Record companies are to test a "juke box jury" computer program that can tell if a song is likely to top the charts.

Like the guests on the TV pop show, launched in the 1960s and revived in the 1980s, the software predicts whether a tune is going to be a "hit" or a "miss".

The program, called Hit Song Science, correctly forecast the success of jazz songstress Norah Jones months before she topped the US charts and won eight Grammy awards.

Record company bosses were so impressed that five major labels have decided to try out HSS for themselves, New Scientist magazine reports.

HSS, produced by the Spanish company Polyphonic HMI, of Barcelona, looks for songs that match the musical traits of known hits.

Each song is run through a set of signal filters that identify and measure more than a dozen musical patterns, including melody, harmonic variation, beat, tempo, rhythm, pitch, chord progression and fullness of sound.

The program's designers found that in the past five years of Billboard magazine's Top 30 chart listings, hits were concentrated into a number of small clusters sharing similar traits.

Polyphonic HMI's chief executive Mike McCready said: "There are a limited number of mathematical formulas for hit songs. We don't know why."

Peter Bentley, of University College London, who also designs musical software, said it may only reinforce tried and trusted formulas for success.

"The music industry is not exactly renowned for its daring exploits," he said. "If you rely on the computer too heavily, you will miss out on the new things."

From Ananova

Hi everyone I am new here. I may not end up posting a lot but I do not flame.

But it does surprise me that they are just now going to this computer program. As any listener to the past 5 years worth of pop songs may attest, I thought they were ALREADY doing this...

Hmm, to me it seems like they're looking for the catchiest pop sounding song possible. You think music is bad now? With this, it will probably only get worse.

"the past five years of Billboard magazine's Top 30 chart listings"

THe past 5 years were filled with Back Street Boys, Brittney Spears, N'sync, Chirstina Agulara, and various rap artests. This music was formulayic already. All the program did was identify the paterns already used. The music of that time is already starting to pass. Humans are fickel, i doubt that a comp program can accuratly predict which songs will be hits in the long term. People need change. If they keep getting the same type of stuff over and over, the current hits are going to become crap, to be replaced by somthing tottaly new, or stuff that used to be considered crap.

mmm a computer that can find hit songs mmmmmm wow!
not thats bull%%%% who cares if a song goes it gos can the recording label that signs artist not tell if the band is good enough to sign a contract .......if not someone needs another job not a computer

this doesn't surprise me one bit. the lowest common denominator of an audience that the radio and 'music' industry must cater to is every bit as dull as the last p-diddy remix. indeed, things may only get worse if computer programs are allowed to pick 'the best'. the majority of stations in this country play only a few styles of music, and that may be degraded to just 1-2 now with a formula. the magic of music is being lost every second these corporations are allowed to brainwash their audience. one of the few things that i've always loved about radio up until the past few years when the big guys took over was the feeling of hearing a new song slowly gain a following and receive more and more requests. today they just put it in the random playlist containing the 10 or so tracks a couple more times from the start. tomorrow with this formula, it will be all we hear for the next month.

i wonder if they used this on the kid rock track 'picture'; if not i'd hate to see the list when they do

Seeing as how the program is only looking at the last five years of "hits", I can't help but wonder what it would say about Stairway To Heaven...

This will never work. I keep imagining back in the early 90's feeding in all the stuff that was popular (Michal Jackson, Garth Brooks, Queensrych) into a computer and having it come up with "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Or even now. Putting in Back Street Boys, N'synch, Limp Biscuit and coming up with The White Stripes. I don't know though, I'm no good at math.

I'm sure the artists are running out to the computer stores now to get there copy so they can "make it big." I might be wrong but I don't think serious artists write their music with computer programs in mind.

Moreover, there smacks of an insidious ulterior motive behind this whole mumbo-jumbo, as more adventurous music would be even more pushed off the radar screen that is "the scene" today. If this kind of program (which SCREAMS "programming") were around at the time of the great revolution in music that took place in the '60's -- well, suffice it to say that such a "revolution" would NEVER have happened. And back then, you had a surfeit of "manufactured" acts as well -- The Monkees, 1910 Fruitgum Co., Ohio Express, The Archies and The Partridge Family (okay, the latter is post-1970, but you get the picture) come to mind -- yet the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Cream, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Steppenwolf et al. served as something of a balancing counterweight. Not to mention the differing sounds coming from Motown in the Midwest and Stax-Volt in the South. However, if HSS were in place "back then," ALL you would have heard was this Monkees-1910-Ohio-Archies-Partridges-etc. juggernaut over and over again (to say nothing of Bobby Sherman). This is what we've come to.

In large enough numbers people can be easily modeled. This program could actually be surprisingly good at predicting the right songs, but I expect it will largely be a self-forfilling prophacy. The label runs music through the software, and the ones it says are money-makers recieve all the marketing, thus generating huge sales for the ones the program predicted. Still, its predictions are unlikely to be any better than a skilled human. Althrough it may get recalibrated occasionally, its still going to basicly act as a filter that only lets through music thats like past hits.

On one hand this thing sounds silly, and on the other hand the idea does not sound half-bad. A computer can not judge music like a person because it can not hear or feel like a person. I really don't think that a computer can tell me all that much about a song. Frankly, I can't imagine this thing hitting the mainstream.

Yet, on one hand it sounds like it could be a good idea if it is used correctly. If the computer is updated regularly, it could be possible to map the trends among the listening public.

It sounds like this program could be a useful tool if used correctly, but I don't even know that much about the program. I'd have to hop on the bandwagon in saying that it's impossible for a machine to listen to and judge music like a person would though.

If only the biggest customer group wasn't under 15... Back then I also like the so-called "hits".

Although I agree that this is a self-fullfilling prophecy, this is also typical of the "herd" characteristic marketers like to identify. It will work because it will be marketed to work to the general masses who don't look for diversity in their pop culture. Once enough people hear about the program, they will simply have to hear the songs that the program picked, if for nothing else than curiousity. Radio stations will pick up on the songs, and marketing will promote them. They don't have to be good, they just have to be heard ad nauseum.

This gimmick seems similar to the marketing studies already in place by the movie industry. Somehow they use current trending to decide what topics are hot to film. Thus, we get 4 mob movies around the same time, then 4 war movies, etc.

Just to put a bug in your ear (and to attempt to apply what I learn in college to the outside world)...

In the old days of classical music, a given style or genre of music rarely changed over one's lifetime. Composers came and went as opportunities arose or dried up, but for the most part it was the same sort of music; Baroque, Classical, Romantic, etc. It was all or virtually all based on the same formulas, certain sections being repeated, etc. etc. I would argue that there's so much more choice nowadays than ever before. Yes it's harder to find some music, but if you look past the obvious (e.g. radio, mp3.com and other sites that make it impossible to find anything other than what sells or is played most often), you can find literally ANY type of music you want.

As for the whole issue with the software, I sincerly hope they DO use it, then realize that they've already been doing the same crap over and over again, using the same form. It's time for change, and I personally don't plan on buying another CD unless I think it's significantly different from anything else out there.

Topping the charts is nothing. Whatever happened to quality? In the 60's and 70's Top 40 was quality music like Rolling Stones, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Bob Seger and sooo many more awesome bands that had real talent. Now it's all a bunch of shit hitting the top of the charts. They push anything that will sell, they don't care about music, they care about cash. Even if a "band" doesn't know the first thing of playing a guitar, they can easily hit the top by making a catchy tune with electronic beats. It makes me sick how this hip-hop rap-shit is catching on. It's really sad. Someday we may not even have instruments! When I am 70 and listen to the stones my grandkids will ask what kind of weird music it is, because it isn't fake electronic beats, it's real talent and quality and time and effort!! AHHHH!! Anyone agree with me here or has the world gone to shit?

I have two ways of looking at this...

1. Yeah, there is a lot of music that is real simplistic out there.

2. Who really cares?

I think most of this actually comes from frustrated musicians. It really pisses a musician off to no end when he or she sees Blink 182 after they just finished practicing for eight hours. I think a lot of this comes from musicians who are just angry, resentful and a little jealous.

When I was a teenager, I used to hate bands that were simplistic because I was playing 5-6 hours a day and I knew I could play ten times better than they did. Why get so upset about it? If I don’t like it, I’ll just listen to something else. Some music is good even if it is simple anyway.

What makes good music? Is good music only music that matches your tastes or meets a certain criteria? I think the term "good music" is arguable. You might say that Bach's fugues are an example good music while I say it is awful because I always end up falling asleep.

I don't think there is such a thing as good music. What one may like, the other may hate. Music was invented to express one's self and to entertain others. Yeah, I can't stand some of the current music trends, but I can appreciate the music. Besides, someone is expressing themselves and it brings smiles to lots of kid’s faces. After all, isn’t that what it should be all about?

Who really cares? That statement is implying that we shouldn't care at all, which in fact we should. When people stop caring, the music scene tends to degrade more and more.

Well, it's possible that this computer is already in effect. I just heard almost all of the Evanescence album, which is averaging 5-star reviews by consumers on CDnow.com. These people say they have "never heard anything like it". This means there are many out there for which we may be too late. Far too late. They have been spoonfed for so long that this product is actually refreshing, or will be at least long enough to make a few bucks for the suits.

Music is definitely subjective, but the objectivity of music is still going strong on the corporate front. We may be looking at this year's Avril Lavigne (who, by the way, already has a tribute album out).

I don't believe music is getting worse; certainly the music put out by the major labels is. Of course, that's not really news. When it was much more difficult for an independent band to get noticed, everyone was listening to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Jimi Hendrix experience. We have more ways to listen to more bands these days, if one is willing to work at it.

One of the problems is that the media that brought us the Rolling Stones, is well, STILL bringing us the Rolling Stones. Their box set was actually number 2 to an Elvis compilation over the summer. Burger King Lavigne was at number 4 at the time.

I am starting to believe that there is only one way to be truly free of the corporate strangehold over the main listening avenues: it must fall entirely, however that is going to happen. The Evanescence album will sell millions of copies, a sure sign that the mass public has given up. The band themselves will be old news next year, or perhaps the year after that, and they'll probably be broke as well.

The statement implies, who cares if you think the music is good or not? When rock 'n roll first came to the scene there were plenty of people that thought it was all "bad music." Someone mentioned the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Bob Seger earlier. Those are all rock musicians/bands.

I agree that we should be concerned when the product deteriorates, but that is not happening at the level that people make it out to be. I seem to remember a lot of grunge era bands giving us "crap." Well I think it's crap because it did not have enough harmonic progression and melody to meet my tastes, but lots of other people seemed to think it was good.

This is not a world of educated musicians. It's a world of people just throwing on what ever makes them groove. Yeah there is plenty of bumble gum out there, but not all of it is bad music and some of the musicians deserve respect.

Ok, you can think that there's nothing wrong with the music scene. That's great that you find there's nothing wrong with a bunch of people "singing" about how it's great to disrespect women, shoot guns, harm people, do drugs, sell out, and on the other side of the coin, sing about how depressed you are all the time and how much your life sucks, and why you can't stand/can't get over your stupid ex for some reason that no one cares about. Yup, you're right, it's not initially as bas as people thought. What were we thinking?

The companies are losing money because people are tired of the same old shit being cranked out be the record companies. They lost thier cash cows like Mariah(psycho)Carey, Whitney "Toot" Houston, The Back Toilet boys etc.It used to be an Artist had to be GOOD, to get a recording,Now anybody who comes along with a shaved head or grabs a lot of crotch is called an artist. Soon they wikll need a new "Teen Queen of slut pop, as Brittney and Christina sour fans with their rehashed garbage. I say Adios to them all and good riddance.

Oh yea, and I wish this site had an ignore button. I would use it on Doug.

I think the only reason you want an ignore button put on me is because I don't agree with everything on here. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone on here agreed on everything? This would not be a discussion forum; it'd be a "bitch board" where everyone whined about the industry all the time.

There are some problems in the industry in terms of developing talent. If I were to point at something right away, it'd be that. This idea that all we have in the industry is bad music makes no sense to me. Look at the 70's, 80's and 90's. I just don't see much of a difference in the quality of music. Don't you think the reason you think its bad is because you're jealous or just getting old? My parents thought my music was bad and my grandparents thought my parents' music was bad. If I sat down with my grandparents, I’m sure they’d tell me how their parents hated their music.

As far as the music that's been mentioned, it seems that we are bashing rap, "MTV-TRL pop" and punk/emo. If you don't like that, then there is other stuff out there you can listen to.

My personal take is that not all music is bad today, but my beef is that if I want to easily find what I consider good music, I cannot. This is because the major channels for showcasing new music are corporate controlled with little diversity. However, the internet is opening up a new world of discovery, so hopefully it will not be long before I can stream anything anywhere, and not be so limited in discovery alternatives.

Taking into account the fact that the current music output that is most readily available is mass-marketed-current-trend teen or younger pop culture, it is easy to see why anyone with an ounce of true musical savvy would think the quality of music has deteriorated. We can basically thank MTV for initiating this phenomenon. Once the audience started seeing the performer, it was basically all over for any musician that couldn't produce visual stimulation. Without the visuals, we wouldn't have the boy bands, bubblegum-sluts, booty-rappers, or dancing-queens, and Michael Jackson might still have a nose.

Should we care that circus-acts, strippers, and street-punks are being marketed as "music"? I don't know. You can't convince the masses that they have no taste, and teens are too hormonally challenged to look away, so there's not much to do about it anyway. We should care however, as kneo24 pointed out, that the moral disregard in music is alarming and reprehensible. However, if you can't convince the masses of the simple fact that the music is bad, how will you convince them that what the songs portray is immoral?

NO it's not that Doug, You are just too damned logical and thorough in your replies. I reject facts as they only serve to confuse me once my mind is made up. No offence intended bro.

Well Doug, if you love the ever immoral mass marketed industry, all the more power to you. Frankly, I'd rather see something else for once that's easily attainable. Now, wouldn't that be nice?

I agree that it'd be nice for other types of music to be more easily attainable. As we all know, ClearChannel, MTV and VH1 don't do much to make that a simple task. Of the music that is considered "bad", I dislike most of it too. I mean how many simple bass lines and drum beats do I need to hear while some ex-thug refers to his own race with a racial slur? We all have our own tastes, but even though I may dislike something, I can respect it. Of the “bad music” we’re talking about, I could careless for most of it too. I assume most of us are musicians or have a musical background. One thing I learned when I first took an interest in music, was that part of being a musician is respecting other people's music even though you might have some reservations about it. Just like you respect other people’s opinions on here and refrain for calling them “stupid opinions”, you do the same with music and refrain from calling it “bad music.”

Some opinions are stupid, and need to be labeled as such, as some music is really just bad and needs to be label as such.

Hmmmm.... I hope at least someone understands what I mean.

I understand what you mean, but there's no point in letting some moron go around blabbing their stupid opinions if they really are stupid. Someone has to tell them so, and prove it. The same can go for bad music.

Ever tried to put on classic FM in a room full of teenagers? Some people just dont want to listen to music without a multi-million-pound marketing budget . Ive had to sabotage the school CD player to escape from metal and rap several times.

Even bad music can be a success when well marketed. Music has rarely gotten as bad as Eminem, but good marketing made him a star even through he cant sing, can hardly talk normally, and cant stay on one topic for more than 10 seconds.