Polyphonic HMI has developed Hit Song Science, an artificial intelligence application that helps music labels determine the hit potential of music prior to its release. The new application is to music what x-rays are to medicine, allowing labels to see mathematical patterns and structures in music that until now have been hidden. ... Polyphonic also has begun to experiment with the technology at the production level of music creation. From Jeremy: There are two possible futures here, and neither is particularly bright for traditional artists and their fans. 1) However impossible it may have seemed before, "pop" music takes a still further dive into homogeneity. Frustated by the turn of events, smart mobs of teens with angst deliberately seek out the rejects, and the new genre of "unpop" is born. It all begins with dumpster diving for discarded hard drives in the alleys behind recording studios. 2) This software is truly as amazing as the hype suggests. In the future, your embedded biocomputer will let you "sample" new music, instantaneously filling you with the emotional impact of an hour's worth of listening to the album. If you like the feeling, you'll buy the album. Shortly thereafter, people will cut the audio out of the loop entirely; instead, already overstimulated teens will flock to Tower Records to pick up the new "essence of post-Britney." Think of it as a kind of digitally encoded musical perfume. Recording studios rapidly evolve into urban laboratories for neurochemistry and bioinformatics. Eye candy and gangstas are replaced as pop stars by thirty-something MD-PhDs who seem more interested in patenting their instruments than copyrighting their music. --- /me wonders if he is still under a NDA to talk about some of the things that were going on at a previous job.. All Your Singles Are Hits To Us | 
