How ‘hyperselection’ is making modern life efficient, pleasant – and boring

It’s difficult to imagine a song like Queen’s 1975 Bohemian Rhapsody topping the charts today. Almost six minutes long, it moves through several radically different musical sections and famously ignores the conventional structure of a pop song. It seems almost designed to break the rules of what a hit single should be.

Fifty years later, popular music seems to have moved in the opposite direction. Once artists and producers figure out what makes a commercial hit – from its length…

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