The Times: Tech column - Hit Song Science/A Flight Risk/Virus flame wars
By David Rowan
TO UNDERSTAND how bad things are for the record labels, listen closely the next time a phone goes off at the cinema. Those eight-second homages to Beyonce or Springsteen -otherwise known as custom ringtones -now account for 10 per cent of the global music market. Sales of these synthesised bursts of sound have even overtaken CD singles.
It cannot say much for music buyers' expectations if they are prepared to spend $3.5 billion (£1.9 billion) a year on ringtones rather than on the original recordings.
Still, studio bosses are taking no chances, and are using computer software to help choose which songs to release next. Hit Song Science (HSS) is an artificial-intelligence program that examines a song's mathematical patterns its chord progression, rhythm and melody - to determine whether it is likely to sell.
The program compares the song with its database of 3.5 million recordings, and rates its closeness to hit songs of similar types on a score from 0 to 10. The major record labels seem convinced that HSS can help to predict hits, and are using it to rate album tracks for potential singles and even to "polish" those singles in the studio.
Polyphonic HMI, the Barcelona-based company that owns HSS, cites Anastacia's current hit single, Left Outside Alone, as an example of its effectiveness. The track, it says, was calibrated in post-production "for optimal mathematical patterns" -so the version you hear on the radio has been restructured to emulate previous hits.
It is not, perhaps, how Lennon and McCartney worked, and sceptical songwriters have berated Polyphonic HMI for ignoring the creative human touch. But the company responds that almost all art forms, from novels to sitcoms, conform to patterns that computers can identify. There may be another benefit, too. If Hit Song Science could persuade Simon Fuller to retire Pop Idol, we might all have reason to be grateful.
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IF YOU'RE bored with speculating who is behind the Belle de Jour weblog -and even its hilarious confessional progeny, IAmBelledeJour.com (with claimants ranging from "Ann Widdecombe" to "Julie Burchill") -then here's another mystery. A year ago a weblog entitled A Flight Risk was launched at shes.aflightrisk.org. "On March 2, 2003 at 4.12 pm, I disappeared," the diary began. "My name is Isabella V., but it's not. I'm twentysomething and I am an international fugitive." For obvious reasons, Isabella says, she cannot be too specific, but having been "born into privilege and to a family with considerable power and influence in the world", she had fled with large amounts of money to avoid "sinister forces" at home.
Her apparently ruthless family is in hot pursuit, but with her own armed guards, and endless international flights, she remains a step ahead. Is she for real? Her website message board seems divided.
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MEMO TO virus writers: switch on the spellchecker. A lively "flame war" is ensuing between the authors of the Bagle, Mydoom and NetSky viruses, whose software code contains crude insults directed at each other. "Bagle -you are a looser!!!!," shouts NetSky. "Hey, NetSky, f*** off you bitch, don't ruine our bussiness," responds Bagle. MyDoom's author, meanwhile, denounces both rivals in terms unrepeatable in Times 2. All very adolescent - but couldn't they simply text each other?
(The Times, March 23 2004)
TO UNDERSTAND how bad things are for the record labels, listen closely the next time a phone goes off at the cinema. Those eight-second homages to Beyonce or Springsteen -otherwise known as custom ringtones -now account for 10 per cent of the global music market. Sales of these synthesised bursts of sound have even overtaken CD singles.
It cannot say much for music buyers' expectations if they are prepared to spend $3.5 billion (£1.9 billion) a year on ringtones rather than on the original recordings.
Still, studio bosses are taking no chances, and are using computer software to help choose which songs to release next. Hit Song Science (HSS) is an artificial-intelligence program that examines a song's mathematical patterns its chord progression, rhythm and melody - to determine whether it is likely to sell.
The program compares the song with its database of 3.5 million recordings, and rates its closeness to hit songs of similar types on a score from 0 to 10. The major record labels seem convinced that HSS can help to predict hits, and are using it to rate album tracks for potential singles and even to "polish" those singles in the studio.
Polyphonic HMI, the Barcelona-based company that owns HSS, cites Anastacia's current hit single, Left Outside Alone, as an example of its effectiveness. The track, it says, was calibrated in post-production "for optimal mathematical patterns" -so the version you hear on the radio has been restructured to emulate previous hits.
It is not, perhaps, how Lennon and McCartney worked, and sceptical songwriters have berated Polyphonic HMI for ignoring the creative human touch. But the company responds that almost all art forms, from novels to sitcoms, conform to patterns that computers can identify. There may be another benefit, too. If Hit Song Science could persuade Simon Fuller to retire Pop Idol, we might all have reason to be grateful.
+++
IF YOU'RE bored with speculating who is behind the Belle de Jour weblog -and even its hilarious confessional progeny, IAmBelledeJour.com (with claimants ranging from "Ann Widdecombe" to "Julie Burchill") -then here's another mystery. A year ago a weblog entitled A Flight Risk was launched at shes.aflightrisk.org. "On March 2, 2003 at 4.12 pm, I disappeared," the diary began. "My name is Isabella V., but it's not. I'm twentysomething and I am an international fugitive." For obvious reasons, Isabella says, she cannot be too specific, but having been "born into privilege and to a family with considerable power and influence in the world", she had fled with large amounts of money to avoid "sinister forces" at home.
Her apparently ruthless family is in hot pursuit, but with her own armed guards, and endless international flights, she remains a step ahead. Is she for real? Her website message board seems divided.
+++
MEMO TO virus writers: switch on the spellchecker. A lively "flame war" is ensuing between the authors of the Bagle, Mydoom and NetSky viruses, whose software code contains crude insults directed at each other. "Bagle -you are a looser!!!!," shouts NetSky. "Hey, NetSky, f*** off you bitch, don't ruine our bussiness," responds Bagle. MyDoom's author, meanwhile, denounces both rivals in terms unrepeatable in Times 2. All very adolescent - but couldn't they simply text each other?
(The Times, March 23 2004)
posted by David Rowan at Tuesday, March 23, 2004
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