polyphonic HSS

March 12, 2003 11:08 AM

Based on a software analysis of 250,000 CDs for mathematical patterns, and further analysis of the last 5 years of Billboards' Top 30, Polyphonic HMI thinks they know what it takes to rock your world (i.e., cause a song to shoot up the charts). Of course, major labels are interested (NYT link, scroll halfway down). Will this cause mainstream radio to be overrun with inane, soul-crushingly similar music, and crowd out anything different or interesting? Because I wouldn't like that!
posted by luser (39 comments total)

That's really cool. I was once told that 120 beats per minute is the rate your heart beats when excited ( or something like that ). That's why songs at this tempo have an effect on us ( "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gee's is at this tempo ). I could be completely wrong.

Most pop songs are in the key of G, which is happy, and we all know that "D minor is the saddest of keys".
posted by remlapm at 11:19 AM on March 12, 2003

Will this cause mainstream radio to be overrun with inane, soul-crushingly similar music, and crowd out anything different or interesting?

As opposed to what we have now?
posted by ElvisJesus at 11:30 AM on March 12, 2003

Now, if they can only teach the robots to love.
posted by UlfMagnet at 11:30 AM on March 12, 2003

Another example of technology being used for evil instead of good.
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:08 PM on March 12, 2003

Is this "music" something I'd need a radio to know about?? You kids today with your silly marketing tools. Like music ever helped anyone to do anything. Sheesh.
posted by WolfDaddy at 12:09 PM on March 12, 2003

Um, EJ, I think luser was being sarcastic - it's so hard when you don't use emoticons {8^p

Twenty-plus years ago when I was working in radio, they thought they had all the answers to make a perfect "radio song"; when somebody invented a device that could vary the speed of a recoding without varying the pitch (nothing digital, it fed a tape through a weird-looking labirynth of rollers and loops), it was treated like a cure of cancer. The music biz resisted such 'tinkering' of their art by the 'crassly-commercial' broadcasters...

I wonder how Dr. Buzzard would survive an analysis by these techno-morons.

BTW, it IS something you need a radio to know about, it DOES vibrate, all your base (and treble) belong to us, and I WELCOME OUR RECORDING INDUSTRY OVERLORDS!!! Now as Laurie told you, "GET A LIFE!!!" (Sorry, just having a bad day)
posted by wendell at 12:27 PM on March 12, 2003

That's really cool. I was once told that 120 beats per minute is the rate your heart beats when excited ...

this has been rumored to be the case by the house community for years, and is cited also by a DJ/producer in the film Modulations.

Whether or not this reference gives the statement any creedence, Modulations is worth seeing just to watch a wild-eyed Panacea talk about his own music scaring him.

(apparently, Panacea is no longer a loveable jolly breakcore boy, but has become a slim vegan who plays mostly drum and bass. so sad.)
posted by fishfucker at 12:45 PM on March 12, 2003

I wonder if lyrics enter into their equations? Not that they've mattered much in the past 40 years...
posted by ZenMasterThis at 12:49 PM on March 12, 2003

[Off Topic]

where does the "Is this "FOO" something I'd need BAR to know about?" meme come from?
posted by signal at 12:52 PM on March 12, 2003

Well, 30 years anyway...
posted by ZenMasterThis at 12:57 PM on March 12, 2003

[Off Topic continued]
signal, I'm fairly certain it started here, but my googling and searching skillZ are obviously not leet enough to point you to ground zero.

wendell, dinna mean to worsen your day, I just [on topic] think any tool the broadcast and/or recording industry devises to guarantee chart placement is kinda like a search engine placement company promising their 101st customer a top 100 ranking.

And it was Shatner that told me to get a life.
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:04 PM on March 12, 2003

Dang! The Rivington's "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" only reached No. 48 and "The Bird's The Word" only got to No. 52 on Billboard's Pop Singles chart. I'm sure those two songs would have blown up the computer if it attempted to analyze what made them so great!

What a great time in the history of music that those two songs—as insane as they are—were actually played on commercial radio! Can you even imagine?
posted by elvissinatra at 1:05 PM on March 12, 2003

I wonder if they have the 'Je ne sais quoi' plug-in for that software....because like em or not, the best hits just have something about them...
posted by mattr at 1:08 PM on March 12, 2003

It's a fascinating idea, frankly, from a technological point of view... but even if you grant that the theory works, and that music can be meaningfully reduced to mathematics -- which I'm already somewhat skeptical of -- they're only going to get results that sound like what they feed into it. Like those neural networks that can
simulate Bach because that's what they've been trained on, if they feed this system the last five years' worth of Billboard Schlock, the best they're going to get is another five years' worth of the same old schlock. Which is what they're already going to get anyway, so why bother?

The collaborative filter version of the software -- briefly mentioned in the NYTimes article -- sounds much more interesting and useful. I'd love to be able to go to a website to find music that's mathematically similar to music I already like; that sounds like a good way to find more music I might like. Like the "Users who liked X also like Y" stuff on Amazon, but better because it doesn't depend on sales trends, just on the music itself.

Vaguely related but interesting link which I tried but failed to work into this comment somehow
posted by ook at 1:14 PM on March 12, 2003

Also... does anyone remember that science fiction story in which someone mathematically identified what made a song "catchy," wrote a program that could generate "catchy" tunes, and inadvertently ended civilization by driving everyone insane because they couldn't get the damn tune out of their head? Might've been titled "The Hook," or then again maybe not? Anyone? Anyone?
posted by ook at 1:17 PM on March 12, 2003

Signal: the meme started as "is this something I would need a television to know about?" which was poking fun at a user who, every time a thread related to something about television, would casually mention that he didn't own a television. I can't find the original thread either, but have a vaguely guilty suspicion that it was me who was being made fun of. Because, um, I don't have a television.
posted by ook at 1:23 PM on March 12, 2003

so it works for the past five years? hmm. since the Telecommunication Act of 1996? since radio consolidation? how surprising! how revolutionary!
posted by jann at 1:24 PM on March 12, 2003

[off topic continued, again, sorry]
I'm pretty sure the recent use of "Is this "FOO" something I'd need BAR to know about?" started with this comment. But I could be wrong.
posted by Gary at 1:31 PM on March 12, 2003

[apologetically off topic but kind of in-your-face about it anyways]

beautiful Gary, thanks!
posted by signal at 1:37 PM on March 12, 2003

where does the "Is this "FOO" something I'd need BAR to know about?" meme come from?

I think it started by someone posting it in regards to needing a tv to know about a tv show, thus showing everyone how cool they are, by the fact that they dont own a tv.
Other people used to it make fun of the orginal person...


Back On topic
I always wondered how long it would take for someone to come up with a program that could take any song and make a techno or hiphop version out of it....
posted by Iax at 1:40 PM on March 12, 2003

Forget analyzing the actual music...just study the physical looks of Top 30 pop and rock stars from the past few years. I can almost guarantee more patterns will be found. It's all about the image.
posted by fishbulb at 1:52 PM on March 12, 2003

Because I wouldn't like that!

Actually, our research shows that you would like that. Also, you like the television show Friends.
posted by toothless joe at 1:54 PM on March 12, 2003

However, your TiVo thinks you're gay.
posted by WolfDaddy at 2:01 PM on March 12, 2003

we all know that "D minor is the saddest of keys".

I've also heard that E major is "the people's chord"; thus E minor is "the dead people's chord".
posted by daveadams at 2:46 PM on March 12, 2003

Prior Art?
posted by LimePi at 3:28 PM on March 12, 2003

daveadams, can you name some some tunes in E maj and E min for us key-challenged individuals?
posted by alumshubby at 3:41 PM on March 12, 2003

The FPP reminds me vaguely of something in 1984: Music (and I think even porno and pulp "literature" ) for the proles is machine-generated.
posted by alumshubby at 3:43 PM on March 12, 2003

I remember hearing William Gibson and a few other Sci-Fi guys talk about this "Imagination Engine" in 1998 - it's a neural net algorithm that generated a whole boatload of musical 'hooks' as well as discover new substances, etc. through a series of noise generators (which i think are actually channeling ghosts). What's scarier about this thing is the first patent they secured - the beast lives! note: the beast probably doesn't actually live.
posted by phylum sinter at 4:33 PM on March 12, 2003

it's so hard when you don't use emoticons

Sarcastic? I wouldn't know anything about that, lacking emoticons and all ;*
posted by ElvisJesus at 4:41 PM on March 12, 2003

It's all about hi hats and background vocals in a call and response pattern.

That's it. It's that simple.

I want to get a band of real live monkeys and/or apes, and have them make ANTIMUSIC!

Ah, such bliss...
posted by geekhorde at 7:37 PM on March 12, 2003

Mass produced music is dead (or should be). We should all return to the time when if you wanted music, you got together with a few friends and played some. Better times to be had by all. And no corporate scum leeching off everybody elses work.
posted by HTuttle at 9:47 PM on March 12, 2003

Oh, and this company sounds like it was formed by a few ex-Arthur Andersen scam artists who just found another way to con corporate asses out of yet more millions. This stuff smacks of consultant-bull-speak.
posted by HTuttle at 9:51 PM on March 12, 2003

Make that 'reeks of".
posted by HTuttle at 9:53 PM on March 12, 2003

I'd love to be able to go to a website to find music that's mathematically similar to music I already like; that sounds like a good way to find more music I might like.

Music = mathematics

Who really needs this software? Even format radiostations don't need it, because they allready know what songs they want to play. Most of them have playlists of 400-1000 songs. New tunes are easily added "manually" (by record companies).

I would still like to know if the program can really distinguish styles/groups/songs/beats/timbres/orchestrations?
posted by hoskala at 3:39 AM on March 13, 2003

Also... does anyone remember that science fiction story in which someone mathematically identified what made a song "catchy," wrote a program that could generate "catchy" tunes, and inadvertently ended civilization by driving everyone insane because they couldn't get the damn tune out of their head? Might've been titled "The Hook," or then again maybe not? Anyone? Anyone?

Rum-Titty-Titty-Tum-Tah-Tee by Fritz Lieber comes to mind.

Only it's about an assortment of beatnik arty types who conquer the world with the above mentioned phrase for irresistible beat. And it eventually wears off.
posted by y2karl at 4:53 AM on March 13, 2003

I think the story Ook is thinking of is Greg Egan's "Beyond the Whistle Test"
posted by Tlogmer at 8:40 AM on March 13, 2003

Now that I think of it, Egan wrote another story about angst and alienation in which top musical hits are indeed composed by computer. You can read it here.
posted by Tlogmer at 8:42 AM on March 13, 2003

Sorry to post 3 times in a row, but this quote from the NYTimes article seems to sum things up nicely:

Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist and musician who coined the term "virtual reality," said that the science side of the application seemed sloppy. "As for the music side of things," he continued, "I doubt pop music could get any worse, so using even a meaningless tool like this might result in some improvement."

posted by Tlogmer at 8:52 AM on March 13, 2003

Mass produced music is dead (or should be). We should all return to the time when if you wanted music, you got together with a few friends and played some.

well, nothing's really stopping us. every kid nowadays has got what amounts to a mini-sound studio on their desktop. audio software has come *really* far in the last, i'd say, four years, starting with Rebirth, which introduced mass accessibility to audio software, really -- then came Acid, which beat-matched and spliced for you, then came Reason, which practically makes tracks for you.

i thought, at first, that access to these tools which made it easy to make a certain kind of music: mostly lame, derivative tracks that sounded like various genres out there. Reason, for example, which is widely used today by laptop folks, doesn't necessarily lend itself immediately to abstract beats, its structure seems mostly built to create a certain type of music (either of the 4/4 house/trance variety).

fortunately, it seems like many people think of software like Reason in what I would term "a good way". They think of it as a *tool* for making music, not as a *machine that makes music*.

kids will go in and basically "break" or otherwise interpret the way the tool works in a differently than intended to produce wildly different music than what you'd hear on the presets (and limitations are good for this -- ask anyone with a big home studio, and i think they'll tell you that it's easier to produce with just one or two pieces of gear, rather than many, because you don't have to worry about infrastructure, and because the limits force you to do interesting things).

anyhow, i don't know where i'm going with this, except that: everyone, everyone, it seems, is an electronic musician now, because the difficulty of obtaining the means of production is far simplier* (due to rampant piracy, mostly, but there's also fairly robust freeware tools that one can use, or even very cheap but powerful shareware tools -- fruity loops, for example) -- we've seen, just in the last few years, many more people making music. i mean, the electronic scene went from a point where people asked me, "you play live? oh, you mean DJ?" to "i've got a live set at Club Y next Friday, you should come by. Oh, and my buddy's playing some live electro down at Cattle Club, and uh, there's a friend of mine who plays with this guitar and a laptop, it's fantastic!"

my other point is that possibly this "technology" of popular song hooks could be used in a very very cool manner -- for example, I like the anti-music suggestion above (and i'm sure it has purposes other than the solely conceptual, too).

my last point is that i was doing it first (yes, even before kraftwerk -- even before stockhausen!) so i am so cool that even though i own two televisions and a dvd player, i am still considered impossibly hip.

uh, anyhow, there's no way i'm editing this so it'll make sense, because i have to get back to work. also, sorry, no time for links (i am lazy).

* This is also like how everyone became a graphic designer, particularly after Photoshop 5/KPT 3 came out.
posted by fishfucker at 10:17 AM on March 13, 2003