Irish Boy wrote:
Quote:
Britney Spears has sold more records than Wilco. Does that mean she's a better musician?
Maybe!
The election/ratings analogy is deeply flawed for a number of reasons.
1.) Voting represents a prospective determination, while ratings reflect a restrospective determination. Voters make their decisions largely based upon who they feel will perform best. Listeners to a radio program will tune in mostly based upon the quality of the program in the past. Because of this prospective vs. retrospective divide, I think it follows quite clearly that popularity can be defined as quality in one situation and no more than the possibility of greater quality than otherwise available in the other.
2.) Voting represents a direct competition in a way that radio ratings do not. ~98% of the vote is going to go to two people in any given election. Nothing close to that is achieved in radio ratings.
3.) Voting is, by necessity, a "lesser of two evils" decision. In a country as large as America, no candidate will fully satisfy any more than a small percentage of people. Thus the definition of "popular" gets stretched. A candidate doesn't need to be popular- just better. That distinction doesn't exist in radio, because 1.) the consuming group is smaller than a nationwide populace, and 2.) there is a greater variety of choices.
As for the other examples:
McDonalds vs Gibsons is fraught with economic considerations that radio programs are not. If McDonalds and Gibsons were equally available, I reckon than Gibsons would be more "popular."
But of course, even here we're fraught with difficulty. We can aesthetic arguments until we're blue in the face about any number of issues. At the very least, the quality by popularity argument provides at least some quantitative guidepost.
Finally, it's completely coherent for individuals to believe that something is better quality despite being less popular. I'm not going to get drawn into a "Brittney Spears vs. Wilco" argument for the same reason I avoid arguments about whether I'd rather eat horseshit or cowshit. I will continue to insist that the bulk of quality music was created pre-1920. I have a quality vs. quanity problem on my hands then, since the numbers are against me. I personally believe that the numbers are wrong and uninformed, but in the end, more people regard horseshit as better, so horseshit is quantitatively better. It doesn't mean that my aesthetic also has to reflect those numbers.
1)Your argument about retrospective vs. prospective reasoning is silly. Listeners tune in for a variety of reasons, just as voters decide on a candidate for a variety of reasons. To compound matters, in politics "prospective" assessments are often a function of "retrospective" judgments about a given candidate's track record. Thus, your dichotomy is a false one.
2)The point about the indirect nature of radio competition is accurate, but not relevant. Beardown's point was that audience size (quantity) is also a measure of quantity. This is simply not true.
3)Your point about the inapplicability of the"lesser of two evils" idea vis a vis Chicago radio is simply inaccurate. One of the most frequent complaints about Chicago radio is that it offers little choice in programming. This point is proven by the increasing popularity of satellite radio.
4)Regarding McDonald's and Gibson's--yes, obviously many considerations determine where one will eat. But the same is true for radio listening. In the relevant instance, more people listen to B&B than Mully/Hanley because B&B occupy a time slot where more people listen. Switch time slots and the reverse would be true. Thus, the point of my comparison--that quantity is not an indicator of quality, holds.
5)The phrase "quantitatively better" is nonsensical. Popular music sells more than unpopular music. Whether or not it is better than unpopular music is a subjective question entirely separate from the world of commerce.
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