Table 1
Some public music datasets used in MIR, with song counts, attributes, categories, and curation details.
| Dataset | #Songs | #Attributes | #Categories | Curated by experts | Attribute scores | Chart data |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GZTAN (Tzanetakis and Cook, 2002) | 1,000 | 10 | 1 | No | No | No |
| Ballroom (Gouyon et al., 2006) | 698 | 8 | 1 | No | No | No |
| MagnaTagATune (Law et al., 2009) | 5,405 | 188 | 1 | No | No | No |
| MGPHot | 21,320 | 58 | 7 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MTG‑Jamendo (Bogdanov et al., 2019) | 55,701 | 195 | 3 | No | No | No |
| FMA (Defferrard et al., 2017a) | 106,574 | 163 | 1 | No | No | No |
| MuMu (Oramas et al., 2017) | 147,295 | 250 | 1 | No | No | No |
| MSD500 (Won et al., 2021) | 158,323 | 500 | 7 | No | No | No |
| MSD‑last.fm (Bertin‑Mahieux et al., 2011) | 505,216 | 522,366 | 1 | No | No | No |
| Audioset (Gemmeke et al., 2017) | 2,084,320 | 527 | 7 | No | No | No |
Figure 1
Number of tracks per year in the Billboard Hot 100 charts and the subset successfully mapped. The X‑axis represents the chart year, and the Y‑axis indicates the number of tracks.
Table 2
List of MGPHot attributes.
| Category | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Vocals | Vocal Register | Describes the vocal range of lead vocal performance on a scale from low to high. |
| Vocal Timbre Thin to Full | Expresses the timbre from thin and wispy to full and resonant. | |
| Vocal Breathiness | Indicates breathiness in the vocal delivery, characterized by airiness in the voice. | |
| Vocal Smoothness | Indicates smoothness, reflecting the absence of roughness or raspiness. | |
| Vocal Grittiness | Reflects the presence of roughness or raspiness in vocal delivery. | |
| Vocal Nasality | Measures nasality, the pinched or ‘plugged‑up’ quality in vocal delivery. | |
| Vocal Accompaniment | Indicates the importance of non‑lead vocal accompaniment in a track. | |
| Harmony | Minor/Major Key Tonality | Indicates whether the tonality is minor, major, or ambiguous. |
| Harmonic Sophistication | Captures the complexity of harmony, from simple to complex chromatic notes. | |
| Rhythm | Tempo | Describes the song’s tempo and how other factors affect the perceived speed. |
| Cut Time Feel | Reflects the presence of a ‘cut time’ feel, where the rhythm is felt in half‑time. | |
| Triple Meter | Indicates the presence of a triple meter, such as 3/4 time. | |
| Compound Meter | Indicates the presence of compound meter, combining triple and duple rhythms. | |
| Odd Meter | Reflects the presence of odd meters, such as 5 or 7 beats per measure. | |
| Swing Feel | Measures swing feel, where the first 8th note is longer than the second. | |
| Shuffle Feel | Similar to swing feel, but with more pronounced articulation of each note. | |
| Syncopation Low to High | Indicates syncopation, where rhythm emphasizes offbeats or anticipations. | |
| Backbeat | Measures the dominance of a backbeat rhythm, with emphasis on beats 2 and 4. | |
| Danceability | Rates how suitable the song is for dancing, from low to high. | |
| Instrumentation | Drum Set | Indicates the presence and dominance of a drum set in the song. |
| Drum Aggressiveness | Reflects the aggressiveness of the drum set performance. | |
| Synthetic Drums | Indicates the presence of synthetic drums, often programmed. | |
| Percussion | Reflects the dominance of percussion in the song, excluding drums. | |
| Electric Guitar | Indicates the presence and dominance of electric guitar(s). | |
| Electric Guitar Distortion | Measures the degree of guitar distortion, from clean to ‘dirty’. | |
| Acoustic Guitar | Indicates the presence of acoustic guitar(s). | |
| String Ensemble | Reflects the presence and dominance of a string ensemble in the song. | |
| Horn Ensemble | Indicates the presence of a horn ensemble, from small to large. | |
| Piano | Indicates the presence of a piano in the song. | |
| Organ | Reflects the presence of an organ in the instrumentation. | |
| Rhodes | Indicates the presence of a Fender Rhodes or other electric piano. | |
| Synthesizer | Reflects the presence of synthesizers in the instrumentation. | |
| Synth Timbre | Describes synthesizer timbres, from ambient to robotic or industrial. | |
| Bass Guitar | Reflects the presence and dominance of a bass guitar. | |
| Reed Instrument | Reflects the presence of reed instruments like saxophones or clarinets. | |
| Lyrics | Angry Lyrics | Measures the presence and dominance of angry lyrics in the song. |
| Sad Lyrics | Measures the presence and dominance of sad lyrics. | |
| Happy/Joyful Lyrics | Reflects the presence of happy or joyful lyrics. | |
| Humorous Lyrics | Indicates the presence of humorous or funny lyrics. | |
| Love/Romance Lyrics | Measures the presence of romantic or love‑themed lyrics. | |
| Social/Political Lyrics | Indicates the presence of lyrics about social or political issues. | |
| Abstract Lyrics | Measures the presence of abstract or whimsical lyrics. | |
| Explicit Lyrics | Measures the explicitness of lyrics, from clean to very explicit. | |
| Sonority | Live Recording | Indicates whether the song was recorded live or in a studio. |
| Audio Production | Measures the quality of the audio production, from poor to excellent. | |
| Aural Intensity | Measures the song’s overall loudness or softness. | |
| Acoustic Sonority | Indicates the presence of acoustic instruments or voices. | |
| Electric Sonority | Measures the presence of electric instruments. | |
| Synthetic Sonority | Reflects the presence of synthetic instruments like synthesizers. | |
| Composition | Focus on Lead Vocal | Reflects the importance of lead vocals to the overall track. |
| Focus on Lyrics | Measures the importance of lyrics in the overall track. | |
| Focus on Melody | Indicates the importance of melody in the track. | |
| Focus on Vocal Accompaniment | Reflects the importance of backing vocals in the track. | |
| Focus on Rhythmic Groove | Indicates how important the rhythmic groove is to the track. | |
| Focus on Musical Arrangements | Reflects the importance of the arrangement and orchestration. | |
| Focus on Form | Measures the importance of the song’s form or structure. | |
| Focus on Riffs | Reflects the importance of instrumental riffs in the track. | |
| Focus on Performance | Measures the importance of instrumental performance in the track. |
Figure 2
Trend curve of all the attributes by category across the years.
Figure 3
Similarity matrix of MGPHot year embeddings. Darker means more similar, lighter means less similar.
Figure 4
Foote novelty metric for the 58 attributes.
Figure 5
Foote novelty metric for the attributes in each category.
Figure 6
Pearson correlation between categorical distances according to the Mantel test, having all p < 0.05.