Genetic Data Analysis Tools Reveal How US Pop Music Evolved 57
KentuckyFC writes: The history of pop music is rich in anecdotes, folklore and controversy. But despite the keen interest, there is little in the form of hard evidence to back up most claims about the evolution of music. Now a group of researchers have used data analysis tools developed for genomic number crunching to study the evolution of U.S. pop music. The team studied 30-second segments of more than 17,000 songs that appeared on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 between 1960 and 2010. Their tools categorized the songs according to harmonic features such as chord changes as well as the quality of timbre such as whether guitar-based, piano-based orchestra-based and so on. They then used a standard algorithm for discovering clusters within networks of data to group the songs into 13 different types, which turned out to correspond with well known genres such as rap, rock, country and so on. Finally, they plotted the change in popularity of these musical types over time.
The results show a clear decline in the popularity of jazz and blues since 1960. During the same period, rock-related music has ebbed and flowed in popularity. By contrast, rap was rare before 1980 before becoming the dominant musical style for 30 years until declining in the late 2000s. The work answers several important question about the evolution of pop music, such as whether music industry practices have led to a decline in the cultural variety of new music, and whether British bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones triggered the 1964 American music revolution [spoiler: no in both cases].
The results show a clear decline in the popularity of jazz and blues since 1960. During the same period, rock-related music has ebbed and flowed in popularity. By contrast, rap was rare before 1980 before becoming the dominant musical style for 30 years until declining in the late 2000s. The work answers several important question about the evolution of pop music, such as whether music industry practices have led to a decline in the cultural variety of new music, and whether British bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones triggered the 1964 American music revolution [spoiler: no in both cases].
Re:PURE RUBISH. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, their methodology was crap to begin with. There's no weighing of each song based on sales, airplay, etc. And with the volume of crap hip-hip and rap out there from every self-proclaimed "gangsta", it was inevitable that the study would be biased towards the most produced, not the most popular.
For those who don't quite follow, say you have 10 rock songs you really like, and 20 rap songs that you listened once and were tempted to delete. According to their methodology, you prefer rap because you've got twice as much of it.
Same garbage wrt their comments about the British Invasion's [wikipedia.org] effect on music.
They worked out an algorithm to define genre (Score:3, Interesting)
Quite a neat little trick. But making grandiose claims about defining the "evolution of music" is ridiculous.
If tracking genre popularity had been their goal, they could have just picked up the sales figures for each year between 1960-2010 and pasted them into an Excel sheet. The people selling records already know what genre each record belongs to.
Re: (Score:1)
But this was not their goal, they were categorizing based on what was in the music, it just happened to correspond to traditional categories as well.
And with all of these Medium.com articles with nothing added, if this was the goal, Dice could just tell them that they should put a discussion board on their site and be done with it.
Re: (Score:2)
Since when was rap the dominant genre for 30 years since the 80's?! ;-)
Run DMC had one hit. Then there was Vanilla Ice ice baby.
It wasn't until the mid to late 90's that rap became more mainstream with top selling albums like Dr. Dre and Snoop. You going to try to tell me that NWA was a hit outside of a niche?
And I would say it hasn't really declined since the 2000's; rap has just sort of merged into other popular genres and become incorporated. I mean, who hasn't Pitbull collaborated with by now?!
Re:They worked out an algorithm to define genre (Score:4, Interesting)
But it's not just popularity; it's relationships, and still the data used is flawed.
Last FM genre tags aren't the most comprehensive (hence music nerds can get into endless debates about whether a band represents this genre or that genre), and it also assumes influence comes within the realm of popular music, and not less popular forms that get co-opted into pop music, and how those less popular lineages developed (as the trope goes, someone like the Sex Pistols never sold many albums, but what albums they did sell ended up in the hands of people who started more popular bands).
More importantly, this study shows the flaws with quantitative vs. qualitative analysis; using the less descriptive measure as definitive just because it is supposedly "objective", and basically ignoring all other data that doesn't fit the model. They've proved they can measure what they set out to measure, nothing more. This has been most egregious in the soft sciences, like psychology, that tries so very hard to quantify data in an attempt at being definitive, and end up making absurd associations as that isn't the most useful analysis of the data on hand. Some music historians would have been able to point out the obvious flaws (like the progression of the Beatles throughout their history. Twist and Shout is miles away from Revolution #9).
Re: (Score:2)
Metallica sound nothing like Bill Haley and the Comets.
Perhaps that's true of Bill Haley & His Comets' classic sides from the mid-50s, though one could argue that Metallica's late-70s rockabilly singles drew upon Haley's rock 'n' roll country roots. More to the point, you seem to have never heard Haley's 1981 reunion album with the original Comets lineup. Many say that it sparked the entire death metal genre of the mid-80s.
Popularity is Guided/Controlled (Score:3)
I have heard and seen numerous bands that don't get contracts or played on the radio because they don't fit the image and message that record companies "want", or don't play the games to get the contracts. That radio play time is what causes popularity, people know what they hear and can't know anything they don't hear. Take their title example "pop". The top female pop stars would not have become popular without a massive budget to advertise them and get their names out (telling everyone how it's a big
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Detect and track autotune.
Geneological phraseology (Score:1)
Conservation of genomic data is a large part of how evolution decides what is a trait worth keeping in the environment. What would be the next step would be to collate the phrasings dominant throughout each culture and see how they have been crossed with dominant sections to produce new offspring. It's probably the reason why eurovision contests have so much cheese, and american idol contests are dominated by singers that wow based on soul singing.
Please cite or at least buy beer if used in any other sourc
Taking it further (Score:3)
As they are now using techniques from DNA analysis, it could be interesting if they took it a bit further and looked for 'chromosomes'.
What if they expanded the actual tune analysis to the whole tune, and not just 30sec, and searched for parts of tunes that had been used in later tunes, or close enough to be thought of as heavy inspiration?
A segment could then evolve, and perhaps even leap from one style to another, and after a few generations sound totally different from the original, but by this it could be traced back to where it came from.
I think it is common knowledge that blues evolved to jazz and then to rock, but it could be interesting to know in more detail where styles came from, and perhaps where some popular tunes had their actual roots.
Re: (Score:2)
With almost perpetual copyright, that type of analysis will likely happen before long. But i think the results will only become public when someone thinks they can get a royalty fee from the old ending up in the new.
Re: (Score:2)
Someone once pointed out that a whole mess of hard rock tunes ultimately seemed to derive from La Bamba. You Really Got Me, Louie Louie, Blitzkrieg Bop, forget what else. Smells Like Teen Spirit of course was a takeoff on More Than A Feeling. You don't need an algorithm for this stuff. John Fogerty was famously sued by Credence's record label for ripping himself off - the ultimate in legal intervention in this instance - the case was dismissed. Haven't really heard of musical litigation since that hap
science, art, businesses (Score:3)
I like these kinds of questions, but one thing researchers have difficulty accounting for is the difference between the music people listen to and what the Billboard Top 100 chart says.
Defining "pop music" as whatever is on the Billboard Top 100, especially now, is reductive. I understand it's quantifiable and that's the best idea they had for a quantitative definition of pop. However, Billboard's charts are virtually irrelevant when trying to ascertain what people **actually listen to by choice**
Obviously, record companies try to game the system but in the last 30 years they using NASA level science (or attempting to) to control every aspect of the music in ways no one thought of before.
Also: digital music production and software has made "pop" music so mass produced and generic you get things like the Nickleback debacle [youtube.com]
I'm not trying to be over-critical of the researcher's methods. I'm sure they did the best they could, but these points are important to understand when investigating this kind of thing.
Re: (Score:3)
Defining "pop music" as whatever is on the Billboard Top 100, especially now, is reductive. I understand it's quantifiable and that's the best idea they had for a quantitative definition of pop. However, Billboard's charts are virtually irrelevant when trying to ascertain what people **actually listen to by choice**
Correct: it is talking about the sales of new records/CDs. This tends to disfavour long lasting styles such as classical music and boosts the here-today, gone-tomorrow junk that fills the 'pop parade'. This is exactly what the music industry wants, they need churn in taste and bands/performers/... to keep people buying their output.
Re: (Score:2)
There seems to be a widely accepted school of thought within music journalism/critcism that gives significant weight/credit to obscure artists having a disproportionate influence to trends in music. Groups like the Velvet Underground, Big Star, the Replacements never had major popularity in terms of record sales and radio airplay but are often cited by music critics and other musicians as having been influential on bands and genres that were popular later on, in some cases 20 years later on.
Tapping the Bil
Re: (Score:2)
good points
it comes down to 'case study' data vs interval numberic data
sales is easy to quantify
quality of art however....also, there is a novelty aspect as well, music listeners seeking out novel and "unknown" artists because they like to find new things
"critics picks" can be all over the place
Just Too Many Variables (Score:2)
While the researchers in TFA took account of "harmonic" and "timbral" chnges, whatever that means, the study is still meaningless because it doesn't take into account:
1. Changes in population demographics;
2. Changes in recording technology, e.g. multitrack recording, use of digital effects such as delay, flanging and reverb;
3. Evolution of synthesizer technology including sequencers, MIDI, etc.;
4. Changes in distribution channels, i.e. obsolescence of physical media;
5. Increases in the amount of music compo
Re: (Score:2)
----
If I don't respond to replies it's not that I'm ignoring them, it's because for some reason Slashdot doesn't permit it. I also can't change my sig, thus this tacked-on text.
Re: (Score:2)
"5. Increases in the amount of music composed and produced primarily as motion-picture promotional tie-ins;"
Oh, my good, now that you mentioned it, I notice how this analysis is completely worthless.
Re: (Score:2)
If 6 was 9...
Re: (Score:2)
Now you're talking about good music: http://youtu.be/Ui4ckbUNe3k [youtu.be]
30 seconds per song? (Score:2)
.
What they did was cool, but they tremendously overstate the ramifications of their efforts.
How US pop music evolved, indeed.
We Who Lived It Know! (Score:3)
... late 2000 ?! Time travellers (Score:2)
Oh, and the climate scientists would like a word to see how accurate their models turned out.
It's science! (Score:2)
There are obviously many limitations to the study and therefore to the conclusions that can be drawn, but it's very interesting to study music mathematically and discover (or confirm) patterns and experience new perspectives. This is how science makes progress.
My Observations (Score:1)
sorry (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
where do you think the "billboard" numbers originate?
Try Tin Pan Alley which was the origin of the billboard numbers. Wikipedia has a good take on it. I'll quote below, that a lot of Rock and Pop actually came from Negro Ragtime, Cakewalk and Blues tunes, although Ragtime and Cakewalk were arguably White genre 'Black' music.
"Initially Tin Pan Alley specialized in melodramatic ballads and comic novelty songs, but it embraced the newly popular styles of the cakewalk and ragtime music. Later on jazz and blues were incorporated, although less completely, as Tin P
Re: (Score:1)
Here's another:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
5 fingered Boogie - 1957.
If you listen to the left hand bass line then you get the typical rock-blues fundamental with the right-hand lead on top.
The transition from early blues to rock and pop to the crap today is pretty obvious. You don't need bad research to see that.
Rap, 'music'??? (Score:1)
“ If rap is music, then falling off the roof is transportation. ”
Jazz isn't dead (Score:3)
It just smells funny.
- F. Zappa
Evolved? Thought it was just 4 chord songs :-) (Score:2)
Axis of Awesome - 4 Chord Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
4 Chords
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
1964 must have been a short year... (Score:2)
“The British did not start the American revolution of 1964,” they say.
The team say the data clearly shows the revolution underway before The Beatles arrived in the States in 1964...
The American music revolution of 1964 must have happened awfully quickly. The Beatles played the Ed Sullivan show on Feb 9th, three weeks after their first single hit the US charts.
Re: (Score:2)