3 ms·

Indeed, they even discuss in the article that hits are only about 4% of songs. Still, with 97% accuracy you theoretically turn 960 flops+40 hits into 29 flops+3

• CPLX 3y ago
  Not really. The real task for those who actually do this is being able to sell songs that basically seem like they might be hits from ones that actually are. The reason is that it costs money and time and effort to try to get attention for the songs to actually make them hit songs. Most songs are just obviously not going to be hit songs they aren’t even in the same ballpark. The classic mistake for a budding indie record label owner or producer is to audition 31 people and then say wow this person is better than all of them so that’s the one that will be a success. Except none of them are ever going anywhere. Conversely, the problem for a budding major label or high profile executive is to audition 31 people all of whom are actually quite good but only one or two are going to be hits. They’re all great that’s how they got in the door, but which one is the star? These are hard problems. Harder than people realize. So anyways for a machine system have to use songs that obviously have no real strong appeal to anyone at all as the starting point for analysis. Otherwise it’s just useless.
• Applejinx 3y ago
  That is wildly, wildly out of line. They're out of their minds if they think 4% of songs actively attempting to be hit songs, get there. Even if we rule out obvious failures (and this class of song produces surprise hits, in part through novelty!) the number of songs trying to do this and failing is WAY higher than 97%. I'm not sure people quite understand how many songs are attempted…