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Do you remember when I did that fun analysis of album reviews for Ben’s defunct review review site Metacritique (not to be confused with the fun analyses of album reviews I did using review site Metacritic)? I had forgotten as well.
My dear friend Alex, who did his honors thesis in mathematics on knot theory, and now works as a research assistant for a large and powerful think tank in DC, has generously submitted a review-review that is sure to delight you. Enjoy.
Did you know the Mountain Goats is just one guy? Of course you did. If you read any review of any of their (his) records, you’ll know it by the end of the first sentence. People writing about the (one man) band talk a lot more about John Darnielle than they do about The Mountain Goats (about three times as often). I’m not sure this is important, but I find it a little interesting.
Interesting enough that I decided to do a little too much counting, which gives us this table. I thought of as many one man band-y artists things that I could which gave us a sample of: The Mountain Goats, St. Vincent, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Cat Power, Panda Bear, and Fever Ray. I decided to add MIA, sensing that she was different. I probably should have thrown in some sort of multiple person band as a control, but this is plenty of data for something that nobody could possibly care about.
For each of said artists’ most recent release, I have gone to four of websites that I sometimes read reviews on and counted the the number of times that the band name appeared in each review, as well as the number of times that the name of the sole member of the band is mentioned. I’ve recorded the percentage of real name use from the total use of both names.
The big loser in all this is Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, who is completely overshadowed by Will Oldham (the starkest display of this is Pitchfork’s review of Beware, which says “Oldham” 25 times and doesn’t even mention the Bonnie), but the practice of ignoring artists’ made up names is pretty widespread (unless your real last name is Arulpragasam and your stage name is three letters; or it could be a genre thing: nobody is referring to Ghostface as Dennis Coles in reviews).
I don’t have a lot of strong conclusions to draw from this, but I have some ideas about what explains the bits of variation that exist:
- I think the reason Panda Bear gets called “Panda Bear” relatively often (but still less than half the time) is because people think of “Panda Bear” as the person, rather than a one man band. For instance “Panda Bear’s Noah Lennox” gets a small fraction of the google hits of “Panda Bear (aka Noah Lennox)”. The same is partially true for Fever Ray, I think (and completely true for MIA). Conversely, “The Mountain Goats” really sounds like a band name. If I saw John Darnielle on the street, I’d probably wouldn’t go “hey, it’s the mountain goats.”
- I don’t think last name length and band name length are insignificant (although I should use a different word, because we’re not talking about any statistics here). On the flipside of MIA, “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy” is just a lot to write.
- Related to the second point, and moving into reviewer variation, I think A.V. Club posts lower rates because of their lower word count. I didn’t keep track of word count, but A.V. Club’s reviews are way shorter. And what happens, is that (just about) every review mentions the band name at least once. So, if you assume that all usages after the first are a function of word length (it takes a few hundred words to say “Oldham” 25 times), then it would hold that the shortest reviews would have the highest ratio of band names.
- Is the new Mountain Goats album any good? All four of these reviews have been pretty favorable, but the clips I listened to make it sound a little boring.
(via guestcritique)
![After reading my last post on three letter sequences appearing in English (SOWPODS) words, you probably had two questions:
What are the 153 triplets that appear only once, and what words do they appear in? (Technically two questions)
Given that 44% of the possible triplets are actually found in words, what are the percentages for sequences of two through six letters?
The answer to the second question can be found above. But after reading the table, you’ll have yet another question.
What about those 65 two letter combinations that don’t show up?
And the answer to this second first question is: [‘bq’, ‘bx’, ‘cf’, ‘cg’, ‘cj’, ‘cv’, ‘cx’, ‘dx’, ‘fq’, ‘fx’, ‘fz’, ‘gq’, ‘gx’, ‘hx’, ‘jb’, ‘jc’, ‘jf’, ‘jg’, ‘jm’, ‘jq’, ‘jv’, ‘jx’, ‘jz’, ‘kq’, ‘kx’, ‘kz’, ‘mx’, ‘pq’, ‘px’, ‘qb’, ‘qc’, ‘qd’, ‘qg’, ‘qh’, ‘qj’, ‘qk’, ‘ql’, ‘qm’, ‘qn’, ‘qp’, ‘qq’, ‘qr’, ‘qt’, ‘qv’, ‘qx’, ‘qy’, ‘qz’, ‘sx’, ‘tx’, ‘vb’, ‘vc’, ‘vf’, ‘vj’, ‘vm’, ‘vp’, ‘vw’, ‘vx’, ‘wq’, ‘wx’, ‘xj’, ‘xx’, ‘xz’, ‘zf’, ‘zr’, ‘zx’]. They mostly start with Q, as you might have guessed.
And the answer to the first first question is the list below. Because SOWPODS treats different inflected forms as separate words, these unique triplets are completely unique. Furthermore, the unique triplets all occur at the border of compounds or affixes, or in obviously made-up words. The observant among you will notice that while 153 triplets appear once, they appear in only 138, with repeat offenders like “evhoe” (evh, vho) and “wysiwyg” (wys, wyg).
aee , palaeethnology aex , ultraexclusive afc , leafcutter aij , gaijin aix , faix aop , supraoptic apc , cevapcici apg , apgar arx , marxisant atv , gatvol avt , chavtastic axu , taxus bih , bihourly bks , nabks bku , lebkuchen bpu , subpubic bze , subzero cda , ducdame cde , ecdemic dci , medcinal dko , padkos dsf , handsful dyu , giddyup eao , mangeao ebk , lebkuchen eqa , sheqalim euf , boeuf evh , evhoe exv , sexvalent fap , fap fbl , deafblind fco , unselfconscious fhu , cliffhung fke , offkey fok , opgefok ftt , ofttimes fyd , affyde gds , smaragds gih , mashgihim gpa , jogpants gty , hogtying hez , chez hky , droshky hml , rhythmless hrj , lehrjahre htk , tightknit iwr , antiwrinkle iwy , wysiwyg ixf , sixfold iyn , tyiyn jds , slojds jje , hajjes jki , pirojki jym , jymold kfs , wakfs kje , inkjet kpu , stockpunisht kty , dickty lfc , unselfconscious lhi , elhi lpn , stilpnosiderite lvy , shelvy lxe , calxes lzy , schmalzy mcu , creamcups mds , fremds mfy , comfy mhs , ollamhs mky , dumky msf , armsful nfs , confs nij , unijugate njy , bunjy nkj , inkjet nkv , dronkverdriet nqs , tranqs ogp , jogpants oih , pihoihoi oii , hikoiing ojk , pirojki omd , howsomdever oyt , toytown pci , cevapcici pff , pfft pfs , dummkopfs pge , opgefok php , phpht pii , piing pku , bupkus pna , hypnagogic pss , psst qfs , waqfs qis , qis quh , umquhile rfw , scarfwise rpw , warpwise rrr , brrr rxi , marxisant spt , claspt swy , swy sze , grosze szo , kuvaszok szy , groszy tps , postpsychoanalytic tuh , kohutuhutu tvy , outvying twp , twp tyb , tickettyboo ucd , ducdame ugy , hugy uho , tauhou uoa , quoad uob , duobinary uov , suovetaurilia uxy , druxy vaf , lavaform vho , evhoe vly , vly vns , eevns voh , evohe vta , chavtastic vyl , ivylike wcy , gawcy wfr , bowfront wft , ewftes wkl , hawklike wuk , wukkas wwh , skewwhiff wyf , twyfold wyg , wysiwyg wys , wysiwyg wza , howzat xeu , exeunt xih , flexihours xii , taxiing xlo , sexlocular xls , cacomixls xtd , nextdoor xva , sexvalent xyn , oxyntic ycs , mycs yib , yibbles yiy , tyiyn yks , bashlyks yku , platykurtic ysd , paysd yxy , asphyxy zaw , zamzawed zhk , pirozhki zii , trapezii zow , zowie zyb , lazybones zzs , zzzs](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l1qzl6oINg1qzj18yo1_500.png)
