Think music sucks now?

Thrillhouse

Back from the dead
Joined
Jun 22, 2002
Posts
1,752
Just wait for this horror.

I think another punk revolution is loooooonnnng overdue.


http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6119776%5E401,00.html

Computer to choose chart hits
March 13, 2003

IF a lot of music by manufactured bands sounds tediously similar these days, things may soon get a lot worse.

A Spanish company says it has developed software to replace talent spotters that will "listen" to music and predict a song's chances of becoming a hit.

The software, Hit Song Science, has been developed by Polyphonic HMI of Barcelona to help record companies determine the chart potential of a song before deciding whether to invest in promoting it, the New Scientist reports.

It works by matching a song against the musical traits of known hits, searching for identified patterns in beat, melody, pitch, chord progression, harmonic variation and fullness of sound.

Polyphonic HMI has built up a database of 3.5 million songs and discovered that even though their traits are scattered all over the map, the hits are concentrated into a tiny number of trait clusters.
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Computer to choose chart hits
March 13, 2003

IF a lot of music by manufactured bands sounds tediously similar these days, things may soon get a lot worse.

A Spanish company says it has developed software to replace talent spotters that will "listen" to music and predict a song's chances of becoming a hit.

The software, Hit Song Science, has been developed by Polyphonic HMI of Barcelona to help record companies determine the chart potential of a song before deciding whether to invest in promoting it, the New Scientist reports.

It works by matching a song against the musical traits of known hits, searching for identified patterns in beat, melody, pitch, chord progression, harmonic variation and fullness of sound.

Polyphonic HMI has built up a database of 3.5 million songs and discovered that even though their traits are scattered all over the map, the hits are concentrated into a tiny number of trait clusters.

"There are a limited number of mathematical formulas for hit songs," the New Scientist quotes the company's chief executive, Mike McCready, as saying. "We don't know why."

Five major record companies have shown interest in the software, which Polyphonic HMI says picked out the music of jazz singer Nora Jones months before it became a success. She walked away with eight Grammy awards last month for her first album.

Songs with matching traits do not always sound the same, though.

Nora Jones falls into the same match as hard rockers Van Halen, while Beethoven and U2 are in the same cluster. But the Beatles and Elvis Presley are, comfortingly, in a distinctive niche all of their own.

Plans are afoot to sell shops a retail version of the software. The idea is that shop assistants could recommend new songs and bands to customers who input details of their favourite music.

Critics fear the invention will only strengthen stereotypes.

"The music industry is not exactly renowned for its daring exploits," said Peter Bentley of University College London, who makes specialist musical software.

"If you rely on the computer too heavily, you will miss out on new things."
 
eek

makes me think of the chosen music on the Ward in

Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest"


flipside is my 14 year old son in his first band
with 3 other 8th graders
playing their first gig
on St paddy's night
at an all ages joint
called 'The Cave"

they are all straight edge, they play hardcore,
and their music is raw
but full of youthful grace and honesty...lyrics full of "issues"

so for every garage band out there, i say
"fuck the man
and his
software starsearch machine..."

there, now i feel better...


:D
 
eagleyez said:

flipside is my 14 year old son in his first band
with 3 other 8th graders
playing their first gig
on St paddy's night
at an all ages joint
called 'The Cave"

they are all straight edge, they play hardcore,
and their music is raw
but full of youthful grace and honesty...lyrics full of "issues"

Funny, I just listened to Minor Threat yesterday.
 
How is the computer's biases against anything "different" any different than the human talent scouts' biases against anything "different"?

The jackass British "American Idol" dude would have told Nirvana to take the first plane back to Seattle, and they were the torchbearers of the last real revolution in music.

TB4p
 
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