ABSTRACT
Hit Song Science is an emerging field of investigation that aims at predicting the success of songs before they are released on the market. This chapter defines the context and goals of Hit Song Science (HSS) from the viewpoint of music information retrieval. In the first part, we stress the complexity of the mechanisms underlying individual and social music preference from an experimental psychology viewpoint. In the second part, we describe current attempts at modeling and predicting music hits in a feature oriented view of
popularity and, finally, draw conclusions on the current status of this emerging but fascinating field of research.
