Audio cover song identification and similarity: Background, approaches, evaluation, and beyond

Abstract

A cover version is an alternative rendition of a previously recorded song. Given that a cover may differ from the original song in timbre, tempo, structure, key, arrangement, or language of the vocals, automatically identifying cover songs in a given music collection is a rather difficult task. The music information retrieval (MIR) community has paid much attention to this task in recent years and many approaches have been proposed. This chapter comprehensively summarizes the work done in cover song identification while encompassing the background related to this area of research. The most promising strategies are reviewed and qualitatively compared under a common framework, and their evaluation methodologies are critically assessed. A discussion on the remaining open issues and future lines of research closes the chapter. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010.