Institute for Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC), Córdoba, Spain.
Joint Research Unit Knowledge Transfer and Innovation, (UCO-CSIC), Córdoba, Spain.
PLoS One. 2021 Apr 19;16(4):e0250212. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250212. eCollection 2021.
In contemporary popular music, covering or adapting previous songs signals a tribute or reworking of popular hits, which implies acknowledgement of the original musicians. This connection can be interpreted as a form of musical impact among artists. A network graph with more than 106k artists and 855k cover versions extracted from the web site SecondHandSongs was created. The objective is to explore the shape of this network, identify the most relevant artists according to different impact measurements and to visualize connections between music genres. This analysis is done from a longitudinal perspective with the aim of understanding how cover versions can inform us about the history of the contemporary popular music. Results show that the number of covers by artist is skewed distributed, diminishing gradually since the 1950s. Different network metrics have allowed to identify the most covered (weighted indegree), the most influential (PageRank) and the most crossover artists (weighted betweenness centrality). The network graph also shows that genre affinity is the main criterion for covering songs between artists, language being the second. Remakes from other genres reflect that Jazz and Pop/Rock are the most influential because they emerge stronger and form the core of their respective sub-networks. Cover songs describe two cycles. In a first phase from 1900s to 1950s, dominated by Jazz and Vocal artists, the covers are more frequent and associated with the notion of reworking (e.g. jazz standards); in a second stage, since the 1950s, when the Pop/Rock emerges, cover songs are less common and seen as tribute.
在当代流行音乐中，翻唱或改编以前的歌曲标志着对流行金曲的致敬或再创作，这意味着对原音乐家的认可。这种联系可以被解释为艺术家之间的一种音乐影响力形式。创建了一个包含超过 106k 位艺术家和 855k 个翻唱版本的网络图表，这些数据是从 SecondHandSongs 网站提取的。目的是探索这个网络的形状，根据不同的影响测量标准确定最相关的艺术家，并可视化音乐流派之间的联系。这项分析是从纵向角度进行的，目的是了解翻唱版本如何为我们提供当代流行音乐的历史信息。结果表明，艺术家的翻唱数量呈偏态分布，自 20 世纪 50 年代以来逐渐减少。不同的网络指标允许识别出最受翻唱的（加权入度）、最具影响力的（PageRank）和最具跨界影响力的艺术家（加权中间中心性）。网络图表还表明，流派亲和力是艺术家之间翻唱歌曲的主要标准，其次是语言。从其他流派的翻唱作品可以反映出爵士和流行/摇滚是最具影响力的，因为它们更强大，形成了各自子网络的核心。翻唱歌曲描述了两个周期。在 20 世纪初到 50 年代的第一阶段，以爵士乐和声乐艺术家为主导，翻唱更为频繁，与再创作的概念相关（例如爵士标准）；在第二阶段，自 50 年代以来，流行/摇滚出现后，翻唱歌曲变得不那么常见，被视为致敬。
