Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Quora and Dataclysm
An infographic argument inspired by a Quora challenge with methodology derived from “Dataclysm” by Christian Rudder
Falling into the Quora trap
If you answer questions on Quora long enough, you will eventually fall into a “Quora trap”. These are questions that are asked by militant subject-matter curators looking to make a point. For example, Quora has marauding atheist thugs who patrol the site and eviscerate unsuspecting Christians in the name of science. Oft times a provocative faith question will be planted to draw out the believers and shout them down. Quora is also a tough place to be an openly right-wing conservative or climate-denier. It does not take long to see where the sentiment of the Quora community leans on these more controversial topics.
Every once in a while, a seemingly innocuous topic can lead to an unexpected battle. I ran across this phenomenon with the following question.
I should have known better by the phrasing of the question. This was posted by a troll. I didn’t realize Joni Mitchell had such a devoted and intense fan base. After a little research, I discovered that Bob and Joni have an ongoing feud.
To be fair, my answer was too flippant. After all, Joni Mitchell is a great singer-songwriter, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
Stating the case via infographs
Christian Rudder’s “Dataclysm” effectively uses infographs to show that our actions are not as noble as we would like to believe. The book is enlightening and depressing at the same time. The truth of Christian’s data shines a light on the dark corners of our biased views. Should we be depressed that we are less honorable that we project ourselves to be, or hopeful that the public persona we project is an aspirational goal of the better self we are striving for? Perhaps it is a bit of both. If you are wanting to stay in your happy bubble believing that humans are fair, well-intentioned, and unbiased, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. Consider Datacylsm your “blue pill”.
In the hands of a expert practitioner like Christian, data has tremendous power. I have been working on improving my presentations by researching and analyzing data sources to evaluate the strength of my arguments. In many cases, I abandon the effort if the data is showing a flaw in my original logic. I do my best to let the data speak and not to manipulate it to suit my view points. “Datacylsm” provides an excellent model on how to research, capture, format, present, explain, and reference source data to address complex and controversial topics. I figured the Dylan v Joni was a safe place to start. Without further ado, here is my attempt to“Datacylsm” the Dylan versus Joni Mitchell question.
The argument for Bob Dylan over Joni Mitchell
I will present a variety of charts and figures to illustrate the following points:
Bob Dylan is more:
- prolific (Figure 1),
- awarded (Figures 2 & 3),
- documented (Figure 4),
- researched (Figure 4, 5, 6, 7),
- commercially successful (Figure 8),
- followed (Figure 9), and
- mentioned (Figure 10)
than Joni Mitchell.
Here’s the supporting graphs.
Figure 1: productivity of the artists (above)
Figure 2: Grammy awards of the artists (above)
Figure 3: Prestigious awards for Bob Dylan
Figure 4: Wikipedia posts of the artists (above)
What is a“featured Wikipedia article?”
Featured articles are considered to be the best articles Wikipedia has to offer, as determined by Wikipedia’s editors. They are used by editors as examples for writing other articles. Before being listed here, articles are reviewed as featured article candidates for accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style according to our featured article criteria. There are 4,826 featured articles out of 5,238,119 articles on the English Wikipedia (~0.1% are featured). Thus, about one in 1,080 articles is listed here. — Wikipedia
Figure 5: Wikipedia page visits for the artists (above)
Figure 6: Google trends for the artists (above)
Joni Mitchell had serious health concerns in 2015, including a hospitalization after temporarily losing consciousness at home in late March 31, 2015.
Figure 7: SimilarWeb rankings of the artists’ official pages (above)
Figure 8: Approximate revenues for album sales for the artists (above)
Figure 9: Twitter followers for artists (above)
Figure 10: Hashtag mentions for artists for period between 9/1/2016 – 9/11/2016. (above)
To each their own…
The question of who is the better artist is a fool’s errand. That’s the thing about opinions. Everyone has one. For every “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” fan, there may be a “Big Yellow Taxi” aficionado. Copping out to such a wishy-washy argument is boring. Let’s take a last stab at making the case for Mr. Dylan.
that being said…
If we believe that there is wisdom in crowds, than the data gives Dylan the nod. You may argue that logic would mean that Katy Perry is superior to both Dylan and Joni. Dylan’s height of popularity was 50 years ago. Joni Mitchell’s was 45 years ago. Let’s see what Ms. Perry’s music legacy looks like in 2050 before we deem her the Mozart of pop music. If we account for the passing of time, the quality and substance of these two artists have proven to have strong staying power. Using industry awards as an indicator for peer and authoritative industry acceptance, again, the data favors Dylan. Dylan is one the most referenced and documented musical artists ever. Asking reporters, biographers and fans to devote time and effort in analyzing an artist’s work and history is a big ask. The far more extensively referenced Wikipedia page for Dylan relative to Joni Mitchell’s page provides insight into the difference in media and biographic coverage. Finally, the importance of the all-mighty dollar should not be trivialized. As thousands of would-be musical superstars can attest to, it is not easy to separate a fan from their money. Dylan’s album sales establish him as one of the top selling musical artists of all time. As talented and adored as Joni Mitchell is, her album sales are far lower than Dylan’s take.
Still love Joni more?
No worries. She is an amazing artist, and one who is underappreciated relative to her body of work. Data can only take us so far. In the domain of personal opinion, there is no right or wrong. Let’s make a deal. I’ll let you love Joni, if you let me love Dylan. Fair?
Notes on data
Most of the data used for the graphs were easy to find. I spend a chunk of one day to gather the data together for this post. Wikipedia provided the most useful data.
From the Wikipedia pages:
- Comparison of studio albums released. Note that the data did not include compilations, box sets and greatest hits.
- Comparison of album sales. Joni Mitchell’s page shows $11.3 in sales in the US and UK alone. Being a Canadian, her albums sold well in Canada as well. That being said, even accounting for sales outside of the US and UK, her album sales are certainly far less than Bob Dylan’s.
- Grammy award nominations and wins.
- Dylan’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Presidential Medal of Freedom awards.
- Wikipedia reference link counts.
For the word count for the Wikipedia pages of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, I used a simple copy and paste into Microsoft Word process. Although there are sub-pages such for discographies, recording sessions, etc. I choose to only compare word count for the main pages for both artists (excluding the reference sections).
For the Twitter # mentions, I used a short date interval and did a manual count of the # mentions.
