Can A.I. predict our musical taste?

in #music7 years ago

UniLife caught up with the Notorious RIG, who was until recently the A&R manager at one of the bigger labels. You’ve definitely heard of them, and if you’re a blazer-and-jeans wearing cheese monger, you’ve probably ‘put your hands in the air’ at BCN in Mega-luf to one of the tunes he’s signed. We wanted to ask him some questions about the use of computers in modern day music, but he didn’t want to burn any bridges, so we’ve given him a clue-laden pseudonym.

Noisey: To what extent are hit-predicting algorithms used in the music industry?
The Notorious RIG: Algorithms are good for armchair A&R but there’s no substitute for human perspective. Or taste. In the commercial chart domain however, where neither of these things exist, it seems robots are fair game when it comes to predicting the penchant of the people.

My own experience of using such methods is more as an evaluation tool for records that have already been made; a shit-test, so to speak. I’ve never personally seen any such witchcraft in action in the recording process; however, the mind of a producer is perfectly capable of running its own algorithms to fathom the workings of its audience’s aural tastebuds. Even more so if they also play out as a DJ, such as David Guetta, and get to gauge first-hand the impact of their music on their customers, I mean, fans.

How much of chart success is down to the actual music compared to things like marketing?
The music is very important, as it often is the marketing. People hear previews on radio, clubs, YouTube and soundtracking commercials advertising their favourite jeans, and the music is designed to stay in their heads. Marketing is merely the Trojan horse, in my opinion it’s about 25% marketing and 75% music. But in pop music, the actual music itself also contains about 75% marketing content. Does that make sense?

Totes. According to Score A Hit, chart music has become a lot more predictable in the past 10 years than it was in the 70s and 80s. Why?
Pop music is becoming more predictable because it has carved itself out as an actual genre rather than a statistic group. Popular music, to use its unabbreviated form, has certain structures, hooks, melodic progressions and vocal content that are easy to digest by the masses. This is something that the major labels have perfected into a science over the last thirty years. The sneaky bastards know that “brick wall mastering” a track will make it sound louder on radio, repeating certain phrases in a certain syncopated phrasing will trigger the brain’s reward centres. they also know that the “danceability” of a record is now an important factor due to heavy club promotion, so they have ways of making sure their tracks make you want to cut up a rug or bust a robot.

A more realistic take on the dichotomy between the 70s/80s and 90s/00s is that TV and Radio programs directly influence the charts by their choice of which artists to feature on their shows. This choice back in the 70s and 80s was often influenced by practices such as “payola”, basically large of amounts of top shelf rack (see cocaine) in exchange for airtime. This apparently doesn’t happen anymore as DJs can now afford to support their habit.
Ha! So do you see this continuing or has something eventually got to give?
The internet has done some damage to the major label framework. They are no longer the gatekeepers. The people are empowered by their own free will and are rejecting their media-fed pseudo-reality and replacing it with their own iPod playlists. This will result in many charts instead of a few central charts and they will spawn and multiply and become diverse and interesting.

A new dawn will arise and sub-genre after sub-genre shall resound from the earphones of the people. Music needs a messiah. A Julian Assange, Charlie Sheen or John Connor, sent back from the future to set the record(s) straight. The world of entertainment awaits the Anti-Bieber.

Inspirational. So, to what extent can the music industry tell people what to like?
To the same extent that other industries can tell you what to eat, wear, drink and so on. At the end of the day, the music industry is a vehicle for a product. That product, like any other will be manufactured, packaged, marketed and sold.

However, even if Simon Cowell were to subliminally force his way into your home and market a psychologically tuned algorithmic hotdog straight into your mouth, it’s always your choice whether to swallow it. I’m certain I wouldn’t. It’s nothing against Simon Cowell, mental intrusion or even algorithms. I just don’t like hotdogs.
Right, keep your hot dog out of my ear, pal.