MuSeNet: Natural patterns in the music artists industry

Motivated by the constantly growing interest and real-world applicability shown in social networks, we model and analyze the network formed by music artists all around the world, which we call MuSeNet. Inspired by a similar landmark approach in actors' network, we compare our analytical results with the generic Facebook friendship model and with the IMDB network of Hollywood actors. We are the first to create such a network, and by using centrality measures we discover that the most influential node in MuSeNet - the Kevin Bacon of music - is the vocal artist and producer Dave Grohl. In light of current advances in social networks, we also highlight the importance of music producers in terms of meritocracy versus topological positioning. Finally, we show that MuSeNet has a characteristic sociability - a measure which is introduced in this paper - in comparison with other empirical networks.