The Echo Nest is possibly the hottest music data company around right now. They’ve signed deals with Nokia, EMI, Clear Channel, Spotify, and most recently, Vevo.
So chances are if you enjoy music, The Echo Nest has something to do with what songs you’re recommended.
Knowing this, I couldn’t resist sitting down with CEO Jim Lucchese to chat out what the music industry will look like in the next couple years, and how The Echo Nest may shape it.
Lucchese believes that the songs you listen to say something about your identity, and that music services have a huge problem ahead of them in the form of millions of listeners and millions of digital music titles. Being the middle man between such huge pools of information is nearly impossible without a deep understanding of the music itself.
But Lucchese believes that the real shift will come by way of understanding the listener, too. We’re getting to a point now where music can be analyzed and categorized in a number of different ways, but little is known about why someone would enjoy Nicki Minaj and Florence + The Machine at the same time. That’s what The Echo Nest is trying to figure out, and it would seem that the company is doing so ahead of the rest of the industry.