Study Examines AI Use in Predicting Digital Music Consumption Trends

The music industry has shifted from traditional album sales to streaming numbers and online interactions as primary measures of success. A study published today examines the relationship between social media use and perceived music popularity while testing artificial intelligence as a tool to identify emerging cultural trends in digital music consumption.

Researchers conducted a survey of 300 socially active music listeners and interviewed 15 industry stakeholders. The quantitative analysis included descriptive statistics, factor analysis, multiple regression, mediation analysis and time-series correlation.

Sentiment analysis using TextBlob and VADER processed real-time social media data from large platforms. The regression model accounted for 48 percent of the variance in perceived music popularity with R-squared equal to 0.48. Social media engagement, music-sharing behavior, sentiment responsiveness and trust in AI recommendations emerged as the main predictors.

Mediation analysis indicated that the link between AI familiarity and perceived popularity is partially explained by trust in AI recommendations. This finding highlights the role of transparency in AI-based recommendation systems.

Exploratory sentiment and time-series analysis showed that prior social media activity, particularly on TikTok and YouTube, is associated with chart entry within one to three days. The study emphasized that its models perform better at correlational and classification tasks than at long-term forecasting.

The author stated that AI functions as an instrument that signals early success in music rather than as a predictor of future outcomes. The research received approval from the Leshan Normal University Academic Committee in March 2024 with informed consent collected in June 2024.

Participation in the survey and interviews was voluntary. Respondents received full information about the study's objectives and procedures, and all responses remained anonymous.