Is Pop Music Becoming Louder, Simpler and More Repetitive? (bbc.co.uk) 477
dryriver writes: The BBC has posted a very interesting article that investigates whether people claiming all over the internet that "pop music just isn't what it used to be" are simply growing old, or if there actually is objective science capable of backing up this claim of a "steady decline in music quality." The findings from five different studies are quoted; the findings from the fourth study is especially striking:
1. Pop music has become slower -- in tempo -- in recent years and also "sadder" and less "fun" to listen to.
2. Pop music has become melodically less complex, using fewer chord changes, and pop recordings are mastered to sound consistently louder (and therefore less dynamic) at a rate of around one decibel every eight years.
3. There has been a significant increase in the use of the first-person word "I" in pop song lyrics, and a decline in words that emphasize society or community. Lyrics also contain more words that can be associated with anger or anti-social sentiments.
4. 42% of people polled on which decade has produced the worst pop music since the 1970s voted for the 2010s. These people were not from a particular aging demographic at all -- all age groups polled, including 18-29 year olds, appear to feel unanimously that the 2010s are when pop music became worst. This may explain a rising trend of young millennials, for example, digging around for now 15-30 year-old music on YouTube frequently. It's not just the older people who listen to the 1980s and 1990s on YouTube and other streaming services it seems -- much younger people do it too.
5. A researcher put 15,000 Billboard Hot 100 song lyrics through the well-known Lev-Zimpel-Vogt (LZV1) data compression algorithm, which is good at finding repetitions in data. He found that songs have steadily become more repetitive over the years, and that song lyrics from today compress 22% better on average than less repetitive song lyrics from the 1960s. The most repetitive year in song lyrics was 2014 in this study.
Conclusion: There is some scientific evidence backing the widely voiced complaint -- on the internet in particular -- that pop music is getting worse and worse in the 2000s and the 2010s. The music is slower, melodically simpler, louder, more repetitive, more "I" (first-person) focused, and more angry with anti-social sentiments. The 2010s got by far the most music quality down votes with 42% from people polled on which decade has produced the worst music since the 1970s.
1. Pop music has become slower -- in tempo -- in recent years and also "sadder" and less "fun" to listen to.
2. Pop music has become melodically less complex, using fewer chord changes, and pop recordings are mastered to sound consistently louder (and therefore less dynamic) at a rate of around one decibel every eight years.
3. There has been a significant increase in the use of the first-person word "I" in pop song lyrics, and a decline in words that emphasize society or community. Lyrics also contain more words that can be associated with anger or anti-social sentiments.
4. 42% of people polled on which decade has produced the worst pop music since the 1970s voted for the 2010s. These people were not from a particular aging demographic at all -- all age groups polled, including 18-29 year olds, appear to feel unanimously that the 2010s are when pop music became worst. This may explain a rising trend of young millennials, for example, digging around for now 15-30 year-old music on YouTube frequently. It's not just the older people who listen to the 1980s and 1990s on YouTube and other streaming services it seems -- much younger people do it too.
5. A researcher put 15,000 Billboard Hot 100 song lyrics through the well-known Lev-Zimpel-Vogt (LZV1) data compression algorithm, which is good at finding repetitions in data. He found that songs have steadily become more repetitive over the years, and that song lyrics from today compress 22% better on average than less repetitive song lyrics from the 1960s. The most repetitive year in song lyrics was 2014 in this study.
Conclusion: There is some scientific evidence backing the widely voiced complaint -- on the internet in particular -- that pop music is getting worse and worse in the 2000s and the 2010s. The music is slower, melodically simpler, louder, more repetitive, more "I" (first-person) focused, and more angry with anti-social sentiments. The 2010s got by far the most music quality down votes with 42% from people polled on which decade has produced the worst music since the 1970s.
Because "Pop Music" isn't popular anymore. (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the style of music we call "Pop music" isn't popular anymore. EDM has stolen that crown, just look at what all the kids are listening to these days.
EDM? Maybe 15 years ago (Score:4, Insightful)
Where I live all the kids are listening to the same autotuned R&B cr@p either with some mysogynistic neanderthal with his pants down by his knees rapping out some teenage wannabe bullshit or else some wailing woman in her knickers putting it out there.
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And they listen to it at least partly because they assume it wouldn't be on the air if it weren't good. This is what happens with overcommercialization and vertical integration of art ^H^H^H alright I mean music ^H^H^H okay okay sound. The record companies own the radio stations, and it's a closed loop.
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Where I live all the kids are listening to the same autotuned R&B cr@p either with some mysogynistic neanderthal with his pants down by his knees rapping out some teenage wannabe bullshit or else some wailing woman in her knickers putting it out there.
Heh, the original question was: Is Pop Music Becoming Louder, Simpler and More Repetitive? Apparently you think it is, in fact the only thing missing from your statement is: NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!!.
Here's another question: How do you know when you are have begun the process of morphing into a grumpy old gaffer?
Answer: When young people's music begins to sound like noise pollution (a.k.a. Louder, Simpler and More Repetitive).
There is nothing you can do about getting older, but you can keep an open mind t
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Since when does not liking R&B make one an old gaffer? Its not the only genre around you know, tho apparently no one has told the kids.
Re:EDM? Maybe 15 years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
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New music has always sounded crap. It's a case of Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap) combined with survivor bias (the 10% that isn't crap is more likely to be remembered and still played much later). For every great song you can remember from a prior decade, there are nine more that were such complete crap that you don't even remember that they were briefly popular.
Yeah, that's part of it. but TFA talks about some actually objective measures of quality.
In particular, #2 and #5 are hard to argue with.
Re:EDM? Maybe 15 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, that's part of it. but TFA talks about some actually objective measures of quality.
In particular, #2 and #5 are hard to argue with.
Historically, music has been defined as having three main components: Rhythm, melody and harmony.
And for a generation now, the mix between the three has definitely changed, where melody is reduced and harmony is so reduced that it's almost gone.
This is an observable trend. It's been observed before in history, with music trends that were biased to one of these three at the expense of the other two. Mozart was melody focused, Bach was harmony focused.
Pointing out a difference doesn't imply that this is bad, but the pendulum has swung so far on especially harmony that it seems likely to swing back again. It would surprise me if the next generation won't have music with both 3- and 4-note chord harmonies and counterpoints throughout it.
In addition to the three commonly acknowledged components of music, I'd argue for a fourth one: dynamics. How much the whole range between quiet and loud is used. That one seems to have diminished significantly too, starting in the early 80s and culminating with the loudness wars. It's either full volume or silence, and never any subtlety. Pink Floyd might have been one of the last chart-topping bands to actively use dynamics.
Re:EDM? Maybe 15 years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
I seem to recall Nirvana doing pretty well, and they were based on the wild dynamics of the Pixies.
The same arguments were made about early Elvis Presley and rock and roll. Then the Beatles came along.
There's so much music being made (and released) today, that pointing to one single trend and saying, "This is where music is going" is a fool's errand. There are too many counter-examples.
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Oh, come on. There is some very interesting music being made right now if you're willing to dig beneath the top-20 charts.
There's always a lot of crap being made. That's why we have something called "discernment". Fortunately, we are better equipped today to seek out the music that speaks to us than ever before.
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New music has always sounded crap.
In a certain way, yes. However there is no dubt that today music is among the crappiest new music ever created. I am particularly annoyed at the fact that new music is getting louder and louder since the 80s (point 2). That is a well known and sourced fact: during the 80s, music producers discovered that people's attention is better caught by loud music, especially when they are doing other things (e.g. driving, watching tv, having a drink at the bar...). Not only that, but it must be constantly and continu
Re:EDM? Maybe 15 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
New music used to be incredible. New styles, new performances, different sounds. Now, I dare you to identify a random new "pop" song as coming from what band (or, in some cases, even identifying the specific song) in a limited number of measures and in many cases not even excluding vocals. It's almost like some bad AI was able to select performers on their blandness and fitting into a small predefined set of parameters and cranks out 1 of 3 potentially different base beats. If you've got teenagers in the house, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
Now, to be fair, in the past there was plenty of crap music, and even some of the music that you may have thought great doesn't sound all that wonderful when you listen to it now. I pulled out some old LPs you won't hear anywhere anymore, and gave a couple a (brief) listen. Cringe worthy in some cases, a couple of gems elsewhere. Filtering through some of the bands from yesteryear was an interesting exercise where you definitely can see that some were hyped on the me-too bandwagon much like almost all of today's pop "artists" and really were just clones of the originals. How do you find the originals? They're the ones with more than 1 style and show variations and explorations in their compositions. The majority of today's "artists" basically do the manufactured pop songs for a few top 40 hits and if they move on, they go into self-absorbed woe is me crooning, in which they are but a mere photocopy of a pale shadow of Adele (who I don't particularly care for, but she does have talent)
The real issue here is that pretty much 99% of what is considered pop music since 2000 will never be nostalgically played in 20 years. Hell, 99% of pop music from the 2000s isn't played today, instead we get tired replays of music from the 60s through the 90s. They're tired because that's all we get to hear. I mean, where are today's Fleetwood Mac, Beatles, Prince, U2, Judas Priest, Def Leppard, Madonna, Johnny Cash, Metallica, Blondie, Ramones, Ozzy, Run DMC, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Cab Calloway, Green Day, Jerry Lee Lewis, Marvin Gaye, Nine Inch Nails, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Salt N Peppa, Led Zeppelin, Berlin, Digital Underground, Concrete Blonde, Lou Bega, or even Tom Jones in his many incarnations or really anyone that stands out not only with a unique sound but truly individual material that's identifiable and usually says something that people can relate to?
That's not by any means a comprehensive list of artists with unique sounds, but since 2000, I can only name a couple of artists/bands that even stand out: Pitbull, Imagine Dragons, Lady Gaga and The Killers. Of those, only Lady Gaga really qualifies in the same category as the top tier of pre-2000 artists. Imagine Dragons is definitely on their way, The Killers may move from 1 hit wonder into the next tier with their recent reinvention, considering anything notable came from their debut album. (I'd love to see a list of artists that qualify for the post 2000 list. This obviously doesn't include recent up and coming artists like Portugal the Man - I find they're pretty unique and certainly not more of the Radio Disney crowd, which is what I find a lot of the post 2000 pop music to be)
As an example of one of today's stars that seems to maybe have leveraged the pop machine well is Harry Styles. Time will tell if his solo career was a one hit wonder or if he'll truly be an artist. At least he's contributed something different to the mix even if I prefer different genres of music.
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New music has always sounded crap.
Yes but what is unique here is that the "it sounds crap" opinion transcends generations. When teenagers don't listen to the new music you know something is wrong.
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That's an oversimplification.... to the point of being no more accurate than a half-truth.
Much of the reason that parents get angry with kids over stuff they do that they wouldn't do is because the parents themselves are the ones who are following a pattern brought about by comfort with what is familiar, not necessarily because of any particular intent by the younger generation to actively rebel ag
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And when you can write software that encapsulates your own prejudices about "that noise today's young people are listening to," then buddy, you have the greatest lawn of them all and you can probably hire a SWAT team to keep the kids off it.
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Where I live all the kids are listening to the same autotuned R&B cr@p either with some mysogynistic neanderthal with his pants down by his knees rapping out some teenage wannabe bullshit or else some wailing woman in her knickers putting it out there.
So basically its all fronted by people who cant wear trousers properly.
Rappers, Dubsteppers and Electronic "artists"* are cheap and require zero talent making them easily replaceable if they ever get delusions of having power over their corporate masters. As for pop stars who are little more than soft pornography with autotune... Harvey Weinstein has taken care of that, these people only get hired because they slept with enough people to make it happen, that cant happen any more.
However Asian countrie
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I don't know what country you're in, but here in the UK the underground rave scene peaked in the early 90s. By 2000 EDM was mainstream then it slowly faded out during the 00s.
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There is a case to be made that each musical genre peak coincides with the drugs taken at the time. The UK rave and EDM scene was closely associated with MDMA and the hands in the air anthem. We live in the era of "lean" now which might go a long way to explain current pop music. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to identify and fill in the other drugs and musical genres from the last 60 odd years.
Re:Because "Pop Music" isn't popular anymore. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Because "Pop Music" isn't popular anymore. (Score:5, Insightful)
Music hasn't become worse; record labels have become more efficiënt.
It's far cheaper to exploit starting musicians than to cultivate succesful musicians.
It's far cheaper to dump a performer as soon as they get popular enough to start making demands and just get another one.
Re:Because "Pop Music" isn't popular anymore. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you've *almost* hit the nail on the head. A glancing blow, so to speak.
It isn't that they're more efficient, but that they are wielding more control. I suspect they now write the lyrics, the music, all of it -- and merely parade anyone out front to sing the trash.
This isn't to say that some of this didn't happen before, but I suspect that they're doing it much more directly, powerfully, and with of course the lack of understanding that any exec seems to have in the entertainment industry.
So of course, all they're doing is formulaically copying the past...
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This is the truth.
Also, the record labels have become more consolidated and integrated with movies, television, advertising and the Internet, making it all more ubiquitous.
Re: Because "Pop Music" isn't popular anymore. (Score:3)
A big part of the problem is extreme fragmentation. "Pop" music is, almost by definition, mass-produced and intended to be heard (and purchased) by "everyone".
In the 20th Century, a typical American realistically had *maybe* a dozen FM stations to choose from... 1 or 2 they *liked* (often, with one overwhelming favorite), and maybe 2-4 more they could "stand". Popular songs got played every 1-3 hours. Competition for airtime was *fierce*, and labels made a point of promoting songs that were a) intensely cat
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Could we do the same for movies? (Score:4, Interesting)
And slashdot posts (Score:5, Funny)
And the same with slashdot posts probably...
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12 bar blues (Score:2)
I thought all pop music was supposed to be a descendent from Delta Blues - which definitely cant be beat on the above features (pun intended).
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with Slashdot on my mind,
pulled the bedsheet over me,
went back to sleep for quite some time!
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Rock and Roll was a tweak of 12BB designed to eliminate all those.
Angry instead of sad (I'll fucking duff you if you touch my shoes).
Much more complex (addition of 4-bar intros: One two three o'clock...).
More chords (major 8ths).
Less first person (You ain't nothing but a hound dog).
Faster. Well yes, that too.
These guys demonstrate it best (Score:4, Interesting)
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I think that AC/DC and Status Quo where known for their three-chord songs?
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How about Bo Diddley then? He existed long before any of them and was known for his one chord songs.
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New Sign (for the times) (Score:4, Interesting)
Get your music off my lawn
'Let's make a hit song!' (Score:2)
Music today is made with the intent of creating a 'hit' song. Using formulas that have worked in the 80's/90's. The music that was made by garage bands, one hit wonders were created by talented artists who just wanted to make a song that 'they' liked, they weren't making it in order to 'sell' it. Manufactured 'pop' music is the easy thing to do. There is no 'formula' that guarantees a hit song. People, especially the newer generations, have gotten wise to the fact that having driving bass does not 'connect'
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I'd say they modernized blues rather than building on it. For me, the guys who really broke the mould were underground(US)/progressive(UK) groups like The Doors or King Crimson. That has absolutely nothing to do with pop of course.
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Godwin O'Hitler confessed:
For me, the guys who really broke the mould were underground(US)/progressive(UK) groups like The Doors or King Crimson. That has absolutely nothing to do with pop of course.
The Doors had two singles that reached #1 [wikipedia.org] on the Billboard Hot 100 charts - along with a #3 and two others that just missed hitting the Top Ten.
The Court Of The Crimson King - Part 1 actually made it to #80 [billboard.com], as well ...
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Nothing like that has happened since... insert your pet genre here as a counter point, it's not the same thing. History might not repeat but it sure does rhyme,
I think you forgot the following two decades. The 70's gave us disco, and then the 80's gave us rap / hip hop *and* electronica - think Kraftwerk, Numan, Yello, etc.
Each represents a big enough change from the previous generations and forms to fulfil your criteria. Certainly bigger than white guys stealing black guy's music and playing it with electric guitars.
Yes (Score:2)
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Don't you mean:
Yes... yes yes... I say yes... yes yes...
Yes but yes but yes but
Yes... yes yes... I say yes... yes yes...
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Repetitive beat, trite lyrics? Never! (Score:5, Insightful)
We hate it, yeah yeah yeah
We hate it, yeah yeah yeah
We hate it, yeah yeah yeah
You think you've found your groove
Well, I'm here to set you stray-e-ate
It's not that hard to prove
Your music ain't that grey-e-ate
We say we hate it
And you know that it's all sad
We say we hate it
And you know you should feel bad
We said it hurts our ears
We almost lost our mind
Not heard such crap in years
Your drummer must be blind
We say we hate it
And you know that it's all sad
We say we hate it
And you know you should feel bad
Oo, we hate it, yeah yeah yeah
We hate it, yeah yeah yeah
With a song like that
You know you should feel bad
You know it's come to this
I think it's only fair
Stop writing all that shit
And take it off the air
We say we hate it
And you know that it's all sad
We say we hate it
And you know you should feel bad
Oo, we hate it, yeah yeah yeah
We hate it, yeah yeah yeah
With a song like that
You know you should feel bad
With a song like that
You know you should feel bad
With a song like that
You know you should feel bad
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
This is bad news (Score:2)
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Pop music being a major facet of our culture, I believe this study reflects on us as a whole, and what it indicates is that human beings are growing isolated from one another, sad, and angry. That makes me feel bad.
That's a very insightful observation. Given the bad rap Facebook and the like are getting, It would be interesting to plot the rise of social media and the dumbing-down of popular music and see if there's a strong correlation. Not that I believe there's a causal relationship; rather, I think the increasing concentration of wealth and power might be the cause of both crappy music and the increasingly-superficial interactions in our society. The ruling class has gotten much better at the whole 'bread and circ
I think so, but my kid loves it (Score:5, Insightful)
I think pop music blows. It seems to be one "singer" who doesn't really sing, and the music is mostly some kind of beat and there's almost no melody or music at all besides the percussion beat and maybe some kind of occasional synthesizer fill in. There seems to be a side version of this, featuring only a guitar with someone who can't lift their fingers off the strings.
And the artist? It's like "Sharyian, Featuring Gtili and Wryannn" or some other kind of "collaboration" which ranges from the featured artists' presence being almost unknowable without the credits or totally dominating the song so that you don't know it was the "main" artists' song.
But my kid loves it, so who am I? Some old guy who thinks this younger generation is full of it? Where have I heard that one before?
My larger take is that this is just pop music subsuming "rap" music. The kid if given the choice will also try to play the rap station, which is even worse. Lyrics totally devoid of meaning and a "beat" that's just kind of a cacophony of rhythm and noise. It makes flipping the station back to classic rock like discovering something amazing.
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I think pop music blows.
So do I. I stopped listening to the radio habitually quite a while back. Of course, I'm interested in listening to things I like to listen to. Youngsters listen to whatever is on top of the pops because that's what they all do.
My larger take is that this is just pop music subsuming "rap" music.
This "rap" "music" started out as (black) kids trying to do something with their life other than end up as gang fodder. (Behold the irony in "gangsta rap".) And they did that with what they had, a rhytm box and a mike on an illegal tap on a street light. You might say this is just the
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Some time around 1990 pop music changed. Before then people would write lyrics, and write music, and find a match to combine the two. In the 90s most pop music was the music, the beat and the hook, with some lyrics tacked on. Vocals became just another instrument, they were not really there to convey an interesting message.
It took at least 20 years to really get away from that.
The 90s were not a good time for music, and neither were the 2000s... The cost of producing music fell dramatically, but that meant
COMPARE: (Score:3, Informative)
Less dynamic:
https://youtu.be/lFqNQna_-sI?t... [youtu.be]
More dynamic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Less dynamic: https://youtu.be/lFqNQna_-sI?t... [youtu.be]
More dynamic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
That was really cool! But watching that smiling face, and hearing that bubble gum pop voice over a crunchy heavy-metal guitar - talk about cognitive dissonance! It also makes me think about how VERY different that same song would be if sung by Chrissie Hynde or Joan Jett...
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Metal, it makes everything better.
It's kinda like butter and cheese when it comes to meals :D. Or bacon! Mhhhmmm... bacon....
The path to enlightenment (Score:5, Funny)
Louder? Sure, the rest? I don't even bother listen (Score:2)
As it is louder, (compressed) I can not find joy listening to anything, It sounds horrible. Therefore, I know I'm missing a big chunk of good music that simply has been recorded or mastered to be listened in smartphones across the street. It is devastating when compared to a good ol day recording.
My absolutely despised albums are two of my favourite band: The cure. Please listen (if you can) to albums called "The Cure" 2008 and "Dream" 2008. Absolute trash sounding.
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All Of The Above (Score:5, Interesting)
I imagine polling people in the '00s they would say that the pop music from the same decade was the worst ever produced. If anything, pop music since 2000 has had no identity. If the 80s was the decade of New Wave, and the 90s the decade of Alternative Rock, the 00s was an eclectic mix. There was the Nu Metal movement, which turned out to be short-lived; a resurgence in some 90s acts like Green Day/Gwen Stefani; and a growing broader interest in rap/hiphop thanks mostly to Eminem.
However, the biggest influences were the double-whammy of American Idol and Britney Spears causing Idol singers to be the primary marketed form of pop music. Many of these Idols even write their own music; however, the likelihood of being beautiful, marketable, skilled at singing/playing an instrument, AND being a talented songwriter is very low, causing song quality to fall low on the priority list. People will buy anything if it's marketed right, ya? In the old days, Idols like Elvis had their songs written by other people who were actually good at doing so; sure, many of the British Invasion bands wrote their own songs, but not all. Artists back then had more raw skill, so their songs had more complex compositions to show it off. On the flipside, recent music tends to be overproduced, with too many studio musicians, and editors inserting synthesized sounds with computer software (as opposed to standing at a synthesizer keyboard, pressing keys in realtime.)
Thanks to the Internet, there's better awareness of older music. If you want to listen to some obscure song by some obscure band from 40+ years ago, a quick trip to Youtube and you can hear it in seconds. As opposed to scrounging through used record stores for hours to find a song you've never heard before. That means current acts have to compete for mindshare with all this older music. It's also much easier to listen to music produced in other countries; I never even heard of J-Pop until the Internet put it at my fingertips (although if you check Amazon Japan, much of it is crap that sounds suspiciously like American pop.)
Considering how many more ballads were aired on radio in the past, I'm surprised songs have slower tempo nowadays on average. Perhaps that's due to increased prevalence of rap and hiphop, which tend to be more down-tempo. Dance tracks are probably more common, and seem about the same tempo as they were. The Loudness War has been well-documented. I imagine songs have lyrics that are sadder and more focused on self due to end of the civil rights era and increased wealth stratification leading to increased individualism, and more prevalence of rap/hiphop which tend to have a more negative tone.
Lyrics are more repetitive, I predict, because the hook is repeated more. More often lately, it's just repeated over and over and over, the song having an A-B-B-B... ad nauseum structure. Ok I got it, you want a catchy hook to easily market the song. But you know what songs I like most? The ones WITHOUT any identifiable hook... because the entire song is amazing despite it having multiple differing sections.
But wait, it gets worse! Major music labels decide what acts to pick up based not only on subjective listening, but also by algorithm. They now use algorithms that compare their songs to existing hit songs. If it's close enough to what sold before, then they get a second chance. In other words, they're (at least sometimes) selecting for musicians that ape what came before, ensuring it sounds same-y and not original. With the steadily decreasing music sales, the labels are likely getting increasingly conservative, even less likely to sponsor acts that break the mold (i.e. established genres) too much. That's why this decade has the same Idol domination of last decade; airbrushed airheads and smooth douches singing love songs. Every time I hear a new song I like that I hadn't heard before... it turns out it was from last decade, or a cover of one. Go figure.
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I imagine polling people in the '00s they would say that the pop music from the same decade was the worst ever produced. If anything, pop music since 2000 has had no identity. If the 80s was the decade of New Wave, and the 90s the decade of Alternative Rock, the 00s was an eclectic mix. There was the Nu Metal movement, which turned out to be short-lived; a resurgence in some 90s acts like Green Day/Gwen Stefani; and a growing broader interest in rap/hiphop thanks mostly to Eminem.
I'd kill to get some nu metal back on the radio. These days almost every song on "alt" stations has to have a banjo or mandolin. Fortunately the alt station I listen to here has started to play some good stuff like Hybrid Theory-era Linkin Park and some Foo Fighters. Can't even remember the last time I heard something like Slipknot, Disturbed, Papa Roach, or even Chevelle or Shinedown on the radio. It's like they've been trying to kill rock music.
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> analized
I think this was a typo.
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If you take a short enough time, you will see a trent.
The guy from Nine Inch Nails?
Compression (Score:5, Insightful)
No the problem is compression or the loudness war:
https://www.cnet.com/news/comp... [cnet.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
When people say that music used to be better in the old days, that is actually true, it was better in the old days. Music in the old days had more dynamic range. Today it's just loud and flat.
Empty 90s (Score:2)
While the OP is probably right, it is not something new. In the 80s and before, there was Rock 'n Roll and Disco. While Disco was very repetitive, most songs had a kind of storyline. A good song has a chorus that is a little bit ambiguous, so that it still fits if the last verse has a "twist".
In the 90s, the guitar was re-discovered, but all storylines were stripped, and that music was called Grunge. While the instruments of Grunge and Rock 'n Roll are the same, they couldn't be further apart.
The great thing is that doesn't matter any more (Score:4, Interesting)
pop music (Score:2)
Questionably 'scientific' (Score:2)
The fourth study is picked out, so let's start there. Of course the 'current' era is the 'worst', I bet that will be the result whenever you carry out a study like that. Previous decades have natural selection, only the strongest survive and all the pap gets forgotten / never played again. But the decade you're living in is a) not finished so you have limited scope to pick hits from, and b) unfiltered, you get all the good and bad mixed together. So of course it feels worse.
In the UK there's a radio program
This is normal artistic evolution. (Score:3)
Todays pop music is written by algorithms. [youtube.com] And it doesn't sound too bad. Because we listen to music so much repetetive and meditative ambient/trance like, 'boring' music has become the norm.
The progressive pioneers of Electronic music showed us what would be coming [youtube.com], now it's here and part of the mainstream.
This is simply a classic evolution of artistic style. A song from 1920 sounds naive and childlike to us today, the sounds we listen to would sound like industrial noise to someone from that era. This is normal and music will continue to evolve to gain new subtleties and lose others.
Down the list (Score:2, Interesting)
2. Sound consistently louder. Invest in a better studio that will make music as the talented artist instructs. If the artist cant tell the studio what they want due to lack of skill, the studio will just make the product loud.
3. When pop music became worst. Artists did not face a Vietnam draft. See Vietnam on TV. The computer change of the 1980's that still needed classic
Music is not created; it is manufactured. (Score:5, Insightful)
Pop music is not created anymore. It is manufactured, based on a known recipe of repetitive beats, a breathy oversexualized, Autotuned voice track crooned by a pop star that is valued more for their looks than their talent.
Labels don't employ singers or artists anymore. They employ entertainers, because a good portion of revenue comes from touring, where only the best lip-syncing dancers fill sold-out stadiums and pretend to belt out their most popular tracks for two hours. The Loudness Wars confirmed that the quality of the recording no longer mattered; it merely needed to be loud enough for radio airplay.
What is sad is finding Profit always being the #1 priority, which is why pop music is manufactured to fit into a proven revenue model. The fact that it's become simpler and more repetitive tends to show how lazy you can be to entertain the simple masses. Johnny Crooner and his iPad "band" can probably crank out a Top 10 hit in less than an hour these days, and rip off (a.k.a. "sample") a dozen hit songs doing it.
Pop (Score:2)
Short for *Popular*
Hence selling as many as possible, otherwise it's not *pop* music, no matter how hard it tries to be.
If the selection doesn't make you happy, there's a plethora of genres out there that you can look into.
I'm a musician. Blame loop-based software. (Score:5, Interesting)
With the exception of groups like Postmodern Jukebox and other live-recorded artists, most music today is written with software. Loop-based software. The way it works is you first define a "groove", a short, typically 4-bar pattern that's as catchy as you can make it. Now take those 4 bars and repeat them 32x, add 1 or 2-bar patterns as occasional transitions, and presto, you have a "pop" song.
The problem is that software makes it so easy it entices people without real skills to write. This is similar to when laser printers and WYSIWYG editors first came on the scene, and suddenly everyone was a typographer and a graphic artist. *shudder*
You still have to have real talent as a songwriter. The software makes it "easier", not "better". Stevie Wonder can do it, for example. The vast, vast majority of other people cannot.
EBKAC (Score:2)
Here's Aphex Twin making the track Vordhosbn using ProTracker, a 90's tracker-style app, which were the forerunners of the modern loop based software tools like Live and Fruity. Even the rhythm isn't the same across any two bars. The problem isn't the software, the problem is the person using the software.
https://vimeo.com/223378825 [vimeo.com]
LZV1 results give some hope... (Score:2)
Punk (Score:2)
Punk music became louder, simpler and more repetitive before it was cool.
What's wrong with 1970's pop-music? (Score:3)
Santana, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Boston, Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, among many others.
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Santana, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Boston, Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, among many others.
I'd consider most of those falling into the Rock category, not pop. 70's Pop would be more Jackson 5 or the Osmonds.
composed by AI (Score:2)
Making it easier for AI to compose music by making the target easier to hit. Headlines of AI composers hit 10 years early.
Fewer hit songwriters too (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worth noting that much of the top-5 songs in the past 10 - 15 years have all been written by the same tiny handful of songwriters.
Obviously Max Martin tops this list, and has been writing #1's since at least 1997. He has dominated the pop charts even more in the past decade. He has either written or co-written most #1 pop songs you can think of for the past 5 years. He also produces the songs he writes for the singers that release them. Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Maroon 5, P!nk, Kelly Clarkson - every single one of them had a #1 with Max Martin in the past few years - and some (Timberlake) since the beginning of their careers.
Whenever I hear that a song by Katy Perry is a "dis track" against Taylor Swift I just go "They're written by the same guy!" In fact he might be suggesting these tracks to specific artists with that kind of press in mind.
Martin himself might be single-handedly responsible for the actual stats this article outlines.
And when it's not Max Martin, it's one of his protegés, e.g.: Dr. Luke.
Re:That ain't be pop (Score:4, Insightful)
That be hip hop!
Word!
Except that I've noticed that this
1. Pop music has become slower -- in tempo -- in recent years and also "sadder" and less "fun" to listen to.
seems to apply to hip-hop as well. To my ears, hip hop music has become less "funky", less dance-able, a lot slower, a lot less R&B/soul-like, more drawn out, with more "irregular" and slower beats. Note, I'm no music expert, I'm describing it as I hear it. I mean, compare the stuff say Drake puts out with hip hop of the 2000s and the 1990s. If I listen to some 2016/17 hip hop mix (the biggest hits, the mainstream stuff) it all sounds drawn out, slow, feeble, with lyrics which are more pathetic and pop-like compared to a mix of hip hop hits from say, the late 90s.
Re:That ain't be pop (Score:4, Insightful)
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Don't listen to radio metal.
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Re:That ain't be pop (Score:5, Insightful)
He said metal, and you pull out Grohl?
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Michael Jackson died in 2009. Pop music became the worst in 2010. Coincidence? We've also recently lost other pop greats like David Bowie, Prince and George Michael.
Personally, the only pop music I really listen to is from the 80s. That was the best decade for music.
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Michael Jackson died in 2009. Pop music became the worst in 2010. Coincidence? We've also recently lost other pop greats like David Bowie, Prince and George Michael.
Personally, the only pop music I really listen to is from the 80s. That was the best decade for music.
Michael Jackson died 8 years after releasing his last album in 2001, which was also the last year any of his work was in the Billboard Top charts. No doubt he had a lasting impact on pop music, but his days of creating music died far before he did.
George Michael died 12 years after releasing his last album in 2004, which was a comeback effort after nearly a 20-year gap since he last released any original music.
Coincidence you say? No, not really.
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You must be a kid who wasn't alive at the time if you think the 80s was only hair metal. The best stuff by Metallica, Megadeth, Sepultura, King Diamond, Danzig, Manowar, Gwar, Slayer, Napalm Death, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse came out in the 80s.
Absolutely there was some good metal from the 80's, but the article is about popular music, not good music. Generally the bands you listed weren't hitting the top of the billboard charts or filling stadiums like the classic [and mostly marginally talented] 80's glam/hair metal bands.
FWIW, I was born in 1980, Megadeth is my favorite band, I'm a big fan [still] of Gwar, Metallica post black album is shit...
Re: Designed for the Left (Score:5, Insightful)
'Angry'. 'Uneducated'.
There ya go, insightful analysis. Not.
Actually, the lemming comment is equally valid accusing our youth of following whatever meme they are being fed at the moment.
Me? I'm an aging white cracker homophobe post-Republican conservative, and I love Camilla Cabello, Lourde, Khalid, Halsey. I still prefer 70s power rock/metal, Led Zeppelin is with Pink Floyd the eipitome of power rock, and She Came in Through the Bathroom Window (the Beatles version, please) is a blues song. And the Blues is God's music. Mostly. Bass305 is worth a slot in my playlist still, FSOL was and is a revelation, Air is my guilty pleasure, Moby is clever, I do NOT CARE that Toni Childs is white, Sara McLachlan can sing that sad shit forever, and Madeleine Peyroux seemed like a scared little girl when I first heard her, and it's wonderful she's still working at this. Yes, I'm a fool for female voices. Between Mahler's First, Ravel, Handel, and Beethoven I have enough, so Tchaikovsky is dessert. Puccini is enough.
But try to expand the musical horizons of my 15 yo FD? Oh, dear God, she kinda likes George Clinton, thinks George Michael is saccharine, Boy George is some weird inside joke, Snoop is old but cred, Will Smith is an actor, Hammer is a tool, and I'm stupid trying to share my decrepit music with her. All the time I realize that her radio is filled with the same 8 songs all day long, she prefers 'gangsta' rap from men who she would file restraining orders against if they were in her life, and has the modern version of picket fence/station wagon/2 .2 kids/dog/cat/vacation on the shore, which is total devotion/two against the world/total bliss/rule the world. I pray that dream is broken gently, but the music is corrosive. And she knows it, but it's like a drug. Actually, it's a drug. Yes.
I'll pass on having to explain how Baby, It's Cold Outside and Acid Queen are less sexual than anything she's listening to. That is not so easy after all.
And so it's the Deja Vu all over again.
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"radical centrist" seems an oxymoron.
Consider that the hit making machine(s) analyze their works closely to see if they fit specific boundaries of a model developed to fit music, now considered "content" into their formulas.
YouTube play (used to be radio play) time, viral capability, on-tour dynamics with choreography, and the disposable nature of artists and trends.
This isn't about artistry, it's about making money. The indy-music isn't about pop-music or even a specific genre, and with the death of live m
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postbigbang noted:
"radical centrist" seems an oxymoron.
It's really not, though.
A centrist is one who believes that the greatest good for the greatest number is generally found in the center of the political discourse - and achieving it typically requires compromise on both sides.
A radical centrist is one who believes that the greatest good for the greatest number can best be achieved by standing the loudest mouths on both extremes of the political shouting match up against a wall and shooting their stupid, uncompromising asses ...
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The current decade has always been the worst
That's bad for me. I always seem to be living in the current decade. I guess I was born at just the wrong time.
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Same impression for me. And I have been listening to heavy metal since 1982, none of the pop music for me.
My currently two favorite bands are Muse and QOTSA.
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A-ha are currently touring, Depeche Mode still produces music and I think I heard something about Duran Duran also still touring. R.E.M. was until not that long ago active, Pet Shop Boys still exist and from time to time a new album is being made... just like with every decade, there are a few bands that "survive" the high time of the music they came up in. Some change and adapt to the new beats. Some don't and continue with the same kind of music, both with varying success.
Some quite memorable tracks have
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And as with all the other decades they will remember the 2010s for its decent songs and artists. But the generalization will remain true, like it does for the 1990s, which is the most despised decade among people I know but still managed to produced some real gems.
That's the kind of song people will remember from the 2010s once the dross has faded into oblivion.
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So are you saying the Bach decade shits all over the Vivaldi decade?
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Ever since the 70s there has been a progression of suppressing melody in favor of accompaniment. Melody is where creativity shines, and it is what moves people, especially moves them to revolt. No one will ever join a cause that is put to accompaniment.
I have to agree, you hit the nail on the head here. There was, of course, plenty of bad music before and during the 70's though. There has been a gradual shift from melody to "beat" though. Pop music has always been gimmicky of course, but modern stuff is all about the gimmick; every modern hit song has something gimmicky inside it. I think it's a matter of "what can we do to stand out"; there are thousands of great melodies, so what can we do to stand out from all the melodies... oh lets add some gimmi
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Trump being elected is pretty much unarguable proof that at least some humans are getting more stupid.
Totally agree.
How stupid does one have to be to run probably the *only* candidate that was worse than Trump against him? Hell, the Dems could have chosen almost anyone else and beat Trump easily.
We could be discussing President Sanders instead of Trump if the Clintons and DNC leadership didn't engage in election fraud in the primaries.
Want to know who to blame for Trump becoming POTUS?
Blame the Clintons and DNC leadership. THEY are the most responsible for Trump's victory, not the RNC. Hell, the RNC hates T