Analytics

Gracenote is launching its Global Music Data, the catalog of reference for the music industry, in India. The solution localizes Gracenote’s comprehensive collection of descriptive music information for the Indian market enabling regional music and global streaming services to now deliver advanced search, discovery and navigation of India-based music to fans all over the world.

A vibrant and complex music market, India is experiencing massive growth among local listeners as well as fans around the globe. The market is driven by a close relationship to the Bollywood film industry with popular musical scores and soundtracks dominating the landscape. While typical Western music catalogs are organized by artist, recording and album, the popular music scene in India features a range of talent, from playback singers and actors to music directors, lyricists and songwriters among many others featured in films. With more than 1,000 movies released annually, the data challenges that underpin next generation search, discovery and navigation are compounded. Further complicating matters are India’s 22 official languages and variances in music popularity by region.

The Gracenote Global Music Data solution aims to help solve India’s music data challenge by normalizing Artists, Albums and Recordings with a proprietary ID system that associates the right content with the right recording artists, actors and music directors. Leveraging industry-standard media linking and IDs, Gracenote Global Music Data enables smarter search and discovery of playback singers across digital media catalogs, including linear TV, movies and VOD. In addition, the latest database supports key local languages and alternate names to power playlisting and search using voice assistants and smart speakers.

“India is one of the fastest growing music markets in the world and also one of the most complex,” said Brian Hamilton, General Manager of Music and Auto at Gracenote. “With the strong ties to Bollywood, there are multiple singers, actors and directors on a single tag or field that creates metadata challenges. Gracenote is now applying its world-class ID structures, metadata standards and AI/machine learning skills to make Indian music more searchable and discoverable to help services drive engagement and interactivity with fans in India and around the globe.”

Gracenote’s unmatched database of deep, descriptive music information covering genre, era, origin, tempo and mood already serves as the backbone of the music industry. Gracenote Global Music Data leverages the best music experts in the world and applies state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to scale recording-level descriptors to tens of millions of songs. As a part of the solution, global and regional streaming music services will have direct access to Gracenote’s latest music descriptor which classifies the “style” of individual musical recordings for more powerful search and discovery experiences and more personalized playlists.