I saw a link on faisal.com to an article in the UK Gaurdian describing Polyphonic HMI's Hit Song Science (HSS). This software uses 30 years of Billboard Hits and analyzes new songs to determine their likelihood of being a hit. This is pretty revolutionary. I must say that it worries me that record companies are starting to gravitate to this sort of analysis to decide which acts to sign. I don't think Zappa ever would have gotten a record deal with this sort of system. Do you?
I think the heart of the problem is that most people who buy music actually hate music. What they like are pretty sounds. But music is much more than pretty sounds. Yet, I have rarely heard of "ugly" sounding songs becoming top 40 hits (excepting when the ugly sounds resolve to something pretty or at least consonant. Ex: Nirvana). Am I wrong here? I don't necessarily think that pop music is going to get any worse because of this system, but I don't think it's going to get any better either.
When I listen to the music that the kids I teach seem to be listening to, it all sounds the same to me. Now, I do not dislike hip-hop or r&b. In fact, I like them both quite a lot. However, I don't like most of the hip-hop or r&b they listen to. Their music seems simplistic and calculated whereas the music I listen to (and have for the most part always been drawn to) seems more meaningful, more risky and more complex. If I hadn't been exposed to some of that music through radio and MTV I probably never would have developed broader musical tastes. I fear this hit-picking software is going to filter out every bit of eccentricity in the music world. (Much like focus groups have stripped much of the art out of the cinema).
But then again, I guess true music lovers will seek out interesting and new music from other sources than the record industry. In theory the internet should allow the music makers (and other artists) of the world to self-publish their work cheaply. But the entertainment industry is trying very hard to squash the free trade of self-published work on the internet. But that's probably best left for another blog entry.
Posted by alycia at January 18, 2005 11:10 PM