Photo: hiabbaThey both peaked in the late 1960′s.
You can infer that, anyway, from this handy chart at the blog OverthinkingIt.
They found a correlation between the decline in U.S. oil production and the decline in the quality of pop music, as measured by Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
It should go without saying that correlation does not prove causation, and there are many caveats to OverthinkingIt’s analysis. But this slightly whimsical correlation raises at least two interesting questions.
First: Is the declining quality of pop music primarily a problem of limited reserves, or of inefficient extraction? In other words, is pop music — particularly rock — simply exhausted as a form, leaving today’s musicians with little room for innovation; or have the systems used by popular culture to discover and extract good songs from good musicians just broken down?
Second: What other spurious claims of causation through correlation come to mind?
We don’t mean to pick on Mick Jagger, whose contributions to American music will resonate for some time to come.
And after all, as Dubner pointed out, Mick is a would-be fellow economist.
(Hat tip: Mark Lee)
and 
. You can also watch it on 
The number of pirates worlwide has a negative correlation with global temperature. Sail the high seas and plunder to end global warming!
Music is a scalable profession and anyone who ends up at the high end of the popularity scale got there due to a “tournament style” winnowing. It’s all pretty random since it has to do with fashion mostly, with the critical gatekeepers of music dropping anchors that force us to reference bands from their starting points if we have never heard them.
Economics, especially the economics of entertainment, is not physics no matter how much fancy math you put into it since it is intrinsically much harder to predict outcomes than in physics. Don’t believe it? The only way you can model people’s behavior and expect to come out with an algorithm or model that works precisely is if people did not have free will.
Whether or not one views the music of the 1960s as rock’s golden era (I happen to believe that- but of course it’s somewhat a matter of your age and general tastes) it seems obvious that the audience for rock has seriously declined. Part of that is probably due to the overall fragmentation of the media, i.e. it’s no longer possible that 50 million people will tune in the see the Beatles or the Doors on Ed Sullivan, and part is probably due to the art form’s limitations. I think Little Steven pegged the rock era as generally running from about 1965 to 1995. Back in the 60s and 70s the rock audience market was simply so massive that a third-tier band like Iron Butterfly could sell 2000 seats in Omaha. Today’s bands get downloaded for free and play the club circuit. The only bands that can sell concert tickets in any quantity are the old ones still grinding it out. It’s a shame.
Cosmic Ray intensity and ozone holes may or may not be spurious, but sure flys in the face of conventional wisdom.
http://www.exchangemagazine.com/morningpost/2008/week38/Thursday/091811.html
I will also argue that perceived decline in music is primarily due to ‘extraction’ and a surprising lack of compatible infrastructure.
As already stated, there are huge reserves of potential music, hidden around the country. Extraction has become a form of art, but only for reserves that meat very specific standards. In other words, manufactured artists that meet metrics indicating they can sell millions of albums to teens will sign contracts with little difficulty. Why risk tapping an innovative source when proven reserves are already so popular?
True, there are many new avenues for independents to gain a fan base. Unfortunately, the market is still very small. Not everyone has bought into some of the more innovative distriution means (hence my infrastructure comment), so it will be a while before we see a rise in popular music again.
But deep under the surface, today’s music is every bit as good as it was at any other era.
Pop/rock songs — like the the stuff of fossile fuels — needs time to come to full maturity.
For oil, it takes a lot longer. Luckily, oil got a head start.
Give more recent songs time to age, and things will even out.
It’s like saying that the right time to make the most money peaked in the 1960′s.
The first commenter (Mr. Vaughn) makes the point I was going to make.
If Blender or SPIN or Vibe were used to choose the top 500 songs, the chart would really look different.
Also, it’s difficult for songs that are new to have stood the test of time, which seems to be some criteria for the list.
~~~
Ask a group other than a bunch of baby boomer Rolling Stones writers to make their list and the chart would look nothing like oil production.
This isn’t even remotely related — it’s a coincidence.