INQ-240 | Statistics and the Music Industry

Full Title: Statistics and the Music Industry

Topic Description:

What does it mean to have a platinum selling album in the age of music streaming? Who has the best vocabulary in hip-hop? What does Johnny Cash’s second wife have in common with the rap group Public Enemy? How did the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001 affect the record sales of the soundtrack from the motion picture “O Brother Where Art Thou?” Statistics is often used to describe and predict trends in the music industry. The challenge we will face in this class is to figure out what the statistics we see (and even compute!) really say about what is happening in music. From collecting, to interpreting, to presenting, and to predicting; prepare to jam with data.

Counts as Global? No

Topic Approved: April 2016