Predicting Music

The Globe and Mail has an interesting article about some researchers at MIT who have developed a software which in fact predicts the success a specific song will have on the market. It has been accurately doing so for years now. The software looks at pitch, rhythm and other characteristics and compares this to factors present in already popular songs in order to make a prediction.

This is extremely interesting and scary at the same time. It somewhat confirms what I've thought for years, that commercial music in itself is formulaic in conscious and subconscious ways and that we in fact seek the same things over and over again in our music. Certainly this could open new avenues in terms of sociological analysis of how and why we like music and if there are physiological factors associated with this. Ah, humans....creatures of habit.

You can read the full article here.