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This is Part 10 of 10 in a series analyzing the way that Reverbnation, the popular artist/dj/rapper/band ranking website, ranks artists

(scroll below for a super long play list of awesome electronic music you can stream for free) 

This is Part 9 of 10 in a series analyzing the way that Reverbnation, the popular artist/dj/rapper/band ranking website, ranks artists

(scroll below for a super long play list of awesome electronic music you can stream for free) 

Recap: We hired a focus group of 5 individuals, each of whom is a heavy listener of electronic music. We asked them to listen to 3 tracks by each artist ranked in the Global Top 50 on Reverbnation’s Electronica Charts. We also asked them to listen to 3 tracks by artists ranked 1001 to 1050. We did not tell them which artist made which song, or what each artist was ranked. Some artists only posted 1 or 2 tracks on their Reverbnation page, so the total number of tracks heard was 260. Our 5 judges assigned each track a score between 1 (lowest) and 10 (highest), based on how much they “liked” the track – we left that vague standard to their own interpretation. After the first day, in which they listened to all or part of these 260 tracks, we tallied each tracks average score, and “cut” from our list any track that did not receive an average score of at least a 7.5 from our 5 judges. This left 126 tracks. We then put these 126 tracks in a “head to head” competition,pitting one track against another for 6 rounds, and asked our judges to select their favorite between the two. We used a special software to match tracks based on how well each track was doing. The following tracks are the final 20 – the 20 tracks, from #20 to #1, based on our head-to-head competition as determined by 5 Judges: 4 from America, 1 from Germany.

Based on the results of our Judges, here are the TOP 20 TRACKS, beginning with numbers 20 through 11 (click on image to enlarge):

And here are the TOP 10 (click on image to enlarge):

Please ignore the numbering below – this player starts with the Artist that finished #20 (Biofear) and counts down to the artist that finished #1 (Burn in Noise).

Next Up: We finally show our 5 Judges who they were listening to, and get their feedback on the music they heard, and why they most preferred these 20 (and others). PLUS, our 5 Judges tell us which Artists they felt had the best production, were most innovative, had the best art work, etc.

This is Part 8 of a multi-part blog posting analyzing the way that Reverbnation, the popular artist/dj/rapper/band ranking website, ranks artists

(scroll below for a super long play list of awesome electronic music you can stream for free) 

ElectronicaFinal32_11-6-11_FocusGroupFinal32

This is Part 6 of a multi-part blog posting analyzing the way that Reverbnation, the popular artist/dj/rapper/band ranking website, ranks artists (see Parts 1 & 2 for background)

(scroll below for a super long play list of awesome electronic music you can stream for free) 

Recap:  We hired a focus group of 5 individuals , each of whom is a big fan & heavy listener of electronic music. We asked them to listen to 3 tracks by each artist ranked in the Global Top 50 on Reverbnation’s Electronica Charts.  We also asked them to listen to 3 tracks by each artist ranked from 1001 to 1050. We did not tell these participants which artist made which song, or what each artist was ranked, so as not to bias them for or against an artist based on that artist’s ranking.  Some artists only posted 1 or 2 tracks on their Reverbnation page, so the total number of tracks our group of 5 heard was around 260.  Our 5 judges assigned each track a score between 1 (lowest) and 10 (highest), based simply on how much they “liked” the track – we left that vague standard to their own interpretation.  After the first day, in which they listened to all or part of these 260 tracks, we tallied each tracks average score, and “cut” from our list any track that did not receive an average score of at least a 7.5 from our 5 judges.  This left 126 tracks. We then put these 126 tracks in a “head to head” competition, randomly pitting one track against another, and asking our judges to select their favorite between the two. We used a special software to match tracks based on how well each track was doing.

Fast forward to the present: After 3 rounds of this head-to-head competition, 64 of the 126  songs/tracks left – roughly half – have “won” two out of their three head-to-head matches and, to narrow the field, we cut the 62 tracks that had only 1  win (or less).  So, in summary, after 3 rounds, out of the 100 artists we began with, 43 artists still have at least 1 track in the competition (note that some of these 43 artists have 2 or more tracks still remaining) and from an initial pool of 260 songs/tracks, 64 were left:

Artists ranked in Reverbnation Global Top 50 (at time Focus Group began, listed alphabetically) that still have at least 1 track left in the competition:

1. Alderec King (Spain)
2. beats antique (USA)
3. BILLY (Canada)
4. Counting Clouds (Germany)
5. Datsik (Canada)
6. Downlink (Canada)
7. Dr. Kucho! (Spain)
8. Excision (Canada)
9. Infected Mushroom (USA)
10. Inna (Romania)
11. Jakeamon (UK)
12. Levent Aydogan (Turkey)
13. nickasaur! (USA)
14. NOISIA (Netherlands)
15. NUDE! (Germany)
16. Pretty Lights (USA)
17. Serge Devant (USA)
18. Steve Transcoder (Germany)
19. TRANXGO (Argentina)
20. trezOra (Georgia)
21. Umek (Slovenia)
22. UNCLEMAD (Italy)
23. Underworld (UK)

Artists ranked in between 1001 and 1050 at time Focus Group began (listed alphabetically) that still have at least 1 track left in the competition:

1. 2drops (Israel)
2. Amit Bharadwaj (India)
3. Biofear (Canada)
4. Bong-Ra (Netherlands)
5. Burn in Noise (Brazil)
6. Etnica (Spain)
7. GarGO!! (Italy)
8. Going after Zen (UK)
9. Goldfrapp (UK)
10. Kostistlac (Slovakia)
11. K-toh (UK)
12. Laura Escude (USA)
13. MC CONRAD (UK)
14. MOODMUSIC (France)
15. ORION (Germany)
16. Palenke Soultribe (USA)
17. Psextreme (Serbia)
18. Set Prometheus Aflame (USA)
19. Stickleback (Australia)
20. Tom Hades (Belgium)

Before closing this blog, a few observations:

1. We were very surprised that, based on the results of our Focus Group so far, 20 of the 43 artists were ranked between 1000 – 1050.  We didn’t see that coming. To reiterate, when hearing a track, our 5 judges were not told who produced the track, or the artists’ rank on the Reverbnation Electronica Charts.
2. For those doing a country count, here are the number of artists that made the cut, listed by country: USA (8), UK (6), Canada (5), Germany (4), Spain (3), Netherlands (2), Italy (2), then many countries with (1).
3. Of the 100 artists we began with, however, some countries had a higher percentage of artists make the cut:  Canada (83%), Spain (68%), Italy (67%), Germany (50%), Netherlands (50%), UK (38%), USA (30%).
4. This data – while no means a large enough data set to draw definitive conclusions, leads to the following question: is it possible that the Reverbnation charts are somehow, unintentionally biased in favor of American artists? Being American artists ourselves, we certainly hope that’s not the case. It is interesting to note that 4 of our 5 judges are American.  An alternate interpretation is that, because Reverbnation is based in the US, it’s likely to attract more US artists whereas non-US artists might be less likely to register unless they already are very very good.  Canada comes off looking the best so far – in terms of the percentage of their artists on the Reverb charts and how well they have done so far in the competition.
5. In truth, we’re not sure how to interpret these preliminary results.

Next up: the final 32 tracks.

This is Part 5 of a multi-part blog posting analyzing the way that Reverbnation, the popular artist/dj/rapper/band ranking website, ranks artists (see Parts 1 & 2 for background)

(scroll below for a super long play list of awesome electronic music you can stream for free) 

In Part 4, our five Focus Group “Power Listeners” were deciding which track they preferred between the 2 we played for each of them – this went on for several rounds. We left off in the last blog with Round 2, where we provided a playlist of the artists who, after 2 rounds were undefeated. We also relayed a caveat that the list was a work in progress – as you’ll shortly see, things get even more interesting.

Fast forward – it’s now after Round 3.  There are still some “undefeated” tracks in our Focus Group which includes tracks from Electronica artists ranked in the top 50 on the Reverbnation Electronica global charts and those that are ranked between 1001-1050 on those same charts (recall that we are testing how our focus group results ultimately match up with the Reverb rankings).  At this point, we gave our Focus Group a well-deserved break and asked them to share their thoughts about the music so far.  Keep in mind that none of the 5 know which artist produced a particular track or where an artist stands on the Reverbnation Charts. We did this in order to reduce the likelihood of a biased review.

Monster Loop:  By now you’ve heard a lot of music.  Before getting into a specific question – so far, overall, what do you think?

Katja:  I’m tired  (laughter)

Seth:  To be honest, better than expected.  I’m not on top of music as I was 2, 3 years ago but … I dunno, almost seems like it’s gotten better…  I mean, a lot of great songs, tracks, whatever - I’m hearing. Not sure if it’s that the music has gotten better or that [Reverbnation] has figured out a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Mike:  I don’t know about wheat and chaff but, the music wasn’t <bleep> and that was a surprise.  I’ve never been on Reverb… didn’t know about Reverb…. but there’s quality in these songs.  Well, some <bleep> too. - but not so much … so I agree.

Monster Loop:  Okay, so you all agree that there are some good tracks.  At this point, do some stand out?

Seth: I see it in tiers…  You have the top , and I think there are around 10 – 15 tracks at the top.  You have a second tier with 20-50 tracks. Then this huge group under where most of them are, maybe 75-100 tracks, wherever the math takes you.  This big group, the songs aren’t bad, they just aren’t great.   There were many tracks that were good, but I’ve heard 500 other tracks like it so it didn’t move the needle for me so much. A bit dated, derivative.  Some were repetitive, or lacked … I don’t know… imagination?  Hard to say.  Good quality… just didn’t have that extra whatever it is that makes you turn up the volume. Know what I mean?

Mike: I have no idea what you’re talking about.  (laughter)

Seth: You know what I mean.

Mike: I’d add categories.  You’ve got the category of – “WTF is this doing in the Electronica category category?” (laughter) I mean, <bleep>!  There’s a category called Electronica.  This word has meaning.  I feel bad knockin’ some of the songs in this face off, because some of them getting dinged are actually good. It’s just I think they are in the wrong show. They should be in the Alternative section or Hip Hop. A few tracks I heard that were good lounge music – is there a category for that?

Monster Loop:  You raise an interesting point.  There were some artists here that haven’t scored as well in the faceoff, but that did better on the first day which might fall into this categorization issue.

Jason: If I remember right, I liked some of those artists and gave them good scores yesterday. It’s just that, at this stage of the evaluation it’s harder - you have 2 tracks and both are good … 1 is clearly electronica the other could be Rap, Pop or even Jazz. When it’s close …. both tracks are good, maybe I give an edge to the track that’s more what I think of traditionally as Electronica.

Mike: What’s the rule [on Reverbnation] about being in a particular category?

Monster Loop:  As far as we’re aware, there isn’t one. When you sign up to be on Reverbnation, you (the artist) select the category. At least, we think that’s how it works.

Mike:  I’d think you need some kind of constraint on which category you could be in based on your music, but I think that would be hard to do.

Katja: What’s it matter which category? If an artist wants to rap and signs up as Electronic, what do I care?  It they don’t belong in Techno, they won’t do well in techno.

Jose: Are there more artists in some categories than in others?

Monster Loop:  Yes.

Jose:  Maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe they figure… it’s a better chance to be #1 in hometown… Make momma proud.  (laughter)  Maybe it makes it easier to be #1 in their country.  And actually, you would get an advantage if you’re rap in the Electronica category because your points don’t just come from fans/streams/downloads from Electronica artists – it doesn’t look at that.  So you could get votes from people who like rap and people who like electronica. But if they’re both, what’s the harm?

Seth:  Hip Hop is already established in the US. It’s proven itself.  Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow, RUN DMC…  those pioneers and others set it into motion … and succeeded .  The growth of that genre was incredible.   My thinking is, “Look, if you have a good Electronica sound and want to Rap, then be “Hip Hop” – the genre welcomes a new sound.  Electronica is trying to get established itself – particularly here [in the US].  I think a lot of people are gravitating to Electronica lately because they aren’t into country/metal/rock – they feel like it’s run it’s course – and felt their only other option if they want that rush, that juice, that power to make them move their <bleep> - was Rap, but they didn’t connect with Rap at a deep level.  It’s not for them.  I mean, remember that part of the reason Rap/Hip Hop rose so quickly was that it was a category that was sorely lacking – it appealed to many people – of all races – that weren’t connecting with other styles of music. So now it fills that need, that niche.  Electronica is attempting to fill a different niche – one for a group of people that maybe don’t resonate with Rap. Or Hip Hop does resonate, but it’s not enough – it appeals to part of them, but Electronica hits another level.

So – and maybe I’m off-base here, I think there’s something slightly invasive about it. Like wearing blue on St. Patrick’s Day. Blue is just fine, but on St. Patrick’s Day we all agree to wear green. It’s not written down anywhere.  What makes Electronica “Electronica” – and I hate that word (Electronica) by the way – we used to just call everything Techno – what was <bleep> wrong with the word Techno? … anyway, what made it what it is, was the music took center stage – not the vocals – the singing, the rapping, hey, even da yodelling - whatever… The music.  And being cutting-edge is part of it.

(Seth continues his rant) What’s the difference between techno & pop?   Pop’s prosaic. Vocals will dominate – that’s the first rule – the focus is generally superficial and watered down to appeal to the least common denominator.  You’re giving them empty calories, so you’d better wrap it up in a beautiful package to distract them from that fact.  Labels find these good looking kids, teach them a few dance moves and, walaahh – presto, we have a fresh new star – here ya go world, here’s your next pop star.  Aren’t they cute?  Look how cute! But can they play an instrument?  Hardly.  How do you spot them?  Easy, they draw attention to themselves.  Hey, look at me!!  I’m cool!!! I wear crazy hair, do crazy things on stage, I’m cwazzzzy! It’s all about me. In fact, why don’t we name the band after me?

Who is actually producing the music?  Don’t ask that question.  This beautiful person you see magically does it all.  They’re even better than Milli-Vanilli. Don’t ask about the people who actually produce the music. It’s like the making of sausage, you don’t want to know.  Maybe some kid reads this and gets mad – hey I like (fill in the blank with the pop music flavor of the week). Well good – let them know the truth. They’re being duped. And rock music isn’t much better.  So under my definition, if the artist (1) is unusually attractive and is featured on the cover art, (2) the band is named after them, (3) they don’t actually produce the music and/or (4) their releases/press doesn’t at least give equal footing to the producers of the music,  it isn’t Electronica.

Techno, excuse me, Electronica, was the style with artists dedicated to pushing the boundaries, who would not compromise their sound.  In the late 60′s & 70′s, maybe part of the 90′s, that belonged to rock.  Those guys are using walkers now.  Electronica is the new rock.  Techno used to be synonymous with “underground” and for good reason. We don’t want to lose that.  That’s part of its DNA.  And when I see a Techno release that has an attractive, voluptuous woman in a bikini, for example - when the artist leads with that on the cover photo…  that’s a joke. I mean, if the music’s good, you don’t have to resort to that. It’s cheesy.  Think about it… “Hey, look at that gorgeous woman who is almost naked – wow! She’s so hot.  The music here must be so good.”  Huh? There’s something faulty in that syllogism. It’s like me writing a novel and hiring Kim Kardashian to sign copies and sit in for me at promotional events to help sales. Who wrote the book – Kim?  <bleep> no.  Kim had nothing to do with it.  Look, if you want to look at beautiful women, there are plenty of websites for that you can surf while listening to quality Techno.

Katja: I think you don’t like pop. <laughter>

Jason:  Calm down brother <laughter>  I get what you’re saying. It’s just that… this category, that category… I don’t … I don’t care about that stuff.  Don’t even think about it… I like good music – whatever the category. I leave that to the people who count the beans after the concerts. Maybe for some, sex is part of the package.  Just enjoy the music.

Mike: Aside from the fact he’s badly in need of therapy, I mostly agree with Seth. When I listen to Techno, Psytrance – whatever, I generally don’t want to hear someone’s voice – or, if there are words, give me strange words… weird samples in some foreign language like Basque. The last thing I want to hear is a narcissistic chant or breathy vocal about how you’re so <bleep> hot.  When did humility go out of style?  Get therapy kid.  I don’t want to understand the words. Why? I’m me, not you, and I’m in the zone man. Don’t break my concentration! Don’t suggest meaning to me with your words. I have my own meaning for these sounds, and it’s deeper than words.  I’m going inward. Remember raves? You know this – Electronic Music – there’s something spiritual about it – these are the hymns you wished they’d play in church. These all night raves – that is church. What’s going on out there while they’re dancing for hours to the hypnotic beat?  They’re tuning in. Tuning into All That Is. And you’re anthropocentric if you think you need words to get there.  BOO YA.

Katja:  Vas? (we think that’s what she said) Are we at a symposium on Hegel’s Dialectic?

Jose:  That’s some passion bro. <laughter>  This is startin’ to feel like a classroom <laughter>  Maybe I’m from a different planet or somethin’, but I go to the clubs, and I tune in. My momma wishes I was tunin’ in to All whatever it is you said – you talkin about God? I think maybe I tune in, but I’m tunin into something else, and she’s wearin a tight skirt. <laughter>

And on that note, we’ll sign off for now. Stay tuned – more to come soon.  

This is Part 4 of a multi-part blog posting analyzing the way that Reverbnation, the popular artist/dj/rapper/band ranking website, ranks artists

In Part 3,  our Focus Group of 5 Electronic Music “Power Listeners” had narrowed down an initial list of 260 tracks by 100 different Electronica artists roughly in half –  down to 126. Tracks by 17 of these 100 artists comprised over 40% of the 126 tracks and represented an eclectic range of styles. What we didn’t relay, was that 65 of the 126 tracks – a little over half – were produced by artists ranked in the Global Top 50.  In contrast, 61 of the 126 tracks were produced by artists ranked on the Reverbnation Electronica Charts between 1001 and 1050. This near-even divide between Top 50 & Top 1001-1050 artists was, to us, unexpected. Once we narrowed the number of tracks down further, would this trend continue?  We would soon find out.

Day 2 – Narrowing 126 tracks down further

Day 2 started early as there was a lot of ground to cover.  The plan for Day 2 was to further narrow our list – and do so in an unconventional fashion: through the use of a software designed for large debate tournaments, “Tab Room on the PC.” Tab Room on the PC was designed by a college debate coach, Rich Edwards, in order to determine which debate teams were – for lack of a better term – the “best” out of a large pool of teams (e.g., up to 400 teams). Given time-constraints, it was impossible for each team to debate each other round-robin style, so Edwards designed a software to reflect a technique commonly used to run Debate tournaments.

In a nutshell, ‘Tab Room in the PC’ works this way: Assume a tournament has 120 teams. In the first round, the software randomly matches opponents, and so 60 debates take place simultaneously with opponents randomly assigned. Here’s where it gets interesting: after ballots are turned in with the results of the Round 1 debates, Round 2 is then matched based on the outcome of the Round 1 debates.  After the 60 round 1 matches, 30 teams will have a 1-0 record and 30 will have an 0-1 record. The software then matches 1-0 teams against one another, and 0-1 teams against one another. This process is repeated in round 3, round 4, etc. so that after Round 4, it matches a 4-0 team against a 4-0 team, a 3-1 team against a 3-1 team, a 2-2 team against a 2-2 team, etc.  A tournament may have 6 rounds (high school) or as many as 8 (college).  This approach is designed to efficiently find who is “best” (or in our case, the “preferred,” given the fact music is so much more heavily affected by taste). After 8 rounds of this process, the computer runs a report of the top 16 teams (i.e., the teams that have the best record, points assigned each round serve as tie-breakers) and it becomes a single-elimination tournament. If only college football in the USA was run this way!

This was the software we used. Time consuming, but thorough.

Head-to-Head “Competition” Begins

The software randomly matched up the remaining 126 tracks and our 5 participants spread out to different stations.  Each round, they were going to listen to 2 tracks and making 2 determinations: (1) which of the tracks did they like better? and (2) on a scale of 1-10, what would they rank each of the 2 tracks – this would serve later as a tie-breaker, if needed. It took some time to explain the process to the Focus Group, but once they got the idea, a buzz of excitement seemed to go through the group.

Round 1 took awhile – our 5 participants still appeared a bit confused with the process (our fault probably). Then settled in. Because they had all heard the tracks once, things began to move faster. Rather than having 5 people hear each song, our participants were assigned a different head-to-head track “match.”

Results after two rounds

Because Round 1 was randomly assigned, we did not pay much attention to the results.  We began to become interested, however, once the results of Round 2 rolled in, but it was still  too early to conclude much because of the luck of the draw – good for some, not so good for others (the very reason tournaments have at least 5 preliminary rounds).  After 2 rounds, 32 tracks were 2-0.  They are as follows, in alphabetical order:

For those counting countries Olympic-style, that’s US (5), Canada (4), UK (4) and 1 apiece for Australia, Brazil, Georgia, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, and Turkey.  Not bad for the US, but remember that there are 14 artists in the Top 50 from the US, 6 from the UK, and 4 from Canada.

More results soon.

Peace,

Monster Loop

This is Part 3 of a multi-part blog posting analyzing the way that Reverbnation, the popular artist/dj/rapper/band ranking website, ranks artists

In Part 2, we relayed forming a “focus group” of 5 people who listened to Electronic Music. We referred to them as “Power Listeners” due to the fact that they listened to Electronica more than the average fan. The idea was to play them music by some of the top Electronica artists in the world and get their opinion.

Early Saturday morning, each of the 5 showed up and we explained we’d be playing portions of 3 tracks produced by 100 different Electronica artists.  The total number of tracks was 260 because many artists had only 1 or 2 tracks on their Reverb page.  We did not tell the participants who the artists were or their ranking.  Music stations were arranged so participants could not tell which artist they were hearing. At times, participants recognized various tracks. In fact, it became a game for them to try to do so.

For the benefit of our readers, here are the artists who were evaluated:

Electronic Music Artists – Top 50*  (*ranked in Top 50 at the time Focus Group began, sorted in alphabetical order)

1. 99 posse (Italy)
2. Alderec King (Spain)
3. Anda Adam (Romania)
4. ATB (Germany)
5. Bassnectar (USA)
6. beats antique (USA)
7. BILLY (Canada)
8. BT (USA)
9. CARLPRIT (Germany)
10. Celldweller (USA)
11. Counting Clouds (Germany)
12. DarkAnkh (Bulgaria)
13. Datsik   (Canada)
14. DITRADEM (Belgium)
15. DJ Antonio (Spain)
16. Downlink (Canada)
17. Dr. Kucho (Spain)
18. Excision (Canada)
19. Frankie O. Solovely (USA)
20. GOLDFISH (South Africa)
21. Ibrahim Celik (Turkey)
22. iio (USA)
23. INCOLIDE (USA)
24. Infected Mushroom (USA)
25. Inna (Romania)
26. Jakeamon (UK)
27. Jillian Ann (USA)
28. Levent AYDOGAN (Turkey)
29. LIQUIDEEP (South Africa)
30. MikeWhitePresents (UK)
31. Milton Pacheco (Mexico)
32. Muratkardes (Turkey)
33. nickasaur! (USA)
34. NOISIA (Netherlands)
35. NUDE!  (Germany)
36. Paul van Dyk (Germany)
37. Pretty Lights (USA)
38. Quade77 (UK)
39. Ravana (USA)
40. Robbie Rivera (USA)
41. Serge Devant (USA)
42. Skreamizm (UK)
43. Somaya Reece (UK)
44. Steve Transcoder (Germany)
45. Syntopia Music (Germany)
46. TRANXGO (Argentina)
47. trezOra (Georgia)
48. Umek (Slovenia)
49. UNCLEMAD (Italy)
50. Underworld (UK)

Electronic Music Artists – Ranked 1001 – 1050 on Global Charts*  (*ranked at time Focus Group began, sorted in alphabetical order)

1. 2drops (Israel)
2. Amari (Romania)
3. Amit Bharadwaj (India)
4. Armin van Buuren (Netherlands)
5. Biofear (a/k/a Paul Baraka) (Canada)
6. Bong-Ra (Netherlands)
7. BornKiwi (New Zealand)
8. Bucie Nqwiliso (South Africa)
9. Burn in Noise (Brazil)
10. Cally Gage (UK)
11. Clancy and holoJean (USA)
12. DISCOMOJOYO (Indonesia)
13. Etnica (Spain)
14. Etostone (Greece)
15. Experiment Haywire (USA)
16. GarGO!! (Italy)
17. Gary Noakes (UK)
18. General Tornado (UK)
19. Going After Zen (UK)
20. Goldfrap (UK)
21. Itchy Robot (UK)
22. Kostistlac (Slovakia)
23. K-Toh (UK)
24. Laura Escude’ (USA)
25. Little Buddha (UK)
26. Little Star (Indonesia)
27. Marrow (USA)
28. MC CONRAD (UK)
29. Mechanical Renegade (USA)
30. Michael Faraci  (USA)
31. Mike Shiver (Sweden)
32. MOODMUSIC (France)
33. Nav-Vii (USA)
34. ORION (Germany)
35. Palenke Soultribe (USA)
36. Psextreme (Serbia)
37. Pure (UK)
38. Quiet Entertainer (USA)
39. Roughhausen (Taiwan)
40. Set Prometheus Aflame (USA)
41. Silver Medallion (USA)
42. Stickleback (Australia)
43. The Entranced (Netherlands)
44. The Swiss (Australia)
45. Thievery Corporation (USA)
46. Todoticket (Guatemala)
47. Tom Hades (Belgium)
48. Ultravision Records (Spain)
49. Worldwide Groove Corporation (USA)
50. Yuki Damon (Canada)

Throughout the day, our Focus Group participants listened to tracks by these artists, scoring each track on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10 (best).  As previously mentioned, we did not provide any guidance on what constituted “best,” but left that to each participant.  We did, however, suggest that they score “tough” because there were a lot of great artists they were about to hear. Each song play received 5 scores which were immediately averaged. Participants did not know at the time each track’s average score.

Tallying the Results

And at the end of a very loooong day, we sorted each track by the average score it received from our 5 judges.  But we weren’t done yet.  The following day we were going to have them listen to many of these tracks again, only a narrowed down list.  Specifically, we flagged the tracks that received an overall average score of at least 7.5 (we erroneously wrote 7 earlier today).  Recall that, we began with 260 tracks.  At the end of Day 1 (which went into the night), after reducing our list so that it only included tracks that received at least an average score of 7.5, we had a narrowed-down list of 126 tracks.  The analysis of those tracks will be the subject to the next blog.

Before signing off, we want to recognize the artists who received an average of 7.5 or higher for each of their 3 tracks.  Out of the 100 artists, only 17 had all three of their tracks score at least 7.5.  Keep in mind, however, that several of these 17 artists barely met the 7.5 threshold for 3 tracks and, more importantly, that some of the highest scoring tracks were not necessarily produced by artists who made this list.  Here’s something else: Of the 17 artists listed, six were from the artists currently ranked between 1001-1050. This was somewhat surprising to us.  This is all discussed in the next blog.

Artists whose 3 tracks all made the “cut”  (alphabetical order)

1. Amit Bharadwaj (India) (1001-1050)
2. Counting Clouds (Germany) (top 50)
3. Downlink (Canada) (top 50)
4. Dr. Kucho (Spain) (top 50)
5. Etnica (Spain) (1001-1050)
6. Excision (Canada) (top 50)
7. GarGO!! (Italy)  (1001-1050)
8. Going after Zen (UK) (1001-1050) (accidentally left off earlier – sorry)
9. Infected Mushroom (USA) (top 50)
10. Jillian Ann (USA) (top 50)
11. Levent AYDOGAN (Turkey) (top 50)
12. NUDE! (Germany) (top 50)
13. Steve Transcoder (Germany) (top 50)
14. Stickleback (Australia)  (1001-1050)
15. Tom Hades (Belgium)  (1001-1050)
16. Umek (Slovenia) (top 50)
17. Worldwide Groove Corporation (USA)  (1001-1050)

A few final observations

1. From a pool of 100 artists, tracks by these 17 represented over 40% of our final 126 tracks.  Several artists (not listed here) had 2 of their 3 tracks in the “final 126,” some of which only posted 2 tracks on their Reverbnation page (e.g., Goldfrap).
2. Of the 100 artists we began with, 27 were from the USA.  However, only 3 artists from the USA made the list of 17 despite the fact that 4 of our 5 judges were American.  Put another way, 27% of the 100 artists were American; 18% of the 17 artists listed above are from the USA. This at least suggested there was no foreign bias. Of course, unless our listeners happened to recognize a track, they had no idea who produced a track and/or where they were from – Electronic Music generally has no vocal overlay and, when it does, the language you hear may have nothing to do with where the artist is from.
3. We suspected that 1 or 2 artists from the group ranked 1001 – 1050 would sneak in this list. We did not, however, expect that slightly over 40% of the list of 17 artists would have come from the 1001 – 1050 ranks.  Frankly, we found this astonishing. More on that later.
4. We were concerned that songs that scored high might all be one particular Electronica sub-genre, like Dubstep, etc.  We were pleasantly surprised to see that many diverse styles were represented. One has only to listen to music by the 3 American artists – styles that couldn’t be more different from one another, for example – to see what we mean.
5. Our 5 participants requested that we please relay the following caveat (paraphrased, but you’ll get the idea): “We’re normal people with our own personal tastes in music.  Do not put too much stock in what we come up with. We’ve been wrong before and it won’t be the last time.”
6. Finally, keep in mind that  some of the highest scoring tracks were not recorded by these 17 artists, as you’ll shortly read about.  In fact, the track that had the highest overall average score from day 1 is not by an artist in this list of 17.  No track had a perfect 10 average from our judging panel, but 2 tracks came close. In a somewhat humorous moment, when one of these tracks was being played, ‘Rain Man’ (one of our 5 Judges) spontaneously blurted out: “HOLY <bleep>!!”   Based on his score, it was meant positively.

That’s all for today. More to come soon.

This is Part 2 of a multi-part blog posting analyzing the way that Reverbnation, the popular artist/dj/rapper/band ranking website, ranks artists. 

As we concluded in our last post, while there is no perfect band/artist rating system, it seemed to us that Reverbnation was genuinely trying to put together a fair, objective rankings system.

Since posting that blog, however, some aspect of the Reverbnation rankings approach bothered us, but we couldn’t quite figure out what.  Then it hit us. But we’re not going to relay our conclusion – yet. Instead, we wanted to see if we could demonstrate what we think the flaw is (with hopes it can be addressed). That being said, we respect Reverbnation, which – and this is no small statement – we genuinely see as a key player in the future evolution of music worldwide.

What’s the best way to “rank” (and therefore promote) talented artists? 

We decided to put together a group of people who are hard-core fans of Electronica – a “focus group,” in marketing language.  Our idea was to play tracks by the Electronic Music artists ranked in the top 50 or top 100 on the Reverbnation Charts, but without telling the participants which artist made which song, or the current ranking of each artist, so as not to bias them towards choosing an artist just because that artist happened to be ranked higher in the charts (i.e., to prevent the ‘popularity bias’).

Then we decided we’d also test another theory. Instead of playing music by the Top 100 Electronica Artists, we would instead play 3 tracks by each of the Top 50 artists and mix that with tracks produced by artists ranked from 1001 to 1050 – again, without telling our focus group which artist made what track, etc.

Why do this?  We figured there was obviously a connection between an artist’s/producer’s ranking on the Reverbnation Electronica Charts and quality of that artist’s music (certainly more so than what is reflected on more mainstream charts, like Billboard). However, we thought the current rankings might unevenly reward artists who regularly perform in public and/or were better at the administrative aspects of the music business, benefiting them over artists who also produced great work, but were unpolished (e.g., they didn’t know how to master their tracks) and/or simply did not perform publicly and, therefore, had a hard time accumulating fans – perhaps because they were studio producers rather than performers. Just because an artist was out in public promoting itself, we wondered, should that necessarily elevate them in the rankings over an introverted producer?  Consider this: exactly 2 years ago, Lady Gaga was ranked #728 in the Electronica category on Reverbnation! She now purportedly has over 10 millions fans on Facebook.  Did she just suddenly improve? 

The answer, of course, is that Lady Gaga was just as good in October 2009 as she is currently – but 10 million people didn’t know about her – and this got reflected in her Reverbnation ranking.  Aside from the obvious marketing benefits, there are, of course, advantages to performing publicly. Having been DJs ourselves, we are aware of the pressure of keeping a crowd moving for hours. Fun? Yes.  Easy?  No way, and we respect those who do it.  But we should also remember that there are advantages to another approach: cloistering oneself, not that the two approaches are mutually exclusive.

Secluding oneself for a time in order to record music has the advantage of giving the artist time to reflect inwardly and perfect their craft.  Frankfurt Germany’s electronic genius, Oliver Lieb (a/k/a/ Spicelab, LSG, etc.) is, we hear, one such example. Many of us remember our high school days being surprised to learn that the quiet girl no one knew graduated at the top of the class.  It also gives an artist space to develop their own unique sound.  There are times when it’s good to hear other artists. The trick is, preserving what it is that makes you, well, you, and not parroting other musicians.  It’s our philosophy that what makes an artist great is his/her ability to express their uniqueness through their music. Unlike the conventional thinking of big business, people aren’t looking for a product/service – song, anything, produced for them. Instead, the power of a creation is when it represents an authentic expression of its creator – each of whom is unique.  THAT is what we all want to connect with (or, in business parlance, purchase) because, to be candid, we’re all connected.  Literally.

And so, after some initial failures,  we managed to assemble a focus group. Yes, we actually did.

The Monster Loop Electronic Music “Focus Group”

What were we after in our group?  First, because the Electronica category includes many different styles (e.g., Dubstep, Psytrance, House, Progressive, Ambient, etc.), we wanted people who liked many styles of Electronica. Second, we wanted men & women. Third, we wanted people who represented different age groups, but who all liked & actively listened to Electronica. And fourth, we wanted people who were into Electronic Music more than they were into the Electronic Music scene.

The Focus Group – it actually worked

We ended up finding 5 people, each of whom we paid a modest sum, to listen to music. And it wasn’t that hard. Little did they know at the time, they were about to hear A LOT of music. To respect their privacy, we will not reveal their identities. They did, however, give us permission to relay the following:

Participant #1 (“Katja”) is a 24 year old female from Germany studying mathematics at a Chicago-area university.  She listens to Electronic Music around 5 hours a week and is “heavy” into the European Electronica scene.

Participant #2 (“Mike”) is a 45 year old man from Chicago who manages a record store. By the end of the weekend, he acquired a nickname – “Rain Man,” (he was cool with this) due to his ability to recall obscure facts about almost any techno artist from the past 30 years.  He claims he has over 5,000 vinyl records, most of which are Electronica, though he pointed out that term “is of recent lineage.”

Participant #3 (“Jose”) is a 28 year old man from Hammond, Indiana. He’s a graphic designer in Chicago and said he likes every style of Electronica. His favorite style is Dubstep.

Participant #4 (“Jason”) is a 29 year old unemployed man from Chicago who likes ambient, downbeat, and experimental techno. He thinks Aphex Twin (Richard James) is “the best ever.”

Participant #5 (“Seth”) is a 40 year old man who has been listening to electronic music since 1988. His favorite styles are “Acid House, Progressive, and Psytrance” and “almost any style if it has a good beat.” Like ‘Rain Man,’ he had an impressive knowledge of the genre.

Weaknesses of our Group

The youngest participant in our focus group is 24 years old.  There is obviously a huge contingent of fans under age 24 – and we’d love to get their viewpoint. This particular focus group, however, had alcohol. Enough said. Most of the participants are from Chicago; there is only one non-American (a German) and 4 of the 5 participants are men.  A more subjective “weakness” (strength?) of the group is that there appeared to be a higher than average IQ level – just a guess and we’re not sure of the impact. Finally, 5 is hardly enough people to draw too many conclusions. From our own experience, however, we have continually been surprised to find that people who have listened to and commented on our music have generally liked the same tracks.

What the Electronic Music Focus Group listened to & liked

Results will be discussed in the following two blogs. For now, we wanted to relay what we had our little group do (bwaa haa ha).  After meeting for dinner on Friday evening to make sure no one was Jack the Ripper, each person agreed to show up the following morning at my home outside Chicago (note: Monster Loop is listed as Atlanta on the charts because William lives there and I used to. Note also the photo on the left which was taken while setting up).   They were then asked to listen to samples of 260 Electronic Music tracks. Yes, 260. And, yes, it took all day.  Probably poor planning on our part.  Beer was eventually brought in, and food. People took breaks, etc.

After hearing a track, each person was asked to score it between 1 and “10,” 10 being best. We did not provide any guidance other than that 10 was whatever they liked best, however they defined “best,” whether or not it had the slickest production, etc.

And they did. They actually did.  Many funny things happened that day.  That is the subject of my next post.

G’night!

Yes, yes we know – it’s been a ridiculous amount of time since we’ve posted.  Shame on us!  In fact, it’s been so long, we couldn’t even remember our login information.  After a few hours digging around, however, we managed to scrounge it up in our search through a back catalogue of a thousand emails – mostly useless spam.

Why were we gone so long?  What artists will we discuss next?  All of these answers - and more - coming soon.  We’re dusting off the cobwebs, so to speak, and will post in the next 24 hours or our name isn’t Ignatius T. Kettlewoop.  Well, actually it isn’t, but yes we do plan to post.

In the meantime, for your listening enjoying and general amusement, we recommend you check out Swamp Princess & T-Diggity, a 6 and 8 year old who love electronic music and are currently ranked #26 on the global charts (#18 U.S.) ”Children’s” category.   We, Monster Loop, perform the music so perhaps we have a slight conflict of interest!

Not too long ago, the members of Monster Loop recall a time back when we were young dj punks that finding good electronic music created in America was… how should one put it?  a challenge.  In fact, this member recalls playing a 9-hour dj set in northern California that featured only ONE track produced by an American artist. Nine hours!  What was going on then?

Taste in music is, of course, relative.  We recall carting around album bins filled with vinyl produced in Germany, produced in Belgium, in France, in the UK, hell, even Romania (and one helluva track it was – Robitiko Rejekto!)… and so forth and so on…and nary an American artist in the cue.  Well, there was the acid house section in case the evening got weird (dj rule 1 – be prepared for strange, strange will happen). That section was loaded with some great American artists such as Phuture (DJ Pierre – creator of “Acid Traxx”). But even DJ Pierre was, purportedly, more awed by the UK techno scene, allegedly stating that it was there that he, for the first time, felt truly appreciated.

Several explanations for this phenomenon have been offered.  Some claim that, just at the time electronic music was starting to take off in the U.S., the Seattle rock scene kicked in (yes, Nirvana, et. al.), effectively crushing the growth of techno in America at that time.  Similarly, some say – and we tend to agree – that Americans are a tad too wedded to the concept of music as guitar, unable to move past the idea that music does not necessarily have to be created by an ensemble of guitarists and a drummer wearing faded tshirts and weathered jeans, gesticulating wildly behind a gyrating singer yelling about his/her particular neurosis.  Geez, try therapy kid, it’s worth it.  Perhaps this is overly critical – something we’re wary of doing, but it seems to us that this concept has become antiquated.

But times do change – ultimately the western world begrudgingly accepted the fact that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the other way around, and ultimately Americans began to accept that electronic music was a vehicle that allowed them to hear five trillion more variations of sound than under other, more traditional, vehicles of sound (and let’s face it, that’s all an instrument is).  And now we can proudly state that electronic music is alive and kicking in America.  And, on that note, we offer for your enjoyment the following tracks, all made in the USA.  Okay, so we included one of our own. We didn’t want to miss out on this one. Incidentally, the tracks are made by, in order, Burro Music (Texas), Aligning Minds (Maryland), Gregor (Illinois), Monster Loop (Georgia), C’Mongrooves (Florida), and Suremy (California).