While there may never be a true substitute for the human aspect and art of A&R, these findings demonstrate the value of applying social media data to the process of uncovering new talent. With this in mind, we applied a statistical model based on the social trajectory of artists that have been successful in the past to the Next Big Sound database. If you are looking to find who is really going to blow up in 2013, acts such as Atlas Genius, HAIM, Jessie Ware and Trinidad James come highly recommended. Or at least that is what the numbers say.

Research contributed by Victor Hu, data scientist with music analytics company Next Big Sound. Hu is a graduate of Harvard University and has previously worked uncovering insights for the New York Yankees and the U.S. Department of Defense.

I will have to look for Atlas Genius, HAIM, Jessie Ware and Trinidad James.

It's interesting -- this has come up before:

http://pandawhale.com/post/6462/can-a-software-program-pick-the-next-pop-music-star

Music in particular is fairly straightforward to model, apparently.

Algorithms can at least act as a first-order filter.