Google Music Trends is part of Google Labs right now but I seemed not to have noticed it till now - it’s pretty recent and based on Google Talk.  Accordint to Google:

"Music Trends is a snapshot of the music that’s popular right now among Google Talk listeners. Every Talk user who has opted in to Music Trends will cast their vote automatically, each time they listen to music on their computer. We’ll gather this information and display the trends by genre, listing the favorite songs and artists in each category.

You can click through from the trends results to information pages about the artist or album, courtesy of Google’s Music Search. Another click and you could be at one of a number of online stores from which to buy the music, either as a digital download or on physical media. "

There’s probably not that many people right now using Google Talk and participating in Google Music Trends but I think it might be a way to evaluate popularity of a group or band or single musician in the near future.  Right now, popularity of a recording artist is determined partly by the number of "spins" they get on popular radio stations.

But there’s a lot more to it.  I wrote a post earlier this summer on  Google Radio Finally Coming.

"According to CNET,

"We are in the process of introducing AdSense for radio, which is essentially the integration of the dMarc console and management tools into our advertising system. There are a number of very interesting deals being negotiated," Schmidt said. It’s a typically ambitious effort for Google, which got into the radio business in January with its $102 million acquisition of dMarc Broadcasting, a company that had an automated radio advertising system."

"…So why the excitement? dMarc automates the process of buying ads, placing them in time slots and tracking them, which is usually done by ad agencies over the phone, experts said. Automation could lead to efficiency, and that means lower prices for advertisers while bringing in more sales for the radio stations".

While rating systems are totally unrelated in the past they have one thing in common now….Google.  And Google has the capacity to merge the buzz data from Google Talk with the Advertiser data from dMarc and create something new…and that’s what I think is going to happen.