Will hit science work?

Happy new year!

My friend Rossella in Rome got an email from a company that runs computer analisys on sound files and assesses its potential to be a hit. They have a database of Billboard chart hits and track about 30 different variables on frequencies, melodic patterns, chord sequence etc.

Hi Ms FALCONE, I’m Roger, from Polyphonic HMI, company dedicated to the creation and development of new technology within the musical industry. Now we have designed and developed a software that can predict if a song is going to be a hit! We are sure that this tool will be of enormous help to the record labels and producers

80% RELIABILITY GUARANTEED!!!

If you think you can be interested in our Hit Song Science “technology”, we would be willing and happy to arrange a meeting at Midem. I attach some detailed information about us and I also invite you to visit our web page www.polyphonichmi.com

I am very skeptical, obviously. There are a lot of problems involved. Even the database is skewed towards American taste and the past (also, prior to the intorduction of Soundscan I think the charts were very unreliable). But I am also curious. So I will do two things: I will ask Peter Walsh, our producer, what he thinks about it. And I will ask my friend Raffaele, who is a talented statistician teaching at Padova University, how he reckons the number crunching works.

If you are curious, too:

www.hitsongscience.com

But let it be clear that I am NOT endorsing this. I don't know enough about it.

A lot of talking, and the inevitable camera

We are discovering that making an album involves A LOT of talking. You end up spending a lot more time in discussion than playing or singing! We are also discovering that there is also someone around with a camera or camera-equipped cellphone (in this case it is my friend Alex).

Getting ready for recording

I am in my Milan home, trying to come to terms with the fact that in 10 days we are going to start recording our new album. I have downloaded the demos of the selected songs on to my iPod, so that I can play them wherever I am (at the gym, mostly). I know I have to work hard, especially on guitar songs (I am much less at ease on guitar than on accordion).

Lisa called me today in panic from her home in the Apennines: our website says our Mexico City gig is on January 5th. It should be May 1st: the server admin have changed the date format - again - to the Italian format of day/month. I have to change this.

Lady J also called me, she's doing a radio interview in Florence. Medhin is somewhere out there in Milan, trying to lend a hand to this bunch of African refugees (from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan). They had been squatting in a condo in the city center, until the local police kicked them out a couple of days ago. Now it seems they have found some sort of lodging. We are four pretty unlikely people to be in a band together... which is good, I think.