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Survival of the hippest: life at the top of the hot 100

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  • David Giles

Abstract

We analyse the survival characteristics of recordings that reached the number one spot on the US popular music charts over the period 1955 to 2003. Our results show that there has been a statistically significant change in the time spent at number one since 'album cuts' were included in the compilation of Billboard 's Hot 100. Survival time is significantly improved if the recording is by a female solo artist, or if it is an instrumental tune. We also find a significant 'Elvis effect'. 'I'll never be a saint, it's true. I'm too busy surviving!' (Madonna, 1994)

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  • David Giles, 2007. "Survival of the hippest: life at the top of the hot 100," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(15), pages 1877-1887.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:39:y:2007:i:15:p:1877-1887
    DOI: 10.1080/00036840600707159
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    Cited by:

    1. Ian C. Strachan, 2014. "Female Artists and the Digitization of Labor in the Music Industry," Business and Management Research, Business and Management Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 3(4), pages 51-60, December.
    2. David Giles, 2007. "Increasing returns to information in the US popular music industry," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(5), pages 327-331.
    3. Ma del Pilar Muñoz Dueñas & Antonio Vaamonde Liste & Maria do Rosário Cabrita, 2020. "The Survival of Cultural Firms: A Study of Multiple Accounting Parameters in Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-14, February.
    4. Giles, David E., 2006. "Superstardom in the US popular music industry revisited," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 68-74, July.
    5. Seo Bin Hong, 2012. "A comment on survival of the hippest: life at the top of the hot 100," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(11), pages 1101-1105, July.
    6. Samuel Cameron, 2016. "Past, present and future: music economics at the crossroads," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 40(1), pages 1-12, February.
    7. Andrés González-Moralejo, S & Compés López, R, 2009. "Problemas contractuales y acuerdos de subcontratación: El caso de la logística frigorífica en la industria alimentaria valenciana/," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 27, pages 279(30á)-27, Abril.
    8. Ruby Shih & David E. A. Giles, 2006. "Modelling the Duration of Interest Rate Spells Under Inflation Targeting in Canada," Econometrics Working Papers 0605, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    9. Daniel Kaimann & Ilka Tanneberg & Joe Cox, 2021. "“I will survive”: Online streaming and the chart survival of music tracks," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(1), pages 3-20, January.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C16 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Econometric and Statistical Methods; Specific Distributions
    • C49 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Other
    • Z11 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economics of the Arts and Literature

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