National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Attention "American Idol": Hits Are Tough to Predict


Email to a Friend	<< Back to Full Story

Listeners in an experiment by researchers at New York's Columbia University heavily downloaded a song by San Diego, California, band Parker Theory. The study says that predicting pop success is difficult, because listeners are often swayed by buzz.

Photograph courtesy Parker Theory