Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular

by Derek Thompson

Coming after several massively successful LPs, Kid A was Radiohead’s fourth album. In this manner, I thought, Kid A’s success seemed to fit within a broader pattern. Led Zeppelin’s unnamed fourth album is its mythic masterpiece. Born to Run was Bruce Springsteen’s third studio album, Sgt. Pepper was the Beatles’ eighth, Thriller was Michael Jackson’s sixth, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was Kanye West’s fifth, and Lemonade was Beyoncé’s sixth. I thought of Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, Seinfeld’s fourth through seventh seasons, Stanley Kubrick’s eighth feature film, Virginia Woolf’s fourth novel, and Leo Tolstoy’s sixth book. It is self-evident that a person’s best work might emerge after years of practice, as artists refine their skill. But there is something more at play here: These artists and teams produced their most resonant work after they had already passed a certain threshold of fame and popularity.