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Dissecting Songs Down to Their 'Musical Genome'
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "The company Pandora Media takes a different tack for its online music-recommendation service. When you tell Pandora a song you like or have bought, it doesn't mine its sales database for records of other purchases by those who have bought the song. Instead, it looks for songs with a similar musical profile, based on a database of 300,000 songs rated on up to 400 characteristics like rhythmic syncopation, vamping and vocal harmonies. To analyze the songs, Pandora has hired Bay Area musicians like San Francisco jazz guitarist Bob Coons. 'When Mr. Coons describes a particular song, he uses phrases like the "complexity of the chromaticism" and "richness of the harmonic structure." He has studied the chord structure in Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again," and reports that it is "actually fairly complex," ' the Wall Street Journal Online reports."
What if I like both eighties hair metal and symphonic orchestra? I guess it's okay to reccomend songs from each of those categories, but as the number of preferences rises, wouldn't it become harder and harder to pick even a specific genre to reccomend, much less a specific album?
why is it that he elitists believe popular music is simplistic? If it's so simplistic and dumb why doesnt everyone make it and become millionaires? Fact is not everyone is able to come up with music and lyrics that a wide audience connects with and appreciates. Unless you have talent, it may look easy but it's not.
The backing production on a lot of her songs actually is pretty complicated, at least compared to what pop music used to sound like. Just compare the density and diversity of beats and sounds on Toxic to, say, anything by the Monkees.
Is it really necessary to categorize and break everything down into it's component peices.
I'm all for it in the computer world, but do we really want to do this with Music? How about food?
I can see it now - recipes for food that are just a list of nutrients. MMMMmmmm.
Remember, "complex" != "good"
This is the first musical taste-type service I've tried that has gotten anywhere close to accurate. In fact, I've found around 10 of the last 15 or so rather likeable. And they have the Dance Hall Crashers listed, which is a great sign.
As to questions about "what if you like both foo and bar styles?" You start with one song or band, and it makes a "channel" out of that type. If you want to explore a different genre, I assume you start over.
It's also full songs, decent quality.
Overall, pretty nice.
Anyway what I was trying to say that there is in fact some GOOD pop out there now and then. If you want to see the talent behind Britney, you need to look at the names of the producers, engineers, song-writers and musicians on the record. The thing I find most disturbing is the, um, let's call it the "racial dimension", especially in the US where music is sickeningly segregated by colour.
Anyway, miles off-topic, we now return you, etc etc. Sheessh. Does anyone else find Friday evenings profoundly depressing?
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
No Mozart. And if they don't have Mozart, you *know* they won't have anything by dead white guys.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
The amusing part of this hoax is the concept of a 'B' side on a wax cylinder. Oh yeah, and Edison stopped manufacturing them in 1929.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Pop artists are backed up by a stable of studio musicians and probably songwriters for that matter. Someone like Britney may sing well but she doesn't even have to do that because her voice can be tweaked in real time by equipment. For that matter, the band only has to play somewhat compently although studio musicians tend to know what they're doing technically even if they are discouraged (probably) from applying any of their own imagination. The entire performance can be tweaked in real time now.
Billy Ray Cyrus came from the area I grew up in. When he was signed, his band thought they had hit the big time too. Wrong. After the summer road tour and maybe a demo tape, his band was dropped like a bad habit and replaced with studio guys. On the other hand, Steely Dan was doing that long before it occurred to the labels to do it. They write good pop but aren't all that good live. Going to a Dan show won't be unpleasant though because they have always surrounded themselves with competent sidemen. Come to think of it, Jean-Luc Ponty did the same thing. Did anyone ever go to one of his shows to see the goofy violin player with an overinflated opinion of himself? His bands made him look better than he really was too.
Britney's voice all by itself wouldn't carry her. Pavarotti she is not. Without the sideman and technical help and the all important hype and branding, she'd be flipping burgers somewhere. I have absolutely no guilt about ripping on the likes of Britney Spears.
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I suppose the end result of this research is eventually still selling you something, by suggesting stuff that you may like.
I find a basic fallacy in this approach, as in the recommandations of Amazon and the like. People do not get entertainment from stuff they know already, but from *new* stuff, that surprises and sounds/looks unusual and different. It is the same fallacy that leads music producers to look for the a magical "formula" to create pop music, and that only leads to a massive production of crappy music that all sounds the same.
Talking about music with rich and unusual harmonic structures, I think an Honorable Mention should be made for "Election Day" by Arcadia (formed by some Duran Duran members back in 1985). While the sounds may appear almost normal now, I recall that at the time the song was a total mistery until something clicked in your brain and you "got" it. Some older people I know of were openly acknowledging that the song was just too unusual for them to understand. Remarkable.
" He has studied the chord structure in Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again," and reports that it is "actually fairly complex," '
Well, Mrs. Spears's mammaries aside, I totally agree with him. Many popular music titles are quite complex, and their composers should be commended as such. Just remember, Mrs. Spears and her counterparts often have nothing to do with a songs composition and arrangement. Now, that doesn't mean that she doesn't write her lyrics, but it's musicians enslaved^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H hired by record exec's that really put pen to staff.
Most of these stars aren't signed because they're great musicians, it's because they're pretty, and don't stumble over themselves when they dance. In the eyes of a recording exec, 'good' music is music that sells, not what would enthrall a classically trained musician, and if it just so happens to, he'll sell a few more records.
This sig rocks the casbah.
Hate to editorialize, but I am really suprised at how much Bob's comments are being taken out of context.
He has studied the chord structure in Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again," and reports that it is "actually fairly complex,"
He makes no claim that the songs time signature or melody are complex. Just that the chord composition is "fairly complex". And it is. Take another listen. Not a typical progression like in a lot rock and pop.
I know Bob Coons and get to see him play guitar at our weekly jam sessions here at Pandora. He is definitely a smoking guitar player in all kinds of styles, rock, jazz, blues, you name it. Though he would never self-proclaim himself as a "jazz player".
I think a lot of people here are confusing complexity with good music. Just because a songs chord structure is "fairly complex" that doesn't mean its good, or that we think its good, or that the RIAA is paying us to say so. Its just an observation.
As an music analyst here, its important to not let personal taste get in the way of how you look at a song.
"Those who analyze art, music or literature too deeply, usually do so because they don't get it."
While that may be true in certain cases, I think a blanket statement like that is actually pretty far off of the mark. I'll agree that those who analyze creative arts 'too deeply' don't get it--if by not getting it you mean have a appreciation for the structure that's different than a casual interpretation.
I've listened to classical music for decades. I find that although from the beginning I could enjoy pieces and appreciated their form, it was a study of formal music theory that gave me new tools for appreciating what I heard. When I hear a composition from one era and can place how the composer rejected the norms of the previous era I have a different--and I feel deeper--appreciation of the pience than if I am in the dark about certain things.
The same goes for literature. Being aware of the significance of certain workplay brings a much greater understanding than just being able to follow the plot on the surface. When reading Orwell's 1984 being aware of the irony of 'doubpleplusungood' make for a richer appreciation than just thinking "wow, they use odd forms instead of the more mainstream 'bad'". Granted it doesn't take much to analyze the irony of the wordplay, but that analysis creates in the reader a different level of appreciation than not analyzing anything.
I guess my point is that just because one can apply an indepth analysis into the struture of a creative piece does not mean they are unable to appreciate a work at face value anymore. It just gives them more tools which they can apply to appreciation of art.
Holy shit, it's actually a perfect palindrome with one modification. If you represent III as IIV (2 less than 5) instead of III, the chord progression looks like this:
... which is a perfect palindrome (not counting capitalization [which indicates major/minor], and the inversion of the iv chord at the end, which makes it a iv6).
i-V-VI-VII-IIV-iv-V-i