Cultural evolution would suggest that music preferences and popularity would change according to selectionist processes. I believe it has done, but that is a question for the academics. I self identify as an engineer whereby the methodology is to shoot first and ask questions later. The question that I will ask at some point is ‘can music be produced along evolutionary lines?’ or maybe ‘what production techniques does Darwin give us?’
Calliope, as the muse of chunz, one of Clio’s sisters another god in the cultural pantheon. As a cultural object, a clion, then a piece of music composition makes for a good test case in playing around with cliotechnology. Can the principles of cliosynthesis be applied to assembling a “better” cliome (expressed as an mp3? The term “ better” is scared out as the issue of cui bono arises in this subjective arena.
I’m an avid synth and computer geek, obviously I’m a big Depeche Mode fan along with enjoying more “experimental” stuff. I’ve always been fascinated by contemporary popular music. Well, post-punk electronica anyway. I still listen to BBC Radio 1. I’ve been involved with the music industry since the early days of MIDI in various lugging gear around and technical capacities. But it has always been one of those perennial bugs, and I’m not the only one to puzzle on this, what makes for a killer hook? What makes a music producer? What makes a record popular? What is that magical formula for pop success? If I knew, then I would be blogging about something different. However, let’s examine this conundrum from a cliological/cultural evolutionary perspective.
I’d posit that a tunes popularity has cultural evolution, evolutionary epistemology and evolutionary psychology components; or bluntly, a catchy tune, as Dawkins says, is a meme. And thereby we return to memetic engineering and cliotechnology.
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