New Music Software Predicts The Hits

NPR’s Morning Edition takes a look at Hit Song Science, a new software program that purports to predict whether a pop song will be a hit or not–and seems to do a fairly good job of it. A study by the Harvard Business School found that the algorithms worked 8 out of 10 times. A sample quote from the Morning Edition broadcast:

Many of us like to believe that there’s a little magic behind the making of a hit single. Take a song like “I Gotta Feeling” by The Black Eyed Peas. That’s a good song, judging by sales: It’s on top of the Billboard pop chart. David Meredith, CEO of Music Intelligence Solutions, says there’s no magic in that; it’s math. His software, called Hit Song Science, gave the song a hit score of 8.9 out 10.

The transcript of the piece is here; the page also contains a link to the audio of the piece itself.

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