CNN.com - Technology - Mood music for the cyber set - September 8, 2000
`8/17/2021
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`Mood music for the cyber set
`
`From...
`
`September 8, 2000
`Web posted at: 10:05 a.m. EDT (1405 GMT)
`
`by Alex Pappademas
`
`(IDG) -- Say you're a pop-music fan and your
`favorite band is the Beastie Boys. Chances are
`you've devoted some time to considering Mike,
`Adam and Adam's place within the larger pop-
`music pantheon. You might have even
`considered how, within this mosaic, the
`Beasties relate to other artists -- that they're wittier than Limp Bizkit, for
`instance, and more nasal than EPMD. But you've probably never evaluated
`them on a scale of "Plainness" and "Simplicity." And chances are you'd never
`describe the Beasties to an uninitiated friend as being "like Helloween or
`Oingo Boingo, but less elaborate and sophisticated."
`
`But with the introduction of its new Artist Browser feature, the creators of the
`All-Music Guide are betting that users want someone to perform those exact
`calculations for you. The site is already the premier music-information locus
`online; its vast library includes detailed biography/discography entries for
`more than 400,000 artists and bands, studded with an abundance of cross-
`referenced links. In an era where online music content gets flashier by the day,
`All-Music is increasingly anomalous: a comprehensive text-based resource
`characterized by depth, not dazzle.
`
`The Artist Browser, therefore, represents something of a new direction for the
`site. Instead of tracing an assistant engineer from one session to another or
`calling up a list of everyone who has ever covered Isaac Hayes's Theme From
`Shaft, you're encouraged to follow more ambiguous paths. Using feedback
`submitted by All-Music users, along with input from the site's staff critics, the
`Artist Browser ranks musicians according to keys based on the music's
`"mood." On Alanis Morissette's page, for example, the browser offers links to
`artists whose music is "Denser, Thicker" (Iron Butterfly), "Colder, Firmer"
`(Ace Frehley, Savoy Brown) and "Gentler, More Peaceful" (Rick Springfield).
`
`Although these recommendations, on the face of it, seem absurd, if broadly
`accurate, All-Music says the Artist Browser is a work in progress and
`represents the latest bell and/or whistle from upstart music-tech firms
`dreaming of new ways to differentiate themselves from the competition.
`
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`"Mood-based" search technology promises to let users find music based on
`how it feels, not on where a record store would file it. In addition to All-
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`CNN.com - Technology - Mood music for the cyber set - September 8, 2000
`Music, sites ranging from the relatively venerable CDNow to startups such as
`CantaMetrix, MoodLogic, MuBu and MongoMusic have begun
`experimenting with this space-age song-sniffing model as a means of adding
`"stickiness" to their sites. If you've ever had trouble putting your musical
`longings into words, your ideal search engine might have arrived.
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`The idea of "mood music" was hatched in the
`1950s. As the high-fidelity sound system
`became an indispensable lifestyle accessory,
`record companies rushed to market with all
`manner of themed instrumental-music
`collections, records that promised to use
`cutting-edge technology to better soundtrack
`each moment of the listener's life. The
`invention of quadraphonic sound during the
`early 1970s brought us I.S. Teibel's
`Environments series, featuring such excursions
`in pre-Aphex Twin ambience as Gentle Rain in
`a Pine Forest, Psychologically Ultimate
`Seashore and Be-In.
`
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`So in the year 2000, when a digital-music
`entrepreneur such as Max Wells, co-founder
`and CTO of the music-search startup
`CantaMetrix, boasts that his company has
` Computerworld Minute
`
`"created an electric ear" and stresses that its
`technology borrows from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project,
`it's hard not to wonder if mood-based search engines are merely the digital-
`music version of the lounge era's new adventures in hi-fi.
`
`
`
` Fusion audio primers
`
`Granted, there's technical acumen behind CantaMetrix's music-search
`application, which the company hopes to license to e-commerce sites and
`repositories such as MP3.com (MPPP) and radio stations. (Wells has a Ph.D.
`in engineering and applied science from what might be the most impressive-
`sounding institution from which a would-be-Net-music mogul could have a
`degree -- the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research at the University of
`Southampton in England -- and a bachelor's of science in biology and
`psychology.) CantaMetrix's technology analyzes the digital waveform of a
`piece of music, coding songs based on characteristics such as melody, rhythm
`and timbre to produce a digital "fingerprint." This information is then run
`through a "psycho-acoustic model" based on responses from about 500 people
`who have rated a selection of songs based on psychological factors such as
`"upbeatness" and "energy."
`
`The model's centerpiece, Wells says, is "a similarity matrix, where we can
`take any song and compare it with any other song and determine how similar
` © 2001 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved.
`it sounds." Using that comparative tool, the CantaMetrix application can help
`Terms under which this service is provided to you.
`users find the music they're in the mood for by digitally determining, for
`Read our privacy guidelines.
`example, which Belle & Sebastian songs rank as high on the mope-o-meter as
`Nick Drake's Pink Moon. And because the songs are entirely machine-sorted,
`CantaMetrix can narrow vast catalogs with unparalleled speed.
`
`The privately held San Francisco startup MoodLogic does CantaMetrix one
`better, employing an academic and music-psychology expert -- Northwestern
`University Professor Bob Gjerdingen -- as its "vice president of music
`taxonomy." Gjerdingen, who is also editor of the music-psychology journal
`Music Perception, says that digital signal processing techniques of companies
`such as CantaMetrix have their place in the categorization of digital music,
`but rejects the idea that sorting music can be fully automated, at least for now.
`
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`CNN.com - Technology - Mood music for the cyber set - September 8, 2000
`"The difference between a funny song and a not-funny song is very hard to
`pick up in DSP," Gjerdingen says. "Computer vision is rather sophisticated
`now, but would you allow it to drive your car down the Kennedy Expressway
`in Chicago? No. You'd get killed. DSP can add a lot in matching what I call
`the acoustic surface of things -- if you want to find, quickly, four songs that go
`boom-chick-a-chick-boom, that's very hard to put into words, and there aren't
`a lot of actual questions I can ask you that will help me identify what you're
`really after."
`
`To this end, MoodLogic built the back end for its own mood-based search
`technology using more than a hundred million responses from human beings.
`According to Gjerdingen, the site is now "the world's champion collector of
`data from ordinary people about popular music." And by putting this data to
`work, Gjerdingen hopes that MoodLogic would guide fans of mainstream
`music into a wider world.
`
`"If you're a Britney Spears fan," Gjerdingen says, "you can go to any of
`10,000 sites, type in her name and you'll get something back. You don't have
`to have a complex search engine to come up with Britney Spears -- you almost
`have to fight it off. However, let's say someone really wants to listen to Afro-
`pop from Nigeria. How many people can spell 'Anikulapo Kuti'?" he says,
`referring to the late Nigerian bandleader and activist, better known by his first
`name, Fela.
`
`"And once you get past Fela or his son, who's the next guy? But if you've got
`search engines where people can actually click on a map, where people can
`say, 'I want something upbeat, something that reminds me of James Brown,'
`they'll actually get something. There's a lot of R&B; influence in Afro-pop,
`and I think a lot of R&B; fans would enjoy some of this music tremendously."
`
`Perhaps because it doesn't entirely dispense with qualifying factors such as era
`and genre, MoodLogic's search technology provided the most accurate results
`of the mood-music browsers tested for this story. (CantaMetrix's search tool
`wasn't available for a test-drive at press time.) Its "SoundBrowser" demo lets
`users position "magnets" labeled "Upbeat," "Aggressive" or "Brooding" and
`narrows their searches using filters such as "Tempo" and "Decade." When the
`search results show up, they cluster around the magnet that best describes
`them.
`
`Not every selection the MoodLogic browser spit back was accurate, but each
`search contained at least one dead-on track -- Steely Dan's Doctor Wu for a
`"Mellow" and "Brooding" '70s song; Stevie Wonder's Signed, Sealed,
`Delivered, I'm Yours for "Upbeat" and "Romantic"; and both D'Angelo's
`Brown Sugar and Massive Attack's Teardrop for "Sentimental/Rap-Hip Hop"
`with "Smooth" vocals and a "Medium" beat. The last set of results is
`instructive. While there are undoubtedly plenty of music fans out there who
`like D'Angelo's hazy R&B;, and Massive Attack songs such as Teardrop, the
`two would probably never turn up together in a strict genre-based search,
`which would disregard Massive Attack as "techno."
`
`As for All-Music, according to its President Vladimir Bogdanov, 20,000 pages
`on the site are now cross-referenced via the Artist Browser. "Our database is
`very large, comprehensive and complete," he says. "But when you come to the
`front page, you usually don't see that completeness."
`
`The option to search by mood, Bogdanov says, is one way to open up the
`vaults. It's also a search tool that doesn't involve typing; according to All-
`Music's research, people don't like to use search prompts.
`
`Bogdanov says Artist Browser has quickly become one of the site's most-used
`functions, although he does add that All-Music has turned down offers to
`
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`CNN.com - Technology - Mood music for the cyber set - September 8, 2000
`license the feature because it's "not prime time yet." And he promises that the
`next version of the browser will be "significantly better," incorporating more
`critical input and drawing on a larger group of artists. Still, exploring All-
`Music with the Artist Browser is like using a map of North America to find
`your car in the mall parking lot -- you've got breadth, but at the expense of
`clarity. Which raises the question -- can a software application, even one that
`incorporates human feedback, ever accurately predict what kind of music
`people will like, let alone how that music will make them feel?
`
`"If you ask anybody," says MoodLogic's Gjerdingen, "from cab drivers to
`ditch-diggers to Nobel laureates, the first thing that comes out of their mouth
`is, 'Well, my tastes are kind of unique.' The paradox, of course, is that there
`wouldn't be Top 40 if everybody's tastes were truly unique."
`
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