pace off the time, unless you're deciding, I need to vacate or set aside time, we're just looking for the thing that takes less energy. So I would love to get a nostalgia kit, because I've already decided I like this. I already have an environment and this entire experience that came along with it. So I can get that same feeling without having to go through the inconvenience of experiencing that again. It's like I get the experience without the investment. Yeah, that's all the nostalgia. Yeah, all the gold without the risk. I get all the gold without the risk. So yeah, I'm back in that environment when I was listening to this song and I was at that party without having to go to the party without having to have the risk of somebody pulling out a gun at any moment and me having to look at the wall. That's all nostalgia is, but that's one of the primary like attractions to nostalgia. You get the benefits without the risk or without the investment. So us getting that dopamine rush to me is no surprise when you do that with these songs, all right. But I think there's a good and bad to that, obviously, because it's one thing where we're talking about nostalgia and something you genuinely decided that you love, right, or something that you already decided that you liked. And now it's like, oh, man, good. I already liked this. I'm happy that that is on. I'm hearing it. But what about the stuff that you've heard? Not because you liked it. You heard it because you heard it. You heard it because some marketer got that shit bumping around you at all times. And that's just it. What do you mean? It's like, now I like it more because I heard it again. Even though I didn't really like it to start with. I've had songs like that. That's the game, bro. That's the game. Even as a marketer, I know there are songs that I like the more, the more I heard them. And there's some that like legitimately, oh, I just I was just slipping. I really didn't give it to do with the tension about shit out. But there's a lot of songs that I like or I or I grew more fondness of because I heard it more times. And then eventually, especially it became nostalgic. I was even listening to this song like that in that year. But now it reminds me of that year. And that year was a good ass year. So damn, this song now almost kind of feels like a good song. It's a different way into somebody's psyche. You know, Ryan Leslie did that shit to Diddy, right? No, wait, were it one of their songs? No. Well, yes, Ryan Leslie's song. So that was how he got signed. Diddy, somebody who knows music, obviously, has been a part of creating some real good music. Ryan Leslie, I think he knew Diddy's DJ, right? So everywhere Diddy would go, he would get his song playing. And Diddy heard it so much, and eventually he's like, who is this guy? Because to him, it now feels like this song is everywhere. Everybody's fucking with it. Because it's not like I'm saying, hey, play this song. So why does everybody keep playing this song? It must be some kind of hit, like something that's on the charts right now. And who is this guy? Eventually, you know, him and Ryan link up and he buys out who it is and then he gets signed to Diddy and Diddy takes it. Man, but that was a plot twist. Great. I feel like great story. I was like, great lesson in there somewhere. Probably a couple lessons in there somewhere, honestly. I was like, but probably shot out to the DJ, I guess. Shot out to the DJ. I didn't make that story up. And that's just the word on the street and from people involved. But anyway,