Establish hit potential with app

Usually, when you write a song, you just have to wait and see if it becomes a success. Not anymore. Researchers from the University of Antwerp have developed an app that shows you the hit potential of your song.

The researchers compiled a database of dance hits from between 1985 and 2013. They established the songs’ most important features, like timbre and beats per minute (bpm). “We also looked at some more advanced features, like the evolution from the bpm during the song. While analyzing the many dance hits we noticed some clear trends, like increase in loudness, the clarity and the speed from songs in this period,” researcher Dorien Herremans says in the press release.

From this dataset, a few common features were listed. Based on that, the scientists built an app. People can upload a song to see how much chance it has to become a hit song. For example, Gangnam Style had a hit potential of 79%. Nobody to Love by Sigma had 87%.