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There is a good interview with Michael Adelson on Skepticality. The subject is the recent passing of the brilliant public intellectual Rabbi Sherwin Wine, but the conversation digressed into some illuminating points about music and society. Among the things I found fascinating was the "music genome" project and how we have been "Audienced" by systems that track our choices in music. Radio stations play a song, tally how often it is played and thus determines that it is popular. Radio stations respond by playing it more and the effect is a feedback loop resulting in the homogeneous culture that we know and love today. Application of this technology by big box retailers and supermarkets who track purchases with "loyalty cards" and aggregate data is used in much the same way. Its long, but worth a listen.