IdolSongsJp Corpus: A Multi-Singer Song Corpus in the Style of Japanese Idol Groups

TL;DR

The paper introduces IdolSongsJp, a comprehensive multi-singer song corpus in the style of Japanese idol groups, designed to benchmark music processing techniques with diverse, annotated tracks.

Contribution

It presents a newly created, annotated music corpus tailored for benchmarking various music information processing tasks involving idol group-style songs.

Findings

Corpus includes 15 professionally composed tracks with stems and annotations.

Demonstrates the corpus's diversity by comparing with real idol group songs.

Evaluates music processing techniques using the corpus.

Abstract

Japanese idol groups, comprising performers known as "idols," are an indispensable part of Japanese pop culture. They frequently appear in live concerts and television programs, entertaining audiences with their singing and dancing. Similar to other J-pop songs, idol group music covers a wide range of styles, with various types of chord progressions and instrumental arrangements. These tracks often feature numerous instruments and employ complex mastering techniques, resulting in high signal loudness. Additionally, most songs include a song division (utawari) structure, in which members alternate between singing solos and performing together. Hence, these songs are well-suited for benchmarking various music information processing techniques such as singer diarization, music source separation, and automatic chord estimation under challenging conditions. Focusing on these characteristics, we constructed a song corpus titled IdolSongsJp by commissioning professional composers to create 15 tracks in the style of Japanese idol groups. This corpus includes not only mastered audio tracks but also stems for music source separation, dry vocal tracks, and chord annotations. This paper provides a detailed description of the corpus, demonstrates its diversity through comparisons with real-world idol group songs, and presents its application in evaluating several music information processing techniques.