Hit song analysis on the Swedish music market : An exploration of hit song classification

Abstract: Assessing hit song potential is a challenge in the music industry. The question of what song to promote, which song to release first and whether or not it will succeed has always been an issue for stakeholders in the music business. The ability to statistically evaluate hit song potential is a growing field with several studies exploring the topic. In this study we explore the field of hit song science and explore the Swedish hit song profile. We compile hit songs in Sweden between the years 2020 to 2023 and evaluate the distinction between hits and non-hits by using several machine learning methods. The question of assessing lyrics is explored by encoding topic content by using chat-GPT on song lyrics. An accuracy of 70.1% concerning the ability to correctly predict whether a song has been a hit was achieved with the RandomForest algorithm and the feasibility of statistically quantifying hit song potential and its future direction as a research field is discussed.