NEWS: Deafening Us With Science

MUSIC: Deafening Us With Science

You've suspected it for years, and now your suspicions are confirmed: the music industry has got shitty music down to a science.

The Barcelona firm Polyphonic HMI's Hit Song Science is one of a new breed of hit predictors, helping major record labels decide where to allocate their resources in a time of supposedly tight profit-margins by determining the likelihood of a song being a hit. Hit Song Science is said to have predicted the success of both Nora Jones and the Maroon 5, based on their respective albums' "mathematical coherence".

Now the firm is apparently attempting to make up for its well deserved bad karma by donating its services to a tsunami relief benefit album.

I could analyze a song like that for free, too. Analysis: super shitty. And I didn't even need a computer! Or to listen to it! HSS's analysis, unfortunately, works slightly differently.

Such a system, of course, can only look at the past, because that's where the data on hit songs lies. The next "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "Fell In Love With A Girl" would probably fall into the "mathematically incoherent" pile for Hit Song Science. The next ripoff of Nirvana, however, will probably make just the right sound -- kaching!

Thank god for independent labels.....

I always believed that The actual science behind hit songs was an inverse relationship between how good a song is and how big of a hit it becomes. Of course that rule isn't a constant and there are always some abnormalities.

some hits are a load of malarky...and so is this "technology"

POD & Papa Roach =/= good music


I didn't even need a calculator.

Like forecasting stock prices or exchange rates.

"I forecast that the exchange rate will ....continue following its current trend!"

Picking the turning points, where the damn thing changes direction, that's the tricky part!

Or, as you say, picking that the next "Teen Spirit" will actually sell.

What a load of crap. Create hype around an artist, by telling everyone you have a machine that can predict stars. I knew the music industry execs were slimeballs, but this is ridiculous. Is there such things as talent and ambition anymore? Are there any voices in music that speak with intelligence?




A sad day for all the struggling musicians trying to make a living off of their craft. A sad day indeed.

agreed. i see many regular non-talented people being hyped up for no good reason other than money and profits.......when somebody with raw, natural talent gets dicked over.



mm, glorious society.

Yes actually, there are shitloads.

SCIENCE!
I just wanted to say that.

Also, congratulations on the vague Thomas Dolby reference Keith. Always good.

Science and technology! Men using screwdrivers. Turning them, and adjusting them!

i kind of envision that big white machine from the Josie and the Pussycats movie.
-k

AMEN.

The milquetoast singer of Maroon 5 makes me want to start a fight with the Dalai Llama.

[Edited on Mar 18, 2005 by OpticNerve]

Did you see the interview with him this week in the Onion?

I hadn't. That's great. The Onion AV Club really pulls out some great interviews sometimes.

That was the first thing I thought of ... I don't know what that says about me.

This made me want to cry.

I want Simon Cowell and his ilk on a spike.

Heh.. this sort of AI thing has been around for a while now. (erm, this is seperate perhaps? But there is also a basic AI program that performs the same sort of calculations I read about a while ago in Wired or something).

It seems funny to me that people are looking to an algorithm to decide what is good and what isn't. I mean... if everything put out by the majors sounds the same... this is why.

I would never use anything like this at my label.

I thank all that is holy for indie labels and artists.

Support indie music!

[Edited on Mar 18, 2005 by ether_medius]

Wow. Some fly-by-night used car salesmen in Barcelona have discovered that super-compressed tracks do best on radio because they're the only thing you can hear in increasingly crowded markets. Eh.

Let's see... Brian McKnight, Mya, Nate Dogg, Fefe Dobson, Ben Moody, members of P.O.D., Papa Roach, Chevelle, Lit, 311... let's just run that through the computer here...

my god.

This song's Shit Index is off the charts! Its Lameness Quotient has more decimals than pi! Eureka!

They couldn't even get ALL the members of POD?

this isn't gonna turn into another crap ass genius savant movie with russell crowe is it?

*for relevant commentary, please refer to denis leary - no cure for cancer - the bit that starts with elvis.