What is Digg?66 Comments
- idarkiswordi, on 10/28/2009, -3/+32Meh... 'musical hit' is a relative term. Most of what is considered a hit today, I consider to be total crap and mostly unmusical. No algorithm will ever be able to detect social trends because its an ever-changing, complex system that has no predictable course nor an outcome. Trends are continually random, non-predictable and are solely dependent on people. This idea stems from the thought that whatever the RIAA shoves in front of us we will eat because we are too stupid look for better alternatives ourselves without relying on a single point source for 'hits.'
You can quote me in 10 years when I'm proven wrong and look like a jackass. - BrandonJM, on 10/27/2009, -0/+27Of course it can. How do you think Disney keeps cranking out hits? Mutant super children aside.
- N0DIGGITY, on 10/28/2009, -1/+23So that's why songs with ***** lyrics and bands with no artistic talent keep making it to the top, the algorithm has a soft spot for robot voices and electronic beats
- BroodofEvil, on 10/28/2009, -1/+16This must be Nickelback's favorite site.
- illepic, on 10/27/2009, -0/+14Wasn't this the plot of Josie and the Pussy Cats?
FML, why do I know that.... - Shitokki, on 10/28/2009, -1/+13He didn't say he liked it....
- dalittle, on 10/28/2009, -0/+11This is why heavily marketed music sucks. The minute I see some band advertised everywhere I assume some corporate music hack is running the music through autotune or doing something like this instead of trying to make good music.
- dlm85, on 10/28/2009, -0/+10I think the biggest factor is the force-feeding of music on Top 40 stations. I am stuck listening to Top 40 radio in the car with my daughter. Party in USA is played about every 5th song.
- SmaksAttacks, on 10/28/2009, -2/+11no, retard. those sites use songs already dubbed hits. they can't choose future hits.
- ZincSaucier, on 10/28/2009, -1/+9dont be ashamed man. i went to that movie with some girls when i was young and i ended up liking it too
- shutaro, on 10/28/2009, -2/+9Does the Pope wear a funny hat?
- jordantneff, on 10/28/2009, -2/+8I might be in the minority here but I never liked the idea of a "hit" song or a "single". To me the entire album is a piece or art in itself, only with different parts of it that might be better than others, but I still tend to look at it (or listen, rather) as a whole.
- marrkus, on 10/28/2009, -3/+9yvan eht nioj
- Collecto, on 10/28/2009, -0/+5As cool as it may sound to some of you diggers out there, they will simply rob you of your creativity, don't upload any of the music that you have created. You have no idea who has access to whatever you upload, and "the deal" that you agree to can be discarded at anytime, which means you wont get any money for the music you have made. Be very cautious.
- Cyberdropping, on 10/28/2009, -1/+5"Can a Hit Song Algorithm Really Pick Hits?" Hell, do you even NEED one?!?!?
Is Brittany Spears a star? This is all *unfortunately* that is available for kids to listen to now days. Some manufactured garbage that is basically a clone of a prior "hit". Musical pablum. Non-risky marketed milksop.
What happened to the days when people got together a band on their own, played the clubs, wrote music themselves etc. In other words paid their dues and made it big due to their progression as musicians.
this is what is wrong with music now ...it's a damn commodity like beans or corn. - amawg9, on 10/28/2009, -0/+4The Simpsons did it.
- xyllar, on 10/28/2009, -0/+4So basically, it only works if the song is similar to other hit songs. Wouldn't that mean it would never work if the song is actually original? Doesn't sound like a good idea unless we want all hit songs to sound like generic pop music.
- jeffwmartin, on 10/28/2009, -0/+3I thought I was the last person in the world who listened to albums. I occasionally buy single songs, but 90% of my purchases are full albums.
- Shitokki, on 10/28/2009, -0/+3ok, I just did a couple popular songs from the 80's to see how they'd score. I did MJ's 1984 hit Thriller and Cameo's 1986 hit Word Up. What do you think the results would be?
http://bit.ly/3dL3Mq or
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2610/4052951940_cb5 ... - tacojohn48, on 10/28/2009, -0/+3I am torn here. Self promotion usually should be burried, but it seems relevant. Would be nice if we had a sample of the song without upgrading to premium.
- Mujokan, on 10/28/2009, -0/+3There have been articles on this exact algorithm tech since at least 2003, and it doesn't seem to have made much impact yet. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/magazine/14HIT.h ...
- dlm85, on 10/28/2009, -0/+2Look at what Korn did with Word Up. Word Up is a great song.
- AlaskaLoneWolf, on 10/27/2009, -3/+5The short answer is yes. I give you last.fm, pandora, blip.fm... it's all about the social side of the networking.
- JoeDiggsIt, on 10/28/2009, -1/+3This is pretty neat, I uploaded one of my songs and it got a platinum... although I'm sure it wouldn't be a radio hit... http://uplaya.com/songs/33089 I'm fairly certain they base a lot of the analysis on tempo and the drum beat in the songs.
- McNerd, on 10/29/2009, -0/+2Well, I might agree, depending what you mean. Of course if they've literally given NO thought to how the songs in an album go together, and the result is jarring changes of tone and style, then the album might be unlistenable *****. But there's a big gray area between that and, for instance, a concept album whose songs lose most of their meaning taken separately. (For the record, I love a good concept album, and I wish they were more common).
Would you insult a writer who writes short stories rather than novels? Or would you insult him only if he publishes them separately, instead of making a collection where each story is designed to complement the others? This would be absurd. It's only because singles are so commonly associated with ***** pop music that you can even contemplate insulting musicians in the same way without feeling like an idiot.
In every medium there are some ideas which work better in a longer format and some which work better in a shorter one (or larger/smaller, in the case of things like paintings). For an outsider to place strong, generalized restrictions on what format artists may choose may be defensible from a business standpoint. When people buy a CD or turn on the radio, they have certain expectations, just as an art exhibit may not accept a painting that takes up its entire wall. But it's not defensible from an art-criticism standpoint. - PixelDJ, on 10/29/2009, -0/+2As a musician, is it just me or do the terms and conditions seem kinda fishy? Stuff like:
"By displaying or publishing (“uploading”) any Content on or through the Service or its Websites, you hereby grant to Company a limited license to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, digitally perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Content (in whole or in part) or prepare derivative works, in any format or medium now known or later developed, and synchronize such Content with photo slideshows or video solely on and through the Service, its Websites or its affiliates."
That part wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for this:
"Unless otherwise explicitly stated, these Terms will survive the expiration or deletion your account for any reason." - Griminald, on 10/28/2009, -1/+3Quick! Someone link to Jon Lajoie's "Radio Friendly Song" on YouTube! I'd do it myself but it's blocked on this computer at work.
- EddiePotato, on 10/28/2009, -0/+2Sneaky!
- Kayger, on 10/28/2009, -0/+2I worked for a music company for quite some time - made instruments, not a label - but I still came across these quite a bit over the past 5 - 10 years. This isn't the first one of these to show up; they've been used in the music industry for quite some time, and do work to some extent.
Any band that is heavily influenced by history will show up as a possible hit. So an artist who sounds like Brittney Spears who sounds like The Spice Girls that sound like Tiffany who sounds like Madonna it will identify it as a hit. Same goes for your Oasis/Beatles and Buble/Rat pack type combinations.
The wheels come off when you have a sound that is dissimilar from what came before it: Beck's Loser and Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit would never show up as possible hits, and for some reason U2 routinely comes up as unmarketable.
For the best take on the music industry, I'll throw it to Frank Zappa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=CA&hl=en&v ... - mizterdo, on 10/29/2009, -0/+2this kills art in music and converts it to a mere circus of popular stuff :(
I usually embrace technology pretty happily but this is just a matrix for music, now give me a red pill or some acid. - evergrim, on 10/29/2009, -0/+2The death of art.
- Maxwell1234, on 10/28/2009, -0/+2http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0Gs4xGw1Eg
- mintedmeadow, on 10/28/2009, -0/+2Nothing good can come from this.
- Xionn, on 10/28/2009, -2/+4Subtle use of autotune can yield great results. Pitch correction, when used to fix a few flat notes, is a great idea if you ask me. I fail to see how autotune is such a bad thing. In fact, I think that it would be a shame for a vocalist NOT to use autotune to some degree. If the tools are there, why not use them?
Then there's the other end of the spectrum where autotune is used to completely alter the sound of the vocals. Sure, it produces sounds that are impossible without using autotune, but if you look at the voice as just another instrument... it actually sounds interesting.
If you don't like the sound of heavily auto-tuned stuff, fine. But I can guarantee you that you enjoy listening to a few songs which employ autotune. It's simply done in a way to preserve the original sound, while eliminating the technical mistakes made by the vocalist. - JoeDiggsIt, on 10/28/2009, -0/+2Well, that's the primary reason I won't really use the site, most amateur musicians (which populate most music service sites) probably won't pay their relatively expensive prices.
But as far as the samples, if you reallllllllllly want to hear the song that got the Platinum, it's here, and again, this is not self promotion, but analysis of how faulty this system could be. http://joekalicki.bandcamp.com/track/i-need-a-heal ... - mavedatthews85, on 10/28/2009, -0/+2Good eye!
- mavedatthews85, on 10/28/2009, -0/+1My initial, knee-jerk reaction was "NO! THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA! ***** THE RIAA! WTF?!"
But, I suppose that, IF IT'S USED IN A TRULY DEMOCRATIC WAY... maybe not so evil?
I think this guy from the article said it best: "I think there's a danger on the creative side in thinking too much about what you're doing and whether it's going to please people," Coulton told Discovery News. "The stuff that always works best for me is the stuff that's honest and true and personal."
I guess the bottomline is this: if you're making music because you wanna make it big, go to uPlaya.com and best of luck to you; but, if you're making music because it's an honest, personal outlet for your creativity, you shouldn't be worried about whether or not it'll be a "hit" - you should be more worried about how it will make people FEEL - so stay away.
I suppose there is some middle ground there, though... like, say, if you're a small-town singer/songwriter who has REAL talent but NO money, and this could be your one shot to finally get outta Podunk and start supporting your family, etc... again, could be pretty cool if it's used properly.
Terrible name, by the way. "uPlaya?" Really? C'mon, scientisty guys... I'm white. I can't say that out loud. - DiggMeUpPlz, on 10/29/2009, -0/+1I am sure a lot of pop music is made by Algorithms + Autotune + Marketing....
- TsuruchiBrian, on 10/28/2009, -1/+2Here is the algorithm for picking hits.
int maxAdvertisingBudget = 0;
int hitSong = -1;
for (int i = 0; i < numSongs; i++) {
if (advertisingBudget[i] > maxAdvertisingBudget) {
maxAdvertisingBudget = advertisingBudget[i];
hitSong = i;
}
}
cout << "The hit song is " << songNames[hitSong] << endl; - EddiePotato, on 10/28/2009, -0/+1There's always a segment of the population that loves nothing more than utter predictability.
- roadtoawe, on 10/29/2009, -0/+1http://www.askdrax.com/2009/10/genetic-algorithms- ...
A post I just made after seeing this Article. It's about Genetic Algorithms, Distributed Computing, Brain-Wave input Devices, and the Future of Music. - tacojohn48, on 10/28/2009, -0/+1I liked all the not so subliminal advertising.
- Coffeedemon, on 10/28/2009, -0/+1Play it enough and people will wear down and tell you its great. More often than not it is just ignorance of alternatives.
- dfawlt, on 10/28/2009, -0/+1Hitlab.com has been doing this for YEARS with Akon, and offers much much more (promotional tools, help with producing content, etc.)
- slappymode, on 10/29/2009, -0/+1The article compares the algorithm's success rate with the success of record company singles, but just because a record company puts out a single doesn't mean that the record company always believes strongly that the single will be a hit. A real comparison could only be made if you had a way to rank the predicted success of songs by the companies that released them and the likelihood of success predicted by the algorithm and compare them to how much of a hit the song actually became.
Depending on what qualifies a song as a hit, I'm not sure 80% is all that impressive.
And I don't see much of a negative effect on artistic music. It's not as if the current record industry embraces art and would suddenly start focusing on packaged pop hits because a successful algorithm was discovered. - Spackattack, on 10/29/2009, -0/+1If the album isn't intended to be heard as a whole, it's *****. Pure and simple. Saying that pop music these days are just a compilation of singles is not a good thing, in fact it's far from. Music listeners don't have a long enough attention span to listen to something longer than 3 minutes?
I think you're overestimating the radio. I haven't listened to it willingly in 6 years but I'm listening to new music and buying new albums by the day. There are plenty of people who do the same thing as me. - TheGreenBuddha, on 10/29/2009, -0/+1Thumbs up to McNerd.
- pspLite, on 10/29/2009, -0/+1Why would you care about how these songs were bundled at the point of sale?
- evergrim, on 10/29/2009, -0/+1Dugg for Zappa.
- mavedatthews85, on 10/28/2009, -0/+1I lol'd.
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