Most Wanted: Music 2017

The project ABC_DJ aims at providing new software tools that enable European branding agencies to identify brand-fitting music titles from large music archives. Therefore, a statistical model will be developed to predict semantic, brand-related connotations of musical pieces based on acoustical features of the music and the social and cultural context of the listeners. These predictions will be used to automatically create playlists which can be used for marketing and point of sale branding activities such as selection of instore music. ABC_DJ will thus increase the pool of music effectively exploitable for branding agencies significantly and enables them to serve the diverse market needs. The project receives funding by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 688122.

In 2015 record labels around the globe spent a combined $1.7bn to promote new music. An estimated 80% of which is spent on marketing to existing fans, who already follow artists on social media. Why? Because organic reach is dead. Even the biggest artists on the planet struggle to get their content seen. Witness a grassroots movement on a mission, a cause, to establish a free and direct information flow between artists and fans, providing a viable alternative to playlists for surfacing new tracks, while keeping fans on the pulse of new music by artists they love.

Event organizers and promoters face multiple risks: artist cancellation, bad weather, etc. However, the most common yet usually uninsurable reason for unsuccessful events is unsold tickets since “78% of events don’t actually sell out”, according to Michael Rapino, CEO of Live Nation. Luckily new possibilities of gathering and analyzing data by the means of intelligent algorithms by now enable promoters to accurately predict ticket sales with no need to rely on their guts or big pockets.