Cargando…

Musical trends and predictability of success in contemporary songs in and out of the top charts

We analyse more than 500 000 songs released in the UK between 1985 and 2015 to understand the dynamics of success (defined as ‘making it’ into the top charts), correlate success with acoustic features and explore the predictability of success. Several multi-decadal trends have been uncovered. For ex...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Interiano, Myra, Kazemi, Kamyar, Wang, Lijia, Yang, Jienian, Yu, Zhaoxia, Komarova, Natalia L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society Publishing 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5990848/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29892348
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171274
_version_ 1783329671725711360
author Interiano, Myra
Kazemi, Kamyar
Wang, Lijia
Yang, Jienian
Yu, Zhaoxia
Komarova, Natalia L.
author_facet Interiano, Myra
Kazemi, Kamyar
Wang, Lijia
Yang, Jienian
Yu, Zhaoxia
Komarova, Natalia L.
author_sort Interiano, Myra
collection PubMed
description We analyse more than 500 000 songs released in the UK between 1985 and 2015 to understand the dynamics of success (defined as ‘making it’ into the top charts), correlate success with acoustic features and explore the predictability of success. Several multi-decadal trends have been uncovered. For example, there is a clear downward trend in ‘happiness’ and ‘brightness’, as well as a slight upward trend in ‘sadness’. Furthermore, songs are becoming less ‘male’. Interestingly, successful songs exhibit their own distinct dynamics. In particular, they tend to be ‘happier’, more ‘party-like’, less ‘relaxed’ and more ‘female’ than most. The difference between successful and average songs is not straightforward. In the context of some features, successful songs pre-empt the dynamics of all songs, and in others they tend to reflect the past. We used random forests to predict the success of songs, first based on their acoustic features, and then adding the ‘superstar’ variable (informing us whether the song’s artist had appeared in the top charts in the near past). This allowed quantification of the contribution of purely musical characteristics in the songs’ success, and suggested the time scale of fashion dynamics in popular music.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5990848
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2018
publisher The Royal Society Publishing
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-59908482018-06-11 Musical trends and predictability of success in contemporary songs in and out of the top charts Interiano, Myra Kazemi, Kamyar Wang, Lijia Yang, Jienian Yu, Zhaoxia Komarova, Natalia L. R Soc Open Sci Computer Science We analyse more than 500 000 songs released in the UK between 1985 and 2015 to understand the dynamics of success (defined as ‘making it’ into the top charts), correlate success with acoustic features and explore the predictability of success. Several multi-decadal trends have been uncovered. For example, there is a clear downward trend in ‘happiness’ and ‘brightness’, as well as a slight upward trend in ‘sadness’. Furthermore, songs are becoming less ‘male’. Interestingly, successful songs exhibit their own distinct dynamics. In particular, they tend to be ‘happier’, more ‘party-like’, less ‘relaxed’ and more ‘female’ than most. The difference between successful and average songs is not straightforward. In the context of some features, successful songs pre-empt the dynamics of all songs, and in others they tend to reflect the past. We used random forests to predict the success of songs, first based on their acoustic features, and then adding the ‘superstar’ variable (informing us whether the song’s artist had appeared in the top charts in the near past). This allowed quantification of the contribution of purely musical characteristics in the songs’ success, and suggested the time scale of fashion dynamics in popular music. The Royal Society Publishing 2018-05-16 /pmc/articles/PMC5990848/ /pubmed/29892348 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171274 Text en © 2018 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Computer Science
Interiano, Myra
Kazemi, Kamyar
Wang, Lijia
Yang, Jienian
Yu, Zhaoxia
Komarova, Natalia L.
Musical trends and predictability of success in contemporary songs in and out of the top charts
title Musical trends and predictability of success in contemporary songs in and out of the top charts
title_full Musical trends and predictability of success in contemporary songs in and out of the top charts
title_fullStr Musical trends and predictability of success in contemporary songs in and out of the top charts
title_full_unstemmed Musical trends and predictability of success in contemporary songs in and out of the top charts
title_short Musical trends and predictability of success in contemporary songs in and out of the top charts
title_sort musical trends and predictability of success in contemporary songs in and out of the top charts
topic Computer Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5990848/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29892348
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171274
work_keys_str_mv AT interianomyra musicaltrendsandpredictabilityofsuccessincontemporarysongsinandoutofthetopcharts
AT kazemikamyar musicaltrendsandpredictabilityofsuccessincontemporarysongsinandoutofthetopcharts
AT wanglijia musicaltrendsandpredictabilityofsuccessincontemporarysongsinandoutofthetopcharts
AT yangjienian musicaltrendsandpredictabilityofsuccessincontemporarysongsinandoutofthetopcharts
AT yuzhaoxia musicaltrendsandpredictabilityofsuccessincontemporarysongsinandoutofthetopcharts
AT komarovanatalial musicaltrendsandpredictabilityofsuccessincontemporarysongsinandoutofthetopcharts