The ubiquity of digital music consumption has made it possible to extract information about modern music that allows us to perform large scale analysis of stylistic change over time. In order to uncover underlying patterns in cultural evolution, we examine the relationship between the established characteristics of different genres and styles, and the introduction of novel ideas that fuel this ongoing creative evolution. To understand how this dynamic plays out and shapes the cultural ecosystem, we compare musical artifacts to their contemporaries to identify novel artifacts, study the relationship between novelty and commercial success, and connect this to the changes in musical content that we can observe over time. Using Music Information Retrieval (MIR) data and lyrics from Billboard Hot 100 songs between 1974-2013, we calculate a novelty score for each song's aural attributes and lyrics. Comparing both scores to the popularity of the song following its release, we uncover key patterns in the relationship between novelty and audience reception. Additionally, we look at the link between novelty and the likelihood that a song was influential given where its MIR and lyrical features fit within the larger trends we observed.

翻译：数字音乐消费的普及为获取现代音乐信息提供了可能，从而能够大规模分析随时间变化的风格演变。为揭示文化演化的潜在模式，本研究考察了不同流派与风格既有特征之间的关系，以及推动这一持续创新演化过程的新颖理念的引入。为理解这一动态过程如何展开并塑造文化生态系统，我们将音乐作品与其同期作品进行比较，识别出新颖作品，探究新颖性与商业成功之间的关系，并将其与可观测的音乐内容随时间变化相联系。利用1974年至2013年间公告牌百强单曲榜歌曲的音乐信息检索数据与歌词，我们计算了每首歌曲听觉属性与歌词的新颖性得分。通过将两种得分与歌曲发行后的流行程度进行对比，揭示了新颖性与听众接受度之间的关键模式。此外，我们进一步分析了新颖性与歌曲影响力可能性之间的关联——基于其音乐信息检索特征与歌词特征在观测到的宏观趋势中所处的位置。