Watching Tech TV and The ScreenSavers, as we're all aware I often do, I came across a horrifying storyline. Apparently, Polyphonic HMI (Human Media Interface), out of Spain has developed a music analysis system, called HSS (Hit Song Science), which essentially predicts what songs will become hits. This technology, designed to help retailers sell more music and gather marketing information, is touted as a useful "tool for the record industry", according to Polyphonic HMI, who describes HSS as a tool which "analyzes the underlying mathematical patters in recent hit songs. The new technology can isolate individual patterns in key aspects of the music that humans detect and that help determine whether or not they are going to like a given song".

Polyphonic, who expects most labels to be using the service by year's end, began working with both major and indie record labels (in the US and the UK) in late 2002 and is currently operating with Sony, RCA, BMG's J, EMI's Innocent, Universal UK and Liquid 8. In addition, they're teaming up with various veteran producers (such as Peter Swartling of BMG Sweden) and musicians which they feel will add to creativity and hopefully avoid squelching new sounds and styles from emerging on to the music scene.

Haven't the record labels and their cookie-cutter techniques already done enough damage? They throw tons of money at artists (Hell, what they spend on the wardrobes alone is staggering), marketing them to the hilt. Once an artist "makes it" they sign ten more just like them, ensuring a complete lack of originality in the industry. So, can we now expect that "hit songs" soon to be forced down our throats will have undergone "precise analysis", pre-destining whether they will be chart-toppers? Meanwhile, though they suggest that the system is capable of determining genre specific hits, what about cross cultures? Can we expect the sprongy sounds of sitars to permeate American music because the computer says that it's a big hit over in India? I think Sting tried this, and it was interesting on an experimental and eccentric level but certainly not a musical trend we need to develop throughout. (Picture the next pop icon incorporating the xylophone because the instrument was a big hit with Miss Mary's 4th grade choral ensemble and the 5 to 12 age demographic).

Finally, they have in place a team of experts, to determine what new sounds and styles will appeal to the masses ("youngsters" who just so happen to have the most disposable income, yet are the biggest culprits of file sharing). Meanwhile, the rest of us, who already abhor what the "experts" have embraced and churn out of the MTV/radio machine, suffer the consequences. So, forgive me as I state an obvious fear of death to artistic growth and originality as I shudder to think that the next Beatles, Bob Marley or Sex Pistols will be tossed under the bus because they didn't compute!