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30 December 2005
Billboard --weird average sound snippets of every #1 song since 58--reminds me of Capn's contest, but is completely unrecognizable.
The spectral average of each song used in Billboard plays for one second for each week it stayed at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Thus we run about 52 seconds per year, for a grand total of a 37 minute sound work. The video image tells you what song was used to generate the current spectral average. Note that nothing of the original recording is used in this piece; everything that you hear is derived from a statistical algorithm applied to the original recordings. If you know the song used in the average, you may be able to sing the first few bars (or the main hook in the chorus) over the spectral average and find that you are quite in tune with it; in some cases, you may be surprised not to be.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
