The Tableau Music Viz Contest was such a cool project that I have decided to explore some of the visualizations. Some of my favorites include two that I mentioned in the previous post which are “Woodstock ’69 – Visualizing the ‘Three Days that Rocked the World’!” by Niccolo Cirone and “300 Acts Associated with N.W.A.” by Branden Fulton. Two others that I found interesting were “Trends in Music” by Douglas Everson and winner of the contest Skyler Johnson’s “The Big 4 Music Festivals”.
Woodstock ’69 was a profound event in music history. It defined an entire generation and featured one of the most prolific musical lineups in history. So why wouldn’t we examine some of the data of a festival that drew half a million people together? The visualization examines the earnings of the artists in 1969 and what it would be worth in 2015 (the year the contest ran). For example, Jimi Hendrix was the highest paid artist at $32,000 which was more than double the cap of $15,000 that was set for pay per artist. In 2015, Jimi Hendrix would have been paid $114,625 for the same performance. The overall earnings of the lineup were $154,000 which would equal $895,660 in 2015 and is less than half of what Beyoncé makes in a single concert. The data also shows up the attendance figures. Surprisingly the best performance was Jimi Hendrix’s and was the least attended. Which is pretty ironic as he was the highest paid artist. This may have something to do with him being the last artist to play on Sunday at 9 am when the audience had already been up for days since the line-up played straight through the weekend. From a marketing and event planning perspective, this would be extremely important data to review.
300 Acts Associated with N.W.A.
N.W.A. is widely known for their controversial figures of the gangsta rap subgenre. They are considered to be one of the most influential and greatest groups in the history of hip hop music. The members included Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, MC Ren, DJ Yella and Arabian Prince. The visualization is an association analysis of 300 acts that in some way are connected to the members of the N.W.A. Dr. Dre who continued to be an influential artist years after the split of the N.W.A., according to this data, has the highest number of associations. The issue I find with this visualization is the loss of data from Ice Cube. Ice Cube has been a force in the entertainment industry but because he is also classified as a director, producer, actor etc. his connections were not included. Seeing as this group is considered to be one of the pioneers of the hip hop genre it is pretty amazing to see the connections. I think moving forward it would be awesome to explore how they influenced the different acts associated.
Trends in Music
Douglas Everson examined data of all the genres of music from the 1960’s to the year 2015. It breaks down the number of albums released (per genre) and the percentage in relation to the other genres for each year. It also shows data for percent of artists, the average length of albums and average ratings of albums. The coolest thing about this visualization is that he gives you the opportunity to ‘find some new jams’. He offers a list of the most popular artists and albums for each genre throughout the years along with their ratings and length. Pop/rock is by far the biggest genre. I think if there is a genre you aren’t so familiar with this visualization would be helpful in helping you start your explorations.
There is no denying the popularity of music festivals. Every year music lovers get ready for festival season and it has even become quite the blessing for the fashion industry as companies like Urban Outfitters have (with some controversy) started using festivals like Coachella for marketing efforts. Music festivals have become a lifestyle like brand. Skyler Johnson put together a visualization for Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits. You can see that after 2006 Rock began to decline and in 2008 EDM started rising. Pop music continues to battle for 2nd place but more times than not lands as the 3rd best genre for festivals. It is safe to say that if you want to start a music festival that can even begin to compete with the big 4, your line-up would have to consist of some of the biggest names in pop and EDM.
Great read, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! Thanks for sharing.
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