Software Predicts Music Success

Frankenbuffer writes "The Globe and Mail today reports that MIT researchers have developed a computer program to analyze pop music and predict how people will react to it. The method, developed at MIT's Media Laboratory, analyzes the pitch, rhythm, and other characteristics of music. What makes the technology unusual is that it also takes into account social responses to hit music gathered from weblogs, chat rooms, music reviews, and other online discussions, and correlates this data to the music to guage the popularity of a particular sound. According to the researchers, the software has accurately predicted Billboard hits for the past several months."

Comments

great...

[esoteric0]

the record labels are going to get ahold of this and turn it around to actually produce the music. then it will all sound the same.

wait....

Re:great...

[ScrewMaster]

I can just see Sonda Bullock and Sylvester Stallone discussing this over nachos at Taco Bell:

Stallone: "You know, it's odd that all your music sounds like Britney Spears."

Bullock: "Well, after the Great DRM Wars of 2030, all music is Britney Spears."

Stallone: "Oh my God!"

So what's the big deal?

[ScrewMaster]

According to the researchers, the software has accurately predicted Billboard hits for the past several months.

Hell, I can do that. My friends have noticed that, for a long time, any piece of popular music that I can't stand to hear becomes a hit. Hm ... maybe I'm in the wrong business.

What does this mean...

[SeanMon]

for up-and-coming artists? Music companies will be able to use this to pay artists less because the computer doesn't like their music.

MAL (Music AnaLyzer): "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I don't like that."

I wrote one too

[ShakaUVM]

I wrote a predictor too. It's a neural net, actually.

int music_predictor(int artist_type,float rhythm, int genre, int tempo, int male_or_female, int quality, int singing_quality, int band_quality, int number_of_band_members) {
        if (artist_type == BIG_NAME_POP_ARTIST_WITH_STUDIO_BACKING)
                return true;
        else
                return false;
}

Ok, so it's a one-axon neural net. But it gets 99%+ accuracy.

Re:I, for one...

[ScrewMaster]

robotic taste-shaping overlords

Most people don't know it, but that level of technological sophistication was achieved nearly a century ago.

Nowadays, we call them "studio executives". They used to work reasonably well, but nobody has updated their programming since 1957.

The most stunning revelation

[Rolo Tomasi]

The secret to success is apparently: more cowbell.