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."

Comments

B. Spears Music "Fairly Complex"

[Rotten]

This is one of the signs of the apocalypsis

Re:B. Spears Music "Fairly Complex"

[horn_in_gb]

Also, Coons (analyst guy) is talking about the chord structure of the song, not the depth of the lyrical content or even the realization of the chord structure. It's actually really well written from the standpoint of tonal western art music, and compares to a simpler bach chorale when you reduce it to just chords. I remember when I heard this song I was really impressed with it and got a lot of flack for it. A couple days later I played a reduction for some fellow (classically-trained) musicians who thought it was a very nicely laid out chorale. I added the melody on top to reveal the source and everyone was really surprised to find it was Britney Spears :)

I may not personally think very highly of Britney Spears as an artist or performer, but her arrangers/composers know their shit and write some pretty robust stuff. Another example is Autumn Goodbye, which has even more complex chords, lots of counterpoint, etc.

Re:B. Spears Music "Fairly Complex"

[frodo from middle ea]

Britney Spears is to music what Emacs is to text editing.

Despite of all the other goodies ;) , they completely suck at what they are really suppose to do.

Re:B. Spears Music "Fairly Complex"

[Krach42]

Hey, I like Britney Spears.

Re:B. Spears Music "Fairly Complex"

[drakaan]

Me, I'm not worried about the apocalypsis. What *I* am worried about is the apocalypso.

Whatever you do, DO NOT let Mr. tally man tally your bananas, people. You only have to make it 'till daylight.

Re:B. Spears Music "Fairly Complex"

[dgatwood]

Harmonically complex? For somebody who has never taken a music theory course, maybe. The song is just trivially switching between a minor key and the relative major key, and uses two chords in each. Yeah, if you try to write it out as though it stayed in one key, the notation gets a little ugly, but...:

Minor key: I V I
Relative Major: V I V I
Relative Minor key: V I V I
Relative Major V I
Relative Minor V I

Or, more traditionally:

VI IIIMaj VI
V I V I
IIImaj VI IIIMaj VI
V I
IIIMaj VI

Harmonically complex is Macarthur Park. "Oops" has the harmonic vocabulary of a turnip.

From http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/columns/music_theor y/writing_unusual_and_original_chord_progressions. html

First, I will show one of the simplest (and most common) way that a songs chord vocabulary is extended, is simply by adding the major chords from the keys parallel minor scale....

(Emphasis mine.)

But wati

[Crusader7]

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?

Re:But wati

[Teux]

Their system allows you to set different "stations"

Each station gives you the ability to add a few different types of music, but it's not recommended that you try to mix radically different types. You'll have to use old fashioned judgement to choose a broad category you want to listen to, it does the rest of the work exploring similar music.

Britney's Songs

[waterlogged]

..... Those weren't "Chords" that you were admiring.

Wow!

[errxn]

I typed in "dog shit" and got Ashlee Simpson's entire catalog! This thing is amazing!

I'm a musician..

[DJayC]

I'm a musician, and I told it some songs I liked and it's playing a customized radio station of songs that I should like... and it's dead on.

The best part is that you can ask it "Why are you playing this song", and it will explain it to you.. in terms of the song structure and things like that.

These are real people analyzing these songs.. this seems like a great service to find new music from bands you don't know. Taking bands out of the context of a "social circle" (like Amazon and itunes do by simply looking at 'people who purchased this also purchased...') is a GREAT idea.

I urge you to support this project if you are a music lover, or at least check it out and listen for a couple hours.

CounterpointTheSurrealismOfTheUnderlyingMetaphor

[Tackhead]

> 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"

"Yes, do continue ..." invited the RIAA executive.

"Oh ... and er ... interesting rhythmic devices too," continued Coons, "which seemed to counterpoint the ... er ... er ..." He floundered.

Ford leaped to his rescue, hazarding "counterpoint the complexity of the underlying chromaticism of the ... er ..." He floundered too, but Coons was ready again.

"... humanity of the ..."

"RIAAnanity," Ford hissed at him.

"Ah yes, RIAAnanity (sorry) of the singer's publicity-whored-out soul," Coons felt he was on a home stretch now, "which contrives through the richness of the harmonic structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other," (he was reaching a triumphant crescendo ...) "and one is left with a profound and vivid insight into ... into ... er ..." (... which suddenly gave out on him.) Ford leaped in with the coup de grace:

"Into whatever it was the song was about!"

The RIAA executive stood up.

"No, well you're completely wrong," he said, "I just write top 40 music to throw my mean callous heartless exterior into sharp relief. I'm going to throw you off the ship anyway. Guard! Take the prisoners to number three airlock and throw them out!"

...

"...counterpoint the complexity of the underlying chromaticism..." He considered this for a moment, and then unplugged the iVog with a grim smile. "Death's too good for them," he said.

Um

[a.different.perspect]

Actually, that was a parody -- and a very funny one too. You can download it here. In actual fact, as Wikipedia says, "Oops!... I Did It Again was written and produced by constant suppliers Max Martin and Rami."