:: The humcanny valley ::

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Saturday night I found myself in a bar blanketed with the sounds of the Frat-tastic Sub-Canon of Greatest Hits. A subset of the broader Pop Music for Bars and Cars Canon of Greatest Hits, I've been trying to escape it ever since my roommate freshman year of college set his stereo alarm to a rotating triad of Steve Miller, Tom Petty, and The Allman Brothers Band, a triumvirate not unlike its Roman counterparts of yore in that, despite distributed and short-lived rule, its control was total, extensive, and brutal. Other Sub-Canons of Greatest Hits include Hip-Hop Embraced by White People, Artists Favoring Headset Microphones, and, more recently, My Grandparents Went to War and All I Got Was This Lousy Indie Rock.

Their evolution is glacial both in speed and strength, but it is important to note that change does occur. One can notice this by simply charting the frequency of Frank Sinatra songs played over the past few decades. There is a logic to this change.

I have linked to the uncanny valley before. Here it is in a nutshell:

The principle states that as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion the emotional response from a human being to robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached at which the response suddenly becomes strongly repulsive; as the appearance and motion are made to be indistinguishable to that of human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-human empathy levels.

One can describe the response to popular music in a very similar way, substituting time for degree of anthropomorphism. I've edited the Wikipedia's chart and included it herewith:

The process of inclusion in the Canon of Greatest Hits is much like a caterpillar's path to becoming a butterfly. Recent hits, once tired of, are placed in a chrysalis - a sort of escrow for collective cultural assets - and emerge years later glistening with nostalgia. Today's hits are tomorrow's untouchables and next week's golden oldies. Of course, some don't make it through the other side, but when they do it's a fairly secure position. Only time's mysterious interaction with whatever half-life the song is given can decay its presence.

Therefore in spite of begging, on bended knee and against the laws of all natural science, for it to be so, I have finally resigned myself to the futility of my strident plea for "Sweet Home Alabama" to be removed from the Frat-tastic Sub-Canon of Greatest Hits. I can fight Skynyrd's jukebox dominance no more, though I will not yet relinquish my dreams of outlasting it.

Posted by morland @ 07:48 PM

:: Comments ::

Dude, "Sweet Home Alabama" rules!

Posted by: Johnny Q. Fratboy on September 28, 2005 09:35 AM

Come on Aileen!

Posted by: Narm! on September 29, 2005 11:44 AM

I mean,

Come on Ilene!

Posted by: Narm! on September 29, 2005 11:45 AM

Those of us from the lou refer to songs such as these as "K-hits"

Posted by: Janie R Fratgirl on September 29, 2005 01:27 PM

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