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Lady C vs. David Hyman Experiment

Posted over 3 years ago
This turned out to be a long mog, please bear with me. Lady C theorized (hypothesized?) that track 4 would be the standout track on an album and David Hyman theorized that it would be track 6. I decided to dust off my very rusty Scientific Theory skills from high school and do an experiment. I put my iTunes on Party Shuffle to randomize the test group and then I pulled tracks 4 and 6 and compared them. As an experiment within an experiment I also pulled my favorite track from the album.Experiment results show that track 4 is better than track 6 60% of the time. The experiment within the experiment shows that track 4 was chosen 40% of the time, with the other tracks 20% each.Lady C’s theory comes out on top.Here are the test groups:The Dresden Dolls – Yes VirginiaTrack 4: My Alcoholic FriendsTrack 6: Dirty BusinessMy favorite track: track 4, my alcoholic friendsDespite this interesting lyric in Dirty Business: “she’s the….kind that tells you she’s bi-polar just to make you trust her,” My Alcoholic Friends is the better track. The music is more upbeat, the piano sounds like an instrument and not a torture device, and the lyrics are better.Results: Lady CMadness – The Ultimate CollectionTrack 4: Baggy TrousersTrack 6: The Prince (Two-Tone Single Version)My favorite track: track 19, Wings of a DoveEr, the Prince is just strange. Baggy Trousers is also one of their more popular songs.Results: Lady CTori Amos – Little EarthquakesTrack 4: Precious ThingsTrack 6: Happy PhantomMy favorite track: track 9, MotherI never really got Happy Phantom, but I love Precious Things. I don’t think there are many women that haven’t been able to relate to this song at some point or another. Results: Lady CYaz – Upstairs at EricsTrack 4: I before e except after CTrack 6: In My RoomMy favorite track: track 7, Only You.I before e except after C is a strange song, but so is In My Room. In My Room has an actual song buried in all the strangness.Results: David HymanLed Zepplin – Houses of the HolyTrack 4: The CrungeTrack 6: D’yer MakerMy favorite track: track 4, The CrungeAlthough my favorite track is The Crunge, many people would argue that D’yer Maker is the better song.Results: David Hyman
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Comments (13)

  1. david hyman
    david hyman says umm. this is totally hysterical. nice work.
    Permalink posted 07/25/2006
  2. chucky
    chucky says I'm glad you enjoyed it:)
    Permalink posted 07/25/2006
  3. ROCKNROLLPIMP1
    ROCKNROLLPIMP1 says way too go i too was conducting a semi-scientific experiemnt side tracked with work and my M.O.M. is now freaking out i'll hab=ve to start this over again so far track 4 is winning in the head to head track 4 vs 6 but i think track 3 beats them all
    Permalink posted 07/25/2006
  4. LadyC
    LadyC says This is outstanding wow thanks chucky, time to update the your finds on my mog. Your a star!
    Permalink posted 07/25/2006
  5. spaceling
    spaceling says Ah, but what was the standard deviation? (Remember to use the Z-test if your sample size is less than 30.)
    Permalink posted 07/25/2006
  6. Tanuki San
    Tanuki San says I'm going to have to side with RockAndRollPimp on this one. Track 3, however obvious and mundane, is most always a winner. Track 2 has seemingly gained some ground recently as well. Question is, are talking about the standout track or are we talking about what generally is the best song quality on average? I think in terms of best song quality on average, for certain. I think we also need a bigger sample size. There's no legitimacy without it. I could just pick a whole bunch of albums with track three standouts here and list them. See, watch: -Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon: Time (for certain a standout, and/or best quality) -Illinois - Come on feel the Illinoise! - easily a major highlight on the album -Californication - Scar Tissue -Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out -The Milk-Eyed Mender - The Book of Right On (so easily the standout track) I've got countless #2s as well.
    Permalink posted 07/26/2006
  7. LambCurry666
    LambCurry666 says Let me get my geek on. As the word "scientist" is in my job title, I will play the skeptic and say that I think we are seeing patterns where they probably do not exist. That being said, I think a good test of the hypothesis would be to take a random sample of > 100 standout songs (as measured by radio airplay, charting singles, or 'most downloaded' from itunes) and then do a tally of the order number that each appears on an album. I think there probably IS some effect here (e.g., I doubt standout tracks are often put as the last track on a record." How do you decide what is a standout track? What is the standout track on Fleetwood Mac's Rumours? Another qualitative study would be to ask the people that chose the order of songs on an album - I would suspect this is some combination of artist choice, producer choice, label exec choice and that it varies. For example, I would guess that a lot more thought might go into chosing song placement on Jessica Simpson's records than on the latest release by Wooden Wand or Xiu Xiu.
    Permalink posted 07/26/2006
  8. ROCKNROLLPIMP1
    ROCKNROLLPIMP1 says i tell ya lets take the top 20 albums in sales all time and check our favorite song against one another nevermind thats lame........
    Permalink posted 07/26/2006
  9. chucky
    chucky says I don't think that's lame. It would certainly be more scientific. If you do the legwork I'll participate.
    Permalink posted 07/27/2006
  10. ROCKNROLLPIMP1
    ROCKNROLLPIMP1 says well hmmm what i propose is the take out the greatest hits lp’s and any sountracks. what do you think sorta of a crummy list….lol j/k we could pick the top 20 excluding GH’s,soundtracks,and maybe even country althoughi think i have all the country in the top 30 or so hey what can i say i’m from the south bound to burn it from somebody The List let me know then i will compile the list and we will let moggers pick and determine the song that is king let me know
    Permalink posted 07/27/2006
  11. chucky
    chucky says I'd leave the Shania Twain album in but take out the Garth Brooks, because it is a double live album - which means it's probably essentially a greatest hits album. If people aren't familiar with a particular album they just won't vote on that one.
    Permalink posted 07/27/2006
  12. LambCurry666
    LambCurry666 says What about cases where, to me at least, there is no standout - like Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours or The White Album?
    Permalink posted 07/27/2006
  13. chucky
    chucky says Well, if it is set up to be about each mogger's preference then I'd say go with the song that was the best in your opinion whether or not it was a standout or, if you really liked none, skip that album.
    Permalink posted 07/27/2006

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