Komar and Melamid make art by surveying sample groups, an idea that blurs the lines between collaboration and artistic control. Their artists’ statement nearly demolishes the notion of “people’s art”:

In an age where opinion polls and market research invade almost every aspect of our “democratic/consumer” society (with the notable exception of art), Komar and Melamid’s project poses relevant questions that an art-interested public, and society in general often fail to ask: What would art look like if it were to please the greatest number of people? Or conversely: What kind of culture is produced by a society that lives and governs itself by opinion polls?

Born, raised, and educated in the former Soviet Union, where government was intended to be designed in the “people’s” interest, yet where people were never asked their opinion, Komar and Melamid, ironically, offered the Russian people an opportunity to exercise their taste. Their project took on even greater significance as capitalism—armed with its market-research consumerism and opinion-poll politics—begins to spread unimpeded throughout the former Soviet Union and the rest of the world.

When they took their concept to Americans, they expected a larger diversity of musical tastes. They were instead surprised with the uniformity of the survey results, which is probably why the “popular” song sounds so familiarly banal.

As an artistic concept,  People’s Choice Music is an amazing experiment in quantifying the unquantifiable, and how one-size-fits-all is bound to be one-size-fits-none when it comes to art. Of course, as music, it’s damn near unlistenable (though the “worst” song is clearly superior).