AI Bots Pick The Hits of Tomorrow

Wolverine Inspector writes "The Music Industry uses a product called HSS (Hit Song Science) made by Spain's Polyphonic HMI. According to The Guardian "while no one's talking about it, it seems that the whole record industry is already using AI to choose hits. From unsigned acts dreaming in their garage, to multinationals such as Sony and Universal, everyone is clandestinely using a new and controversial technology to gain an edge on their competitors." Even though it costs about $5,200 US/$6,500, many artists are starting to buy it to help them write succesfull songs."

Comments

More white bread, please!

[grub]

That's just great.

Remember how video card manufacturers were tweaking their drivers to perform well in benchmarks? "Musicians", and I use that term loosely, will be tweaking their songs to score a "hit" on this service.

FTA: Those "leftfield", illogical and grassroots-inspired departures from the norm, such as disco or drum and bass, could not have been predicted - but they shift the mainstream and provide the momentum any culture needs to remain fresh.

Right, but it will be harder than ever to produce something out of the mainstream when a record exec will look only at the score on HSS and potential effect on the bottom line.

FTA: As Smith says, "Art is the one area where people can, and should be able to, make radical statements. Anything that encourages safe, consensus-driven music should be used with caution."

Art for art's sake is virtually a thing of the past. Prepare for more of the same on the FM dial! (thank goodness for etunes.com)

Re:More white bread, please!

[CaptainZapp]

"Musicians", and I use that term loosely, will be tweaking their songs to score a "hit" on this service.

Sure, but so what? Same as you are not forced to eat crappy processed food you don't need to buy this homogenized shit.

Sure, something gets lost along the lines. Creativity? Kharma? Soul? I don't really know, but unfortunately this change happened after the last of the titans in the music business left the ship and where replaced by young, aggressive, MBA schooled and Excel knowledged executives, who don't really give a shit if they're moving laundry detergent, softdrinks or, well, culture [for lack of a better word].

The somewhat cheering thought is that we will always have good music around (currently Tom Waits: Blue Valentine, but I digress) and there will always be good new bands, song writers, arrangers and musicians.

The difference between them and the mainstream will be that while they don't necessarilly shun technology they sure as hell won't use "hit"-writer software, or those gizmos that "clean" mistakes in human vocals.

I totally agree with your assessment. Just wanted to add some perspective and maybe a more joyful outlook on what is to come.

Re:More white bread, please!

[garcia]

But in time, these predictions have always proved wrong.

The music industry has proven again and again that "time" no longer matters. Bands like The Stones, Aerosmith, etc, are all a thing of the past. They don't need them. They want acts like Spears, Maroon5, etc who rise to the top of the charts quickly through marketing, consolidation, and payoffs, and who are only there for a short time before the next big thing hits.

Touring, actual music playing, and actual singing are overrated. The HSS printout says so.

Just tweak this, this, and this. Add a synth here, here, and here. We have a hit. Two hits, maybe three, and we can continue to whine that we don't make any money because we spent it all marketing something that died after 3 years.

Re:More white bread, please!

[grub]

I totally agree with your assessment. Just wanted to add some perspective and maybe a more joyful outlook on what is to come.

Yeah, if slashdot had a "+1, Cynical" rating my karma would be through the stratosphere. The only radio I listen to nowadays is AM news & weather. Most mainstream music isn't my cup of tea although there's a good university station here that plays some neat bands.

In my original post I mentioned etunes.com. I meant emusic.com, I've found a lot of really decent smaller bands there I would never have heard of had I gone to the standard CD mall-store or listened to the mainstream radio. Mind you, my favourite band is Motorhead so my observations on art and music should be taken with a grain of salt ;)

Re:More white bread, please!

[Seumas]

I really don't see any of this as a problem.

There are musical artists and then there are musicians. Musicians play instruments or sing and write music, etc. Artists produce a piece of work intended to convey emotion and inspire or in some way evoke a response from the listener. A musician custom-builds a film-score, jingle, muzak or top 40 hit.

There's no art in "rock-away" or "drop it like it's hot" or "thong thong thong thong thong". That garbage is just for bouncing around to. There's no more art to that than there is to a room full of old people after a burrito dinner.

So, if they want to use some AI software to find out what the next big hit on Total Request Live will be - great. Artists will never be found on TRL as it is, so what do we care what happens with that genre of music?

I find it unlikely that they'll be applying this to most other fields of music. *shrug*

Re:More white bread, please!

[Mr.Zong]

Uh, we did read both links right?

This thing picked Norah Jones. Frankly, shes damn talented, and is quite the opposite of this modern day radio crap fest. If anything, this app seems to be telling the brain dead execs that the crap your playing sells well initally, but if you put out quility (like jones) you don't need the marketing blitz (which she didn't get) and you don't need to reinvent the market every year.

You would think the /. crowd would know better then to guess the outcome of data mining and pattern recognition applications(Look at me! I know how the ANN got it's answer!).

Lets not forget, the program his to be smarter then those execs making the decisions. It's not possible for it be dumber. Its really not.

Sigh

[Nastard]

Remember the good old days when the listeners picked the hits?

Next up: bots that generate pop music.

Re:Sigh

[CheechBG]

Next up: bots that generate pop music.

They already have bots that do that, they call them boy bands. It was supposed to be bot bands, but I think someone in the 80's screwed it up with Menudo, and the name stuck. What are you going to do...

Re:Sigh

[Nastard]

No, the record companies contract people to go and give monetary "incentives" to radio stations to get their picks put into heavier rotation (or into rotation at all). The station plays the song and calls it "hot", and the listeners, all eager to be hip and fresh and on the cutting edge of music, hear the word "hot" and jump all over it.

Or in some cases, people just hear the same song so many times that it becomes familiar and eventually enjoyable.

The point, though, is that you're given a multiple choice test when it comes to picking the music you like, and the record companies want to ensure as few choices as possible, and that whichever you pick belongs to them.

This Explains The Success Of ...

[strelitsa]

Air Supply and Ashlee Simpson.

This is not Artificial Intelligence

[dtolton]

This is not AI. The music companies are using clustering technology.

The basic idea is that you measure certain characteristics of a song,
such as voice quality, cadence, etc. I'm sure the actual
characteristics used are much more complicated, but the idea is the
same. Once you have your characteristics you can build a three
dimensional vector out of a song. After you have your three
dimensional vector, you can then use many different algorithms, one
such is the Bi-secting K-means algorithm to group the songs together.
After you have built your cluster, you take a new song, run it through
the process and check to see how close it falls to a "hit" cluster.

We use this same process for document classification at my work, and I
don't think it bears any relation on AI. As I stated above, it's a
rather simple grouping technique.

There is a downside to this technology though. By measuring how close a
song is to previous hits, you are guaranteeing that all new songs will
be similar to old hits. This type of system tends to minimize or
eliminate fresh new types of music.

(why the word wrapping? Emacs auto-fill-mode)

Re:This is not Artificial Intelligence

[Mechanik]

Once you have your characteristics you can build a three dimensional vector out of a song.

Don't you mean an n-dimensional vector? Wouldn't it be only three dimensional if they're only measuring three characteristics?


Mechanik

For various definitions of success

[kent_eh]

many artists are starting to buy it to help them write succesfull songs."

Comercially successful != good

Circular statistics

[mfarver]

Is it just me or did the article quote music industry folks as saying the software must work becuase 95% of the hits of the last decade scored highly. The software is a mathmatical model based on the hits of the last century.. so of course it scores them highly.

The formula

[k4_pacific]

The program works by applying the formula. It takes three variables.

Boobs
The artist must have boobs. The larger they are, the higher this value.

Blandness
The blander it is, the higher this value.

Beat
The stronger the beat, the higher this value.

These are multiplied together.

B * B * B = X

If X is greater than or equal to the Olivia Newton-John quotient, a recognized standard throughout the popular music business, the song will be a hit and we release an album.

If X is lower, we don't do one.

Q: Are there a lot of these kinds of artists?

You wouldn't believe.

Q: Which record label to do you work for?

A major one.

Is there any escape from noise?!?

[sporktoast]

This announcement from the producers of this record contains important information for radio program directors, and is not for broadcast.

The first cut on this record has been cross-format-focused for airplay success. As you well know, a record must break on radio in order to actually provide a living for the artists involved. Up until now, you've had to make these record-breaking decisions on your own, relying only on perplexing intangibilities like taste and intuition. But now, there's a better way.
The cut that follows is the product of newly-developed compositional techniques, based on state-of-the-art marketing analysis technology. This cut has been analytically designed to break on radio. And it will, sooner or later.
For the station that breaks it first, the benefits are obvious. You lead the pack. Yes, no matter what share of this crazy market you do business in, no other release is going to satisfy your corporation's current idea of good radio like this one. On this cut, we're working together, on the same wavelength, in scientific harmony.
But remember, this cut is constructed for multi-market-breaking NOW. Don't waste valuable research with needless delay. We've done the hard work of insuring your success; the final step is up to you.

SPECIAL DESIGNER SONG FOLLOWS IN 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.

Analize this

[Elphin]

From the website:

• The first step in the process for our technologies is to analyze a representative sample of music (up to date we have
• analized more than 1 Million tracks)

Analized? Analized? - what dedication these folks have. Brings tears to my eyes.

Re:It is not really art unless you feel something.

[tomhudson]

It is just stuff or back ground noise.

AKA: Celine Dion

In a recent poll, 10% chose Celine Dion. The rest preferred a root canal w/o novocaine.

Does this remind anyone of the Monty Python skit where they use mathematicians to create the world's funniest joke, and use it to get Nazis to die laughing?

Re:It is not really art unless you feel something.

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Does this remind anyone of the Monty Python skit where they use mathematicians to create the world's funniest joke, and use it to get Nazis to die laughing?

Actually, it reminds me of some of Bradbury's more gloomy predictions of the sanitization of the culture that was happening then and is continuing to occur.

How long until books are written the same way, or at least evaluated by the same kind of tool? I suppose the news media will have it happen to them first: "Sorry, Dan, that story about political hanky-panky rated a 4.5 on our offensive-o-meter, way above the threshold of 3. Put some kittens in it and maybe we can get it to a 2.5."

Re:Personal music assistant

[throughthewire]

Somethis that can be configured to an individual's tastes, and which can then sample and select new music from the company's music library. Sort of a 'Tivo Suggests' for music. I'd buy that.

Like LAUNCHCast before the RIAA leaned on them, and then Yahoo! acquired it and ripped out everything that made it innovative and cool?

You'd rate songs on a scale from 'never play this again' to 10, and the system would select new songs based on what you'd already rated and insert them into your personal "station" rotation.

But the real killer feature was that you could search for other users whose tastes were statistically similar to your own, subscribe to their stations, and learn about new and different music and artists as some of their favorites were added to your rotation. Want to buy a song? Click on it.

Absolutely cool collaborative software. Unfortunately, if you wanted to expend the effort, you could abuse the system to constuct a station that could (gasp!) play a specific song at a specific time for free, and the RIAA wouldn't allow that.

So the only thing that had gotten me to purchase any new music in years was eviscerated, stuffed full of ads, and then sold to Yahoo! as a 'service' with all the collaboration gone. You could pay money to lose the ads. Whee.

Bitter? Me?