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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."
Now if only someone could produce an piece of code that analyzed slashdot submissions and weeded out duplicates like this one. You know, news that Slashdot did last year.
Try pandora.com. Enter a band or song you like and it will find similar music. Also, if you look inside the cache folder you'll find mp3s of all the songs you've heard through the site.
Dupe! ;)
iRate Radio
You can create a profile in audioscrobbler (last.fm). I've discovered lots of new sounds that turned out to be what i was looking for.
http://www.last.fm/user/paco_cotera/
People today have easy access to a broader cultural experience than ever before. People who in the past could not afford to spend a lot of money taking chances on esoteric music can just take it now, whether or not the artist wants them to. The legal and moral implications are another debate entirely, but there's no question that the average person can now have more diverse music than ever before. There are entire genres that I never would have gotten into if not for the internet. That's a lot of CDs and concert tickets that wouldn't have been sold, albeit not by the folks that are handing out subpoenas.
If you think there isn't any good music being made today, either you're ridiculously picky or you just aren't looking. Yes, 90% of the music sold in America is (in my opinion mostly bland) pop put out by just four record labels. The breadth of the rest of it is astounding.
Look at the new winAMP feature called Predixis MusicMagic. It does exactly what you are talking about (within your library of music). I'm sure there is a version/extension of it out there that does the same thing but in a more universal database of tunes.
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