Twenty-Five Years of MIR Research: Achievements, Practices, Evaluations, and Future Challenges

2025-04-06

IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing

AI Summary

This paper addresses the persistent challenges in Music Information Retrieval (MIR) stemming from fragmented evaluation practices, limited reproducibility, and insufficient industry-academia-community integration. Through a systematic 25-year literature review, analysis of the MIREX benchmarking initiative, and community surveys, the authors identify four sustainable development paradigms: institutionalized annual benchmarking, normalized open and reproducible research, formalized industry-academia collaboration, and codified diversity and inclusion in community governance. They propose a novel academic ecosystem model anchored on diversity and industry alignment, and introduce a task-driven technical evaluation framework grounded in the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s audio processing taxonomy. The study synthesizes key advances in music analysis, processing, and generation, assesses their societal impact, and provides a structural roadmap for advancing MIR toward greater openness, collaboration, and inclusivity.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Evaluation and Analysis
• Natural Language Processing: Interpretability, Analysis, and Evaluation of NLP Models
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Mining of Visual, Multimedia & Multimodal Data

Application Category

• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Fairness-aware retrieval and ranking
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Models for Web evolution

Abstract

In this paper, we trace the evolution of Music Information Retrieval (MIR) over the past 25 years. While MIR gathers all kinds of research related to music informatics, a large part of it focuses on signal processing techniques for music data, fostering a close relationship with the IEEE Audio and Acoustic Signal Processing Technical Commitee. In this paper, we reflect the main research achievements of MIR along the three EDICS related to music analysis, processing and generation. We then review a set of successful practices that fuel the rapid development of MIR research. One practice is the annual research benchmark, the Music Information Retrieval Evaluation eXchange, where participants compete on a set of research tasks. Another practice is the pursuit of reproducible and open research. The active engagement with industry research and products is another key factor for achieving large societal impacts and motivating younger generations of students to join the field. Last but not the least, the commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion ensures MIR to be a vibrant and open community where various ideas, methodologies, and career pathways collide. We finish by providing future challenges MIR will have to face.

Problem

• Tracing the evolution of Music Information Retrieval research over 25 years
• Reviewing achievements in music analysis, processing and generation techniques
• Identifying future challenges facing Music Information Retrieval field development

Innovation

• Signal processing techniques for music data analysis
• Annual benchmark competitions for research evaluation
• Open reproducible research practices with industry engagement