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Million Song Dataset

millionsongdataset.com

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Re: Million Song Dataset

#21

Post by fermenflo »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #16
malvosenior wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Worse" might be subjective but if they analyzed the data and found decreasing complexity of harmony and song structure, then that's not what I would call "unscientific". For the past 30 years music has definitely become more "bland" (for lack of a better word). The data backs this up. Whether you like that or not is subjective.

This is such nonsense it's just incredible that people with such seemingly strong conversational strengths in music could say something so perversely false. If you are looking at the kind of music that makes it onto Top 40 radio stations, then this is undoubtedly true. But that's not what is meant when you say > For the past 30 years music has definitely become more "bland" When you suggest that, you appear naive and…

I think it's pretty self explanatory that when someone says "music has gotten more bland over the years", that they're referencing pop music.

Obviously people understand that there are bands/individuals on the peripherals of society's musical radar that are continuing to make "un-bland" music.

Anyway, please continue to pretentiously post some of those individuals and shame others for being "ignorant" of them. I mean don't get me wrong -I'm about as snobby as they come when we're talking about music. But how can you say seriously something like "It means you're ignorant because you don't know about X, Y, Z..." without understanding how much of a pretentious ass you sound like?

Re: Million Song Dataset

#22

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

fermenflo wrote: post #21
AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such nonsense it's just incredible that people with such seemingly strong conversational strengths in music could say something so perversely false. If you are looking at the kind of music that makes it onto Top 40 radio stations, then this is undoubtedly true. But that's not what is meant when you say > For the past 30 years music has definitely become more "bland" When you suggest that, you appear naive and…

I think it's pretty self explanatory that when someone says "music has gotten more bland over the years", that they're referencing pop music. Obviously people understand that there are bands/individuals on the peripherals of society's musical radar that are continuing to make "un-bland" music. Anyway, please continue to pretentiously post some of those individuals and shame others for being "ignorant" of them. I mean…

If you were as "snobby as they come" when it comes to music, then you would know the reason I cited the specific examples I did. The first two were particular contributors to the expansion of our notions of harmony, and the latter two were particular contributors to the expansion of our notions of composition.

When you are in the study of music, these are the names of the people you reference when you discuss things like this. These are not opinions, but facts.

Perhaps you should have a better understanding of what harmony and composition are, before taking someone who does to task.

Re: Million Song Dataset

#23

Post by basq »

malvosenior wrote: post #14
AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think the poster is bothered by how absurd and unscientific such a pursuit is. It proposes that perhaps the people who made this dataset don't actually know anything about music, and are just nerds. This behavior is a common form of malpractice in composing data sets such as these.

"Worse" might be subjective but if they analyzed the data and found decreasing complexity of harmony and song structure, then that's not what I would call "unscientific". For the past 30 years music has definitely become more "bland" (for lack of a better word). The data backs this up. Whether you like that or not is subjective.

If all you listen to is the radio, sure. However in the broader sense of music being created, this is patently false. There are more genres and subgenres of music than ever before, experimentation and synthesis techniques weaving together ever more intricate and sophisticated timbres.

Movies are a better example of a medium getting bland, but there is a material reason for that; production costs vs return on investment leading to less riskier films being made.

Music doesn't suffer from that same problem, in fact 'good' music can be made for nothing except the composer's time.

Re: Million Song Dataset

#24

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #18
AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such nonsense it's just incredible that people with such seemingly strong conversational strengths in music could say something so perversely false. If you are looking at the kind of music that makes it onto Top 40 radio stations, then this is undoubtedly true. But that's not what is meant when you say > For the past 30 years music has definitely become more "bland" When you suggest that, you appear naive and…

Thanks for mentioning Wilco, because I wouldn't just stop at harmonic and compositional innovation. Songwriters and big-tent performers are as good as they ever were as well. I had the pleasure of seeing them Oct 8 here in Toronto and it was fantastic. I'd also mention Willie Nelson/Avett Brothers/Matt Mays and Tame Impala all this summer. I'd dreamed of making it down to Red Rock, CO to see Jason Isbell last month,…

I was pointing out that Wilco is a poor example of what I am talking about.

Re: Million Song Dataset

#25

Post by mellowdream »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #16
malvosenior wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Worse" might be subjective but if they analyzed the data and found decreasing complexity of harmony and song structure, then that's not what I would call "unscientific". For the past 30 years music has definitely become more "bland" (for lack of a better word). The data backs this up. Whether you like that or not is subjective.

This is such nonsense it's just incredible that people with such seemingly strong conversational strengths in music could say something so perversely false. If you are looking at the kind of music that makes it onto Top 40 radio stations, then this is undoubtedly true. But that's not what is meant when you say > For the past 30 years music has definitely become more "bland" When you suggest that, you appear naive and…

I don't even think it's necessary to point out specific examples, though you're welcome to do so. All it really takes is showing the kind of numbers music databases like discogs (for both generalist and specialist consumers alike) are posting - millions of records added PER YEAR [1]. This alone shows "a million contemporary popular music tracks" is not representative of modern music's "state" whatsoever.

[1] https://blog.discogs.com/en/discogs-year-end-report-2018/

Re: Million Song Dataset

#26

Post by 52-6F-62 »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #24
52-6F-62 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for mentioning Wilco, because I wouldn't just stop at harmonic and compositional innovation. Songwriters and big-tent performers are as good as they ever were as well. I had the pleasure of seeing them Oct 8 here in Toronto and it was fantastic. I'd also mention Willie Nelson/Avett Brothers/Matt Mays and Tame Impala all this summer. I'd dreamed of making it down to Red Rock, CO to see Jason Isbell last month,…

I was pointing out that Wilco is a poor example of what I am talking about.

I'm sorry, where did you say that Wilco was a poor example of anything?

It sounds like you didn't read my comment in full.

Re: Million Song Dataset

#27

Post by fermenflo »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #22
fermenflo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's pretty self explanatory that when someone says "music has gotten more bland over the years", that they're referencing pop music. Obviously people understand that there are bands/individuals on the peripherals of society's musical radar that are continuing to make "un-bland" music. Anyway, please continue to pretentiously post some of those individuals and shame others for being "ignorant" of them. I mean…

If you were as "snobby as they come" when it comes to music, then you would know the reason I cited the specific examples I did. The first two were particular contributors to the expansion of our notions of harmony, and the latter two were particular contributors to the expansion of our notions of composition. When you are in the study of music, these are the names of the people you reference when you discuss things…

Oh man you're a walking, talking caricature aren't you haha? When did I ever say I didn't know who some of those people were? And if I didn't... would that invalidate my whole point?

Don't kid yourself- concepts like harmony and composition are subjective. Nothing about "who's progressing what" in any branch of music is objective when the whole system itself isn't.

I like how you attack my understanding of concepts like harmony/composition when you don't even know my background lol. And to get back to my main point, it wasn't that you were wrong for citing those individuals, it's just that you sounded like a jerk.

"sounding"* rather.

Re: Million Song Dataset

#28

Post by robryk »

ATsch wrote: post #5

I think this Dataset is probably unfortunately most famous for an incredibly flawed but very headlineable attempt, which you've almost certainly seen somewhere, by a group of researchers from AI and related fields (none of which had musical qualifications) to "objectively" determine if music has gotten worse over the decades. As usual, they arrived at the conclusion that it did by computing a vague number ("timbral d…

For virtually any kind of art newer artworks will be on average worse than _surviving_ older artworks: the older artworks have undergone a selection process that weeded out the less popular ones.

This is IMO a more fundamental problem with any comparisons across long time intervals.

Re: Million Song Dataset

#29

Post by MiracleUser »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #17
glouwbug wrote: post #10

Does this data set have a collection of chords in text? I'd love something like it.

The dataset is a bunch of SQLite files, so shouldn't be too tricky to interrogate. You can get a subset (static.echonest.com/millionsongsubset_full.tar.gz), which is 1.8Gb compressed. The full dataset is 280Gb, and AFAICT, this does not contain the full audio. There's a script on GitHub from like 8 years ago that apparently can get you the audio (but I would be super-impressed if that actually still works). You can s…

i just got rick rolled by technical documentation

Re: Million Song Dataset

#30

Post by autoexec »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #16
malvosenior wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Worse" might be subjective but if they analyzed the data and found decreasing complexity of harmony and song structure, then that's not what I would call "unscientific". For the past 30 years music has definitely become more "bland" (for lack of a better word). The data backs this up. Whether you like that or not is subjective.

This is such nonsense it's just incredible that people with such seemingly strong conversational strengths in music could say something so perversely false. If you are looking at the kind of music that makes it onto Top 40 radio stations, then this is undoubtedly true. But that's not what is meant when you say > For the past 30 years music has definitely become more "bland" When you suggest that, you appear naive and…

> Pop music, a tiny sliver of all the important music being composed and performed today, has gotten progressively shittier. Fine, I'll grant you that. But who cares?

I guess if by "pop music" you mean everything that gets played on the radio, gets aggressively promoted by the recording industry, and has the widest audience I'd argue that many people should care. It's great that there are awesome musicians who are putting out amazing music in their basements or at local shows but if 99.99% of the population will never hear it does it matter that what they will hear is watered down crap? I'd argue that it does. Even your own examples show only a few thousand views. Compare that to what a currently popular song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlJDTxahav0) has seen in views over just one week. The song isn't even bad, but I can see how it could be described as "simple".

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