為什么有些神曲那么洗腦？是不是有毒！研究：是的

A recent Canadian study found that music download patterns are very similar to the epidemic curve of infectious diseases.

加拿大最近一項(xiàng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，音樂的下載模式與傳染病的流行曲線非常相似。

Dora Rosati, lead author of the study and former graduate in maths and statistics at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada along with colleagues, wondered whether they could learn anything about how songs become popular using mathematical tools that are more usually applied to study the spread of infectious diseases.

這項(xiàng)研究的主要作者是加拿大安大略省麥克馬斯特大學(xué)數(shù)學(xué)和統(tǒng)計(jì)專業(yè)的多拉·羅薩蒂，他和他的同事們想知道，是否能用常用于研究流行病傳播的數(shù)學(xué)工具來研究歌曲是如何流行起來的。

The team turned to a database of almost 1.4bn individual song downloads from the now-discontinued music streaming service MixRadio. Focusing on the top 1,000 songs downloaded in the UK between 2007 and 2014, they measured how well a standard model of epidemic disease, called the SIR model, fitted trends in song downloads over time.

說干就干！這個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì)以現(xiàn)已停產(chǎn)的音樂流媒體服務(wù)MixRadio中的近 14 億首單曲下載量作為數(shù)據(jù)庫，集中研究從2007年到2014年間在英國下載的前1000首歌曲，測(cè)量了流行病的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)模型（以下簡稱為 SIR 模型）與歌曲下載量隨時(shí)間變化趨勢(shì)的擬合程度。

The research, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical and Physical Sciences, found the model performed just as well when describing song download trends as it did when describing the spread of a disease through the population.

這項(xiàng)發(fā)表在《皇家學(xué)會(huì)會(huì)刊 A：數(shù)學(xué)和物理科學(xué)》上的研究指出，流行病標(biāo)準(zhǔn)模型不僅能描述疾病在人群中的傳播，還能準(zhǔn)確地描述歌曲的下載趨勢(shì)。

Rosati said: "It implies that a lot of the social processes that drive the spread of disease, or analogues of those processes, might also be driving the spread of songs. More specifically, it supports the idea that both music and infectious diseases depend on social connections to spread through populations."

羅薩蒂說：“我們的研究說明了許多推動(dòng)疾病傳播的社會(huì)過程也可能推動(dòng)了歌曲的傳播。具體來說，它印證了音樂和傳染病在人群中傳播都依賴社會(huì)聯(lián)系。”

"With a disease, if you come into contact with someone who is ill, then you have a certain chance of catching that disease. With songs, it looks very similar. The big difference is that for songs, it doesn't necessarily have to be physical contact – it could be that my friend used this cool new song in their Instagram story, so now I'm going to go and find it."

“如果你接觸到生病的人，那你就有可能感染這種疾病。音樂的傳播也是這樣。最大的不同點(diǎn)是，歌曲不一定需要身體接觸——可能我的朋友在Ins里用了一首很酷的新歌，我也會(huì)去找到這首歌聽聽看?！?/span>

Dr Thomas Rawson, a disease modeller at Imperial College London, said: "It's something that makes complete sense, when you consider that word of mouth is something that, much like disease, it will carry on via other people. The main difference is that there are more ways for music to spread."

帝國理工學(xué)院的一位疾病模型學(xué)家托馬斯·羅森博士提到：“口碑就像疾病一樣可以人傳人，這完全不難理解。至于音樂，它最大的不同是傳播途徑更多了?！?/span>

羅薩蒂的團(tuán)隊(duì)還計(jì)算了不同音樂類型的基本繁殖數(shù) (R0)——一種流行病學(xué)度量，用于描述傳染性因子的傳染性或傳播性。

Although this varied substantially within genres, they found that dance and metal had the lowest median R0 scores at 2.8 and 3.7. Pop music was more transmissible, but it was vastly outstripped by genres such as rock and hip-hop, while electronica – a form of electronic music intended for listening, rather than dancing – had the highest R0, at 3430. This makes it roughly 190 times more transmissible than measles, which has an R0 of about 18.

研究者們發(fā)現(xiàn)不同音樂類型的R0值差異很大，舞曲和金屬樂的R0中位數(shù)最低，分別為2.8 和3.7；相比之下流行樂更具傳播性，不過要是拿流行樂和搖滾樂、嘻哈音樂比，那它的傳播性又遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)不如后兩者了。而電子樂（用來聽而非跳舞的電子樂形式）的 R0 最高，為3430。要知道，麻疹的R0僅為18，那也就是說，電子樂的感染力是麻疹的 190 倍！

"The reason why we might see some really sky-high R0s for songs is that you can just make a tweet and you have already infected a hundred people. You can spread a song disease far quicker than you could an infectious disease." said Rawson.

看到這里你可能會(huì)問：既然電子音樂傳播力那么強(qiáng)，為啥我感覺它們還是挺小眾的？

沒錯(cuò)，電子音樂的R0高，并不一定意味著它就變得大眾化了，而是說明它會(huì)在易受影響的粉絲群體中更快地傳播。簡單理解，就是更容易“圈地自萌”。

Rosati said: "Maybe what those numbers are telling us is that electronica fans tend to be more passionate about their favourite songs … Or maybe the social network of electronica fans is more strongly connected."

羅森提到：“我們可能會(huì)看到一些歌曲的R0非常高的原因是，你只需發(fā)一條推特，就已經(jīng)感染了100人。歌曲的傳播速度比傳染病的傳播速度要快得多?！?/span>

"The biggest changes are likely to be in these more niche genres that wouldn't necessarily have been getting the radio play. I think they have a much better chance of spreading in our current situation of streaming and social media platforms," Rosati said.

“對(duì)于小眾的流派，以前可能沒那么多電臺(tái)播放它們，但在我們目前的流媒體和社交媒體平臺(tái)中，他們有更好的傳播機(jī)會(huì)?！?/span>

If song popularity really is driven by the same contagious processes as disease, it could open new ways of predicting how new music releases could take off, and present opportunities to boost their spread.

如果歌曲的流行真的是由與疾病一樣的傳染過程驅(qū)動(dòng)的，那么這個(gè)研究可能會(huì)為預(yù)測(cè)新音樂的發(fā)行開辟新的途徑，并極大促進(jìn)音樂傳播。