Abstract: A music analysis and recommendation system (“the system”) is configured to receive and analyzing data associated with a song performed by a performer. The system also accesses a current contextual information repository to identify a current cultural paradigm and maps the current cultural paradigm to a historical contextual information repository to identify one or more historical periods that have a cultural paradigm matching the current cultural paradigm. The system then identifies one or more hit songs during the one or more historical periods and retrieves data associated with the one or more hit songs. The data associated with the song performed by the performer is compared with data associated with each of the hit songs to determine a similarity. Based upon the determined similarities, the system determines a likelihood of the song becoming a hit song and/or a likelihood of the performer becoming a hit song performer.