This one’s perhaps not quite what you’re thinking. Yes, almost the entire HMHB catalogue is on Spotify now, for your listening pleasure, but biscuiteer Craig H has been playing with the data…
First up is just to see what data Spotify has about the songs. Craig writes: “The info on key, duration, etc, speaks for itself. The machine-derived metrics are slightly more arcane – ‘valence’ relates to how ‘happy’ a song is, for instance. Popularity is relative to the entire Spotify catalogue and ranges from 1-100, but is subject to change over time – the tracks from the new album are quite high at the moment – relative to the older stuff at least – so these numbers will probably fall as the album fades into memory.”
The full set of Spotify ‘audio features’ are explained here, and include mode, speechiness, acousticness, instrumentalness, liveness, valence, tempo, duration_ms, time_signature and key_mode.
Anyway, see what you think. You can find the spreadsheet here.
Chris The Siteowner
I can see some of the more data-analysis-inclined regulars to this site having fun with scatter charts on some of this stuff. Happy to post anything you come up with. – CtSO
21 September 2018
Chris The Siteowner
We never really did much with this. So I thought I’d have a look. According to Spotify, ‘Danceability’ describes “how suitable a track is for dancing based on a combination of musical elements including tempo, rhythm stability, beat strength, and overall regularity.” Their machine analysis subsequently suggests:
THE MOST DANCEABLE HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT SONGS
1 Turn a Blind Eye
2 Uffington Wassail
3 Time Flies by (When You’re the Driver of a Train)
4 Nove on the Sly
5 Hair Like Brian May Blues
6 A Shropshire Lad
7 ITMA
8 A Country Practice
9 David Wainwright’s Feet
10 Tyrolean Knockabout
Hmmm, TABE? I think if it was a floor-filler I was after, I’d as soon the DJ played us some Tallis. Apparently, the least danceable song is Mod Diff V Diff Hard Severe. This makes no sense. Onward…
17 May 2021
Chris The Siteowner
‘Energy’ for Spotify “represents a perceptual measure of intensity and activity. Typically, energetic tracks feel fast, loud, and noisy. For example, death metal has high energy, while a Bach prelude scores low on the scale. Perceptual features contributing to this attribute include dynamic range, perceived loudness, timbre, onset rate, and general entropy.”
THE HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT SONGS WITH THE MOST ENERGY
1 National Shite Day
2 Harsh Times in Umberstone Covert
3 Slight Reprise
4 Arthur’s Farm
5 The Unfortunate Gwatkin
6 27 Yards Of Dental Floss
7 Rock And Roll Is Full Of Bad Wools
8 On Passing Lilac Urine
9 Something’s Rotten In The Back Of Iceland
10 Stuck Up a Hornbeam
I can get on board some of these a bit more, although I think I’d describe OPLU more as ‘jaunty’. The least energetic songs are Soft Verges, Busy Little Market Town and Visitor for Mr. Edmonds, the latter probably just confusing the algorithm.
17 May 2021
Chris The Siteowner
‘Speechiness’ (look, I don’t invent this stuff, right?) “detects the presence of spoken words in a track.” So the least music, down to the most. And the machine says…
1 Visitor for Mr. Edmonds
2 Architecture, Morality, Ted and Alice
3 Albert Hammond Bootleg
4 Tour Jacket with Detachable Sleeves
5 Renfield’s Afoot
6 Friday Night and the Gates Are Low
7 Stavanger Toestub
8 Descent Of The Stiperstones
9 Bob Wilson – Anchorman
10 A Country Practice
The lesson from this is that machines just have no bloody idea.
17 May 2021
Chris The Siteowner
‘Acousticness’ is “a confidence measure of whether the track is acoustic. A high score represents high confidence the track is acoustic.” And apparently the most acoustic songs are…
1 I Went to a Wedding
2 Fear My Wraith
3 Soft Verges
4 Adam Boyle Has Cast Lad Rock Aside
5 Twenty Four Hour Garage People
6 Hair Like Brian May Blues
7 Ballad of Climie Fisher
8 On Finding the Studio Banjo
9 Even Men with Steel Hearts
10 Gubba Look-a-likes
Hmm. And the least acoustic song? The Bain of Constance apparently. Someone should cover it for the next John Lewis Christmas ad.
17 May 2021
Chris The Siteowner
‘Instrumentalness’ “predicts whether a track contains no vocals. Ooh and aah sounds are treated as instrumental in this context. Rap or spoken word tracks are clearly vocal”, apparently. This shouldn’t be so hard, should it?
1 Visitor for Mr. Edmonds
2 Stavanger Toestub
3 Theme Tune for Something or Other
4 Slight Reprise
5 Busy Little Market Town
6 On Finding the Studio Banjo
7 Turn a Blind Eye
8 13 Eurogoths Floating in the Dead Sea
9 She’s In Broadstairs
10 D’ya Ken Ted Moult?
Starts off well, before collapsing into giggles. Or was that just me? Apparently the ‘least instrumental’ song is Swerving the Checktrade (sic).
17 May 2021
Chris The Siteowner
‘Liveness’ “detects the presence of an audience in the recording. Higher liveness values represent an increased probability that the track was performed live.” Yeah, either that or the fact it says so in the song’s Spotify title.
1 Time Flies by (When You’re the Driver of a Train) – Live at Sheffield Leadmill
2 Reflections in a Flat – Live at Sheffield Leadmill
3 Sealclubbing – Live at Sheffield Leadmill
4 Lord Hereford’s Knob
5 Architecture and Morality Ted and Alice – Live at Sheffield Leadmill
6 99% of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd
7 Albert Hammond Bootleg – Live at Sheffield Leadmill
8 27 Yards Of Dental Floss
9 Tyrolean Knockabout
10 The Trumpton Riots – Live at Sheffield Leadmill
17 May 2021
Chris The Siteowner
‘Valence’ is “a measure describing the musical positiveness conveyed by a track. Tracks with high valence sound more positive (e.g. happy, cheerful, euphoric), while tracks with low valence sound more negative (e.g. sad, depressed, angry).” Ooh, this should be good…
1 Worried Man Blues
2 On Passing Lilac Urine
3 Petty Sessions
4 New York Skiffle
5 Theme Tune for Something or Other
6 Quality Janitor
7 Song of Encouragement for the Orme Ascent
8 David Wainwright’s Feet
9 When The Evening Sun Goes Down
10 This Leaden Pall
Two hundred songs to choose from, and the machine says the one with the most ‘musical positiveness’ is WMB. And at the other end of the list? The least ‘musically positive’ song? Ballad of Climie Fisher. Don’t shoot the messenger.
17 May 2021
Chris The Siteowner
Right, here’s one the machines can’t get wrong …right? The overall estimated tempo of a track. “In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece and derives directly from the average beat duration.”
1 Descent Of The Stiperstones
2 It’s Cliched to Be Cynical at Christmas
3 Dickie Davies Eyes
4 Tending the Wrong Grave for 23 Years
5 The Coroner’s Footnote
6 RSVP
7 Styx Gig (Seen by My Mates Coming out of a…)
8 Something’s Rotten In The Back Of Iceland
9 Stuck Up a Hornbeam
10 Bob Wilson – Anchorman
Nope, makes no sense to me either.
17 May 2021
Chris The Siteowner
OK, let’s end with the one for which no artificial intelligence is needed whatsoever. Duration. Well at least they got this right. Just included for interest. Nos. 5 and 9 surprised me a little.
1 A Country Practice
2 National Shite Day
3 Thy Damnation Slumbereth Not
4 Tour Jacket with Detachable Sleeves
5 Soft Verges
6 Descent Of The Stiperstones
7 Rock And Roll Is Full Of Bad Wools
8 Every Time a Bell Rings
9 Gubba Look-a-likes
10 Took Problem Chimp To Ideal Home Show
17 May 2021
Chris The Siteowner
Oh, and as a bonus, although I really don’t trust
SkynetSpotify at all now, here are the number of songs in each key. Apparently.A – 35
A# – 1 (Swerving the Checktrade (sic))
B – 13
C – 38
C# – 2
D – 29
D# – 1 (Emerging from Gorse)
E – 26
F – 11
F# – 5
G – 35
G# – 5
17 May 2021
professor Abelazar Woozle
Spotify’s algorithms really are clueless – I dread to think what their supposed artificial intelligence has been trained on, even more to have to listen to it! For starters, how on earth could any human say that NSD is a higher energy track than Harsh Times, and for that matter surely Renfield’s Afoot is higher energy still, at least in the second half!
Also, someone should tell them that A# and D# would be called Bb and Eb by most musicians…
17 May 2021