Estimating the Release Date of Richard Shindell’s Next Album
Richard Shindell has been working on his next album for quite some time now. His fans (that includes me) try to be patient. Several new songs have already made their live debut. The album is supposed to be called “Viceroy Mimic” (VM), but a couple of weeks ago he also mentioned “Same River Once” as a contender. Pressed about a release date, Shindell said (during a recent concert in Boston) January 2015. Regardless of this, here’s the statistical perspective – just for fun! The linear trend across all album releases (including live albums, cover albums, Cry, Cry, Cry etc.) suggests that a new album should have been released on November 4, 2013.
The quadratic trend across Richard’s original studio albums, however, would imply a May 11, 2014 release date for “Viceroy Mimic”. The linear prediction appears to be worse in this case; it the lag between original albums is increasing.
Given the projected 2015 release, a cubic function might be necessary, soon. Anyway, below you can find the detailed data and the Stata code to replicate the graphs.
Release dates:
- Sparrows Point (SP) March 20, 1992
- Blue Divide (BD) September 25, 1994
- Reunion Hill (RH) August 19, 1997
- Cry Cry Cry (C3) October 1, 1998 (cover album with Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplansky)
- Somewhere Near Paterson (SNP) February 8, 2000
- Courier (C) February 12, 2002 (live album)
- Vuelta (V) August 24, 2004
- South of Delia (SOD) May 10, 2007 (cover album)
- Live at the Chandler Music Hall, Randolph, VT (L) January 1, 2008 (live album; I estimated its release date based on an email I got shortly after the album was available online)
- Not Far Now (NFN) April 7, 2009
- 13 Songs You May or May Not Have Heard Before (13S) November 17, 2011 (mainly re-recordings of old songs; released on Amazon.com on December 15, 2011, but I already bought it during his UK tour back then, so I used an early date of that tour here)
Stata code:
* release dates of Richard Shindell's albums
* written by Johannes Schult jutze@jutze.com
* last updated 2014-03-24
version 13.1
set more off
clear
set obs 11
generate str album = ""
generate double releasedate = .
replace releasedate = mdy(3,20,1992) in 1/1
format %tdMonth_dd,_CCYY releasedate
replace album = "Sparrows Point" in 1
replace album = "Blue Divide" in 2
replace album = "Reunion Hill" in 3
replace album = "Cry Cry Cry" in 4
replace album = "Somewhere Near Paterson" in 5
replace album = "Courier" in 6
replace album = "Vuelta" in 7
replace album = "South of Delia" in 8
replace album = "Live at the Chandler Music Hall" in 9
replace album = "Not Far Now" in 10
replace album = "13 Songs" in 11
replace album = "Live in Randolph, VT" in 9
replace releasedate = mdy(9,25,1994) in 2
replace releasedate = mdy(8,19,1997) in 3
replace releasedate = mdy(10,1,1998) in 4
replace releasedate = mdy(2,8,2000) in 5
replace releasedate = mdy(2,12,2002) in 6
replace releasedate = mdy(8,24,2004) in 7
replace releasedate = mdy(5,10,2007) in 8
replace releasedate = mdy(1,1,2008) in 9
replace releasedate = mdy(4,7,2009) in 10
replace releasedate = mdy(11,17,2011) in 11
gen albumnumber = _n
gen RS_original_studio = 0
replace RS_original_studio = 1 in 1
replace RS_original_studio = 1 in 2
replace RS_original_studio = 1 in 3
replace RS_original_studio = 1 in 5
replace RS_original_studio = 1 in 7
replace RS_original_studio = 1 in 10
gen RS_original_studio_number = .
replace RS_original_studio_number = 1 in 1
replace RS_original_studio_number = 2 in 2
replace RS_original_studio_number = 3 in 3
replace RS_original_studio_number = 4 in 5
replace RS_original_studio_number = 5 in 7
replace RS_original_studio_number = 6 in 10
*di mdy(9,25,1994)
*di mdy(1,1,2015)
*di mdy(1,1,1994)
label define allalbums 1 "SP" 2 "BD" 3 "RH" 4 "C3" 5 "SNP" 6 "C" 7 "V" 8 "SOD" 9 "L" 10 "NFN" 11 "13S" 12 "VM"
label define origalbums 1 "SP" 2 "BD" 3 "RH" 4 "SNP" 5 "V" 6 "NFN" 7 "VM"
label values albumnumber allalbums
label values RS_original_studio_number origalbums
label variable albumnumber "Albums"
label variable RS_original_studio_number "Original studio albums"
label variable releasedate "Release dates"
regress releasedate albumnumber
regress releasedate c.albumnumber c.albumnumber#c.albumnumber
regress releasedate RS_original_studio_number
regress releasedate c.RS_original_studio_number c.RS_original_studio_number#c.RS_original_studio_number
* lin trend all albums
twoway (scatter releasedate albumnumber) (lfit releasedate albumnumber) (scatteri 19666 12 "?", mlabposition(9)), ymlabel(11688(1461)20150, angle(horizontal) grid glcolor(gs15) glpattern(shortdash)) ylabel(12419(1461)20150, angle(horizontal) grid) xlabel(1(1)12, valuelabel grid) title(Richard Shindell's Album Release Dates) subtitle(A Linear Extrapolation (R² = .99)) note(L and 13S dates estimated; all other dates from Wikipedia; CC by Johannes Schult) legend(order(1 2))
graph display Graph, scheme(s1mono)
graph export rsallalbumslinear.png, as(png) replace
* quad trend original albums
twoway (scatter releasedate RS_original_studio_number) (qfit releasedate RS_original_studio_number) (scatteri 19854 7 "?", mlabposition(9)), ymlabel(11688(1461)20150, angle(horizontal) grid glcolor(gs15) glpattern(shortdash)) ylabel(12419(1461)20150, angle(horizontal) grid) xlabel(1(1)7, valuelabel grid) title(Richard Shindell's Album Release Dates) subtitle(A Quadratic Extrapolation (R² > .99)) note(dates from Wikipedia; CC by Johannes Schult) legend(order(1 2))
graph display Graph, scheme(s1mono)
graph export rsorigalbumsquad.png, as(png) replace
* predictions for Viceroy Mimic
regress releasedate albumnumber
di 11326.65+12*694.9364
di day(19666)
di month(19666)
di year(19666)
regress releasedate c.RS_original_studio_number c.RS_original_studio_number#c.RS_original_studio_number
di 11274.4+7*445.7429+7*7*111.4286
di day(19854)
di month(19854)
di year(19854)
exit
* have a nice day