Using data to define the official canon of 90s music

I'm a big fan of the Pudding's clever approach to infographics, and this latest piece examining 90s music does not disappoint. They surveyed thousands of people, collecting millions of data points to find out how well they recognized charting songs from the 1990s, and analyzed the results according to birth year. Pretty cool!

Sinatra, Elvis, and Chuck Berry are emblematic of '50s music, but what's the '90s equivalent? Using the recognition data we collected, we can begin to define the canon. These will be the artists and songs that Gen Z and beyond seem to recognize (and value) among all the musical output from the decade.

First, it's important to understand the general trends in the data. No Diggity" knowledge peaks among people born in 1983, who were 13 years old when the track debuted in 1996. We also see a slow drop off among people who were not fully sentient when No Diggity" was in its prime, individuals who were 5 years old or younger (or not born yet) in 1996.

That drop-off rate between generations-in this case, Millennials to Gen Z-is one indicator for whether No Diggity" is surviving the test of time

The Instagram post below is only a small piece of the results; check out the Pudding's website for the full analysis, with all your favorite (and/or totally forgotten) 90s pop gems.

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Part 1 of 2-New project: 1) Gen Z is far more likely to recognize "Wannabe" than "No Scrubs." 2) Will Smith is falling into obscurity. These are two realizations from a new project about how future generations will recognize '90s music.

A post shared by The Pudding (@the.pudding) on Jul 23, 2020 at 2:39pm PDT

Defining the '90s Music Canon [Matt Daniels and Ilia Blinderman / The Pudding]