The use of science to predict a hit song attracts huge media coverage

19 December 2011

New research using artificial intelligence to predict the popularity of a song has hit the headlines both in the UK and abroad, being covered extensively by national newspapers and radio stations as well as by the specialist music press.

The work, led by Dr Tijl de Bie, from the University of Bristol’s Intelligent Systems Laboratory in the Faculty of Engineering, used state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms to analyse the official UK top 40 singles chart over the past 50 years.

It was covered by the BBC, The Sun, The Independent, the Daily Mail, The Guardian, the Press Association, the Scotsman, NME, Toronto Sun, The Examiner in America, Australian News, Discovery News, Financial Times Deutschland, Sudwest Presse, International Business Times, Science Daily, News Track India, Science a GoGo, Dutch news website NU.nl, German news service Tagesschau, Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica, Finnish science magazine Tiede, the Physorg website, the Machines Like Us website and Wired website.

Dr de Bie was also interviewed for BBC Radio 5, BBC Radio Bristol, Radio Monocle 24, Belgian Radio 1, and the research was covered on Italian Radio 2 and Liz Kershaw's show on BBC Radio 6 Music.

Full press release: Can science predict a hit song?

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