Monetizing Familiarity in Pop Music

• Musical recordings exhibit 'collage-ability', i.e., they can be 'sampled' to have their likeness repurposed. This makes it possible to create new musical works that come 'optimized' for audience engagement. This new songs find instant recognition with audiences by incorporating older sounds that are familiar to everyone. The associated techniques are known as sampling and interpolation.

  • ↳ Term / Optimization for Engagement

• This is a big opportunity for Record Labels to generate additional profit. By opening their music catalogs for sampling, Record Labels can monetize their music rights even further. Collections of classics and radio hits serve as repositories of familiar sounds that propagate to new works, new music that is born laden with financial obligations to the owners of the works they borrow from.

  • ↳ Term / Rights, Property, and Ownership

• The references can be subtle and barely recognizable. Take for example the song "X&Y" from English band Coldplay, it borrows Kraftwerk's "Computer Love" main identity component without being immediately obvious, even for ears with prior exposure to Kraftwerk's work.

✎ Connection to

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• Topic / For-Profit Culture and Entertainment

• Topic / Culture of Media and Artifact