Hit song science: a comprehensive survey and research directions

Abstract

Hit Song Science (HSS) is an emerging topic that aims to unveil the success dynamics within the music industry. Considering the growth of the area, we provide a comprehensive study with a complete review of the main topics of this interdisciplinary field from a computer science perspective. We also define a generic workflow for HSS, introduce taxonomies for success measures and musical features, and categorize the main current learning algorithms. Overall, this survey may serve as a starting point for future research on HSS, as it emerges as a promising field that benefits both the academy and the music industry.

Keywords:

• Hit song science
• music information retrieval
• hit song prediction
• music computing
• music-related features

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 2021 Year-End Music Industry Revenue Report (RIAA): http://www.riaa.com/reports

2 IFPI Global Music Report 2022: http://gmr.ifpi.org/

3 MRC Year-end Report: https://mrcdatareports.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/MRC_YEAREND_2021_US_FNL.pdf

4 This paradox highlights the mutual influence between a radio station and the public, where not only does the station shape public opinion, but the public also has the power to impact what gets broadcasted.

5 DBLP Digital Library: http://dblp.uni-trier.de/

6 Polyphonic HMI, (January, 2020), http://bit.ly/polyphonic-hmi

7 Billboard Charts: http://www.billboard.com/charts

8 Official Charts Company: http://www.officialcharts.com/charts

9 Spotify Developer API: http://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api

10 Million Song Dataset: http://millionsongdataset.com/

11 AcousticBrainz: http://acousticbrainz.org/

12 Last.fm API: http://www.last.fm/api/

13 Spinn3r: http://docs.spinn3r.com/

14 Billboard Hot 100: http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100

15 Billboard 200: http://www.billboard.com/charts/billboard-200

16 Classify songs into non-hits and hits.

17 New Musical Express magazine: http://www.nme.com/

18 Official Singles Chart: http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart

19 International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI): http://www.ifpi.org

20 The Amazon Best Sellers Rank: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers/zgbs

21 Nielsen SoundScan: http://www.nielsen.com

22 Spotify Company Info: http://newsroom.spotify.com/company-info/

23 KKBOX: http://www.kkbox.com

24 Alibaba Group: http://www.alibabagroup.com

25 Last.fm: http://www.last.fm

26 YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/

27 Spotify API Reference: http://developer.spotify.com/

28 The rank_score is the inverted rating on a success chart.

29 IFPI Global Music Report: http://gmr.ifpi.org/

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior.