The prediction that the Norah Jones album "Come Away With Me" would have eight tracks hit the charts is the poster child for the software company Polyphonic HMI. It was touted in articles in the New York Times magazine, the London Times and on their own website. And why not? Their artificial intelligence application called Hit Song Science (HSS) uses algorithms to compare a song to a database of hits from the recent past. These comparisons predict the hit potential for the song in today's music environment. The Norah Jones album was fed into the computer by the HSS scientists and found it to be loaded with winners.

The ideology behind the technology is based on three questions, which HSS says should all be answered "yes":
1. Does the song sound like a hit?
2. Does the song have encouraging mathematical patterns?
3. Does the songs have the right kind of promotion for the current market?
HSS takes care of the math question; their research shows that if there are not encouraging mathematical patterns in a song, it will not see commercial success. And, of course, music labels are sitting up and taking notice with a serious eye.

Approximately 3.5 million songs have been analyzed in their database, covering all music label releases since the 1950's. This database is updated weekly with new releases. In a process called Spectral Deconvolution, a program listens to any CD and isolates patterns in many musical events, some of which are melody, harmony, tempo, pitch, octave, beat, rhythm, fullness of sound, noise, brilliance, and chord progression. Each song is then mapped onto a grid according to its mathematical characteristics. A song at one position in this grid greatly differs from songs at the other end of this grid and songs with mathematical similarities are positioned very close to one another. When songs that were not hits are removed from the grid, definite clusters of songs appeared: hit songs have common mathematical characteristics. Upon analysis of a new song, if it falls within one of the hit song clusters on the grid, it is of mathematical significance.

"Even if the songs we say are mathematically similar to your song do not sound anything like your song you must understand that many mathematical patterns are not obviously apparent. In some cases you'll just have to take our word for it. Our application is based on solid science and is never wrong in this sense.", their web site boldly states. However, since lyrics are not part of the analysis, there can be deviation points on the grid - songs which have been hits because of their lyrics. Although this is not the science for hip-hop, they point out that strong lyrics with music that ranks mathematically high will have an easier time in the marketplace.

HSS takes a very mercenary stance in the war between the RIAA and artists; it will accept money from anyone. There are two versions of Hit Song Science services: HSS Pro and HSS Basic. Pro is available only for major labels. It includes more in-depth information which includes timing for marketing and financial break-even points. Basic is available to anyone over the internet and priced on a sliding scale of how many songs are submitted, from 1 song at $50 to 12 songs for $420, an ouch for the casual garage band. A sample report is viewable at their website as well as a description of the technology and FAQs, which provided much of this information in this article.


sources:
New York Times Magazine, "Year In Ideas"., Dec 14,2003
www.hitsongscience.com