Rock Analytics

Model: gradient-boosted trees on 24 years of rank trajectories, artist strength and airplay; probabilities calibrated on 20 backtest years. History's caveat: shock events (deaths, reunions, finales) decide the crown about as often as trajectory does; that's the "field".

Each dot is a song: where we said it would land, against where it did. On the dotted line we were exactly right; above it, the song did better than we said; below it, worse. Both axes are logarithmic, because the top of the list is where the argument is. The bigger dots are our predicted top 100.

We published this before a single song aired. The right-hand column fills in as the station reveals the list.