Where Do First Impressions Come From?
How many times have you heard that fist impressions are extremely important? According to Business Insider, it takes around 7 seconds to formulate a first impression of someone. The danger in this is that often these first impressions are hard to break.Listen to this NPR segment, You Had Me At Hello: The Science Behind First Impressions, on how first impressions about personality and character can be determined solely based on an individuals voice. While there, be sure to listen to the voice clips to test your own first impression.
The example that is highlighted throughout the chapter focuses on an up and coming rock musician, Kenna, who has had success in music but never hit it "big time". While some major record company leaders and musicians (those who truly know music) immediately loved his music, others were skeptical of the unclassifiable genre. When Kenna's music was sent to research firms for testing, the results were not in his favor and ultimately he was considered too much of a risk for big labels. Below is one of Kenna's songs that was tested based on a 1-4 scale with 1 being dislike. This song rated a 1.3 with rock station listeners and a .8 with R&B. Listen and make your own first impression.
How would you rate the song on a 1-4 scale? Did you have a hard time classifying it? I wondered what perhaps influenced the sub-par reactions to this song.
This was a lot of fun! It's very hard to rate a song like this. Personally, I liked it a lot. I would say that the style/genre crosses too many lines which makes it difficult to label. There are elements of rock, new wave, electronic and pop. This is not immediately or solely limiting to a musician. There are lot of examples of successful musicians who blend various genres. Take Linkin Park or crossover projects like Aerosmith and Run DMC's "Walk this Way" (rock and rap) or more recently artist like Avicii (electronic and folk).
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to note that we often make different impressions of the same person in different situations. As a director at an English academy a couple years ago, my impressions of potential employees was based on different criteria than if I was simply meeting that person in social setting. I think this is the same for label reps. They might enjoy his music but in this case evaluate it based on its probability of being a hit. I'm not interested in listening to music that will make money. I enjoy music for the sake of enjoyment. Thus, I would rate this song highly (probably somewhere in the 3-4 range). Yet, I can see why it might not be appealing to record executives. It doesn't demonstrate a lot of elements of a hit of today: the instrumentation choice and melody is somewhat irregular. There isn't a strong hook and the complex texture of of drums, keyboard and vocals does not make it an easy song to dance or sing along with.
I too liked the song and checked out a couple of his others. Great point about first impressions being somewhat reliant on setting. In the case of Kenna, his songs did not rate well with the research firms, but those who saw/ heard him live were eager for more. Perhaps people needed the whole package.
DeleteThe article on first impressions was interesting - and scary. I have a sneaking suspicion that my quiet, reserved manner does NOT make a great first impression on people. And it's a long haul to overcome those first impression and round out people's perspectives on us.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this, I wondered what kind of first impression I give off. Then, I thought that this would depend much on the background and life experience of the person passing the judgement.
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