Hit Song Science
Hit Song Science is a program that uses pattern matching and clustering technology to determine if a song has what it takes to be a hit song. For fifty dollars an artist can run their song through HSS which will compare the musical characteristics (such as melody, harmony, chord progression, beat and tempo) of the song against 30 years worth of Billboard hit singles and returns a score that represents how likely it is that the song will become a hit. According to the guardian article: Together in electric dreams, HSS predicted Norah Jones' success well before her debut album became a hit. An interesting idea to be sure... but I am extremely skeptical.
Update: Looks like this is a Slashdot story now too.
Posted by Mike on January 22, 2005 at 06:55 PM EST #