October Contest - Objective Ratings
A quantified analysis of songs submitted for the October 2005 KVR 'Frankenmix' Contest.
| bitshift | Covering UTM's Covers | 0.34 Trick | 0.81 Apple |
| farlukar | Stitched | 0.50 Trick | 0.21 Orange |
| Wopelka | Don't Talk To The Walking Deadmen, Mary! | 0.14 Treat | 0.42 Apple |
| mystahr | Scary ZombioniSphere | 0.36 Trick | 0.13 Orange |
| Patrick9 | Death March | 0.37 Treat | 0.24 Orange |
| HanglowSkank | Pick and Mix | 0.64 Trick | 0.48 Apple |
| You™ | Drop Dead (The Grave Alphabet Song) | 0.50 Treat | 0.79 Orange |
| fucanay | The Monster Romp | 0.92 Treat | 0.51 Orange |
| knockman | FRANKIN(non)SENSE | 0.73 Trick | 0.10 Apple |
| WattTyler | Frankenbarney must die | 0.88 Treat | 0.60 Orange |
| Scoops | knarF | 0.12 Treat | 0.70 Orange |
| emdot_ambient | Cries And Whispers | 0.45 Treat | 0.72 Apple |
| rachMiel | fLown | 0.36 Trick | 0.62 Apple |
| Beardedone | Grave Fruit | 0.57 Trick | 0.49 Apple |
| slartibartfast | Sweet Screams | 0.41 Trick | 0.25 Orange |
| nikp2000 | terror cell | 0.10 Trick | 0.92 Apple |
| Caco | Frinkenhedron | 0.16 Trick | 0.39 Orange |
| WoJ | SpookyGroovy | 0.22 Treat | 0.73 Orange |
| Hovmod | Grooveyard | 0.58 Treat | 0.35 Orange |
| Krakatau | Une Marseillaise d'enfer | 0.51 Treat | 0.17 Apple |
| Markleford | The Denied | 0.67 Trick | 0.22 Apple |
| Unfocused | FrankenS(am)Time | 0.16 Treat | 0.61 Apple |
| starmelt | afriendlypersonwithanobsessionforknives | 0.91 Trick | 0.18 Apple |
| Mo Verdigast | PLEAS | 0.24 Treat | 0.72 Orange |
| freeztar | Crescendo of Fear | 0.09 Trick | 0.69 Orange |
To help you interpret your results, I've analysed a few well-known classics and plotted them on a graph. How do you compare?
Please note that there is no simple correlation between these figures and the perceived 'quality' of the song. For more on this fraught topic, see Schnitzler's landmark study: Trick/Treat Analysis With Regard To European Chart Success: Some Preliminary Findings (1994).
Equipment used:
For the purposes of this exercise, I ran the songs through a standard non-repeating Quantum Spectralyser (pictured right). The experiment was conducted in a partial vacuum to reduce unwanted interference from sound waves.
Disclaimer: It has been demonstrated (Whistle & Lipton, 2002) that mp3 compression can have minor effects on score calculation, but results should remain broadly correct.
Explanatory notes and exercises:
A common error is to picture the grid of results as forming a two-dimensional space. Unsurprisingly, modern science paints a more complicated picture. While common sense would suggest that apple and orange are antithetical (1 apple = -1 orange), under certain conditions a high appleness actually becomes indistinguishable from high orangeness, the two ends of the axis apparently converging on a value of 1, i.e. 1 apple = 1 orange. So in effect, a song with an apple of 0.8, while conventionally holding a charge of -0.8 orange, can simultaneously, albeit weakly, exhibit qualities of a +0.8 orange song. This curious dual nature has led to a degree of confusion in the scientific community, and the anguished cry of the scientist - 'it's like comparing apples and oranges!' - has already entered the vernacular. A similar convergence occurs on the trick/treat axis.
These findings might seem counter-intuitive at first, but it helps to think of the graph as the surface of a sphere, with the axes meeting at the two poles, the southern pole where the axes cross at 0, the northern pole where all values are 1.
Exercise 1.
Take your safety scissors and cut out the graph above. Now bend the graph so that it forms an open-ended cylinder, with the end of the orange axis (O) meeting the end of the apple axis (A). Join the two points with sticky tape. Now repeat with the trick/treat axis, bending T(k) and T(t) to meet the pole at O/A. Good work!
The graph should now form a perfect sphere, with no excess paper. If it doesn't, you've done something wrong. Don't give up, now. Persistence is the key!
As some have noted, the spherical construction of trick/treat space raises as many questions as it answers. The nature of the phantom space enclosed within the sphere remains deeply problematic. Until the pioneering work of the 1990s, it was assumed that all music existed on the measurable surface of sphere-space. Every song had a fixed value on the trick/treat scale, and another on the fruit axis. Using modern equipment, however, scientists have demonstrated that a song such as William Shatner's rendition of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", while conventionally exhibiting 0.87 Trick, can also be shown, under very specific laboratory conditions, to have a recessive value of 0.13 Treat. This defies traditional thought, and has forced radical innovation in terms of how we imagine trick/treat space. 
Research now suggests that songs exist within the sphere until they are actually heard, at which point recessive values disappear and a single measurable value can be obtained. Theoretically, every song can be said to exist within the body of the sphere in an undefined quantum state, possessing a unique, unworldly blend of trick, treat, orange and apple; upon being heard it collapses out into curved fruit-horror space, represented in our analogy by the sphere's surface.
Recent studies have concentrated on the possibility of a song which can resist quantum collapse, and thus defy conventional measurement. While standard songs, as we have shown, collapse onto the nearest point of regular fruit-horror space when heard, a hypothetical song which resides at the precise centre of the sphere would be subjected to equal force in every direction, and would therefore remain uncollapsed in a state of quantum suspension. Such a song would in fact partake equally of trick, treat, apple and orange, simultaneously, in all possible values from -1 to +1. There are several schools of thought regarding the nature of this hypothetical quantum suspension. Some have suggested it would form a Portal to Eternal Damnation, or perhaps a bitchin' guitar solo.
