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It's official: Pop music is louder and less original than it used to be.

Magic Poriferan

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Read it and weep.

Comforting news for anyone over the age of 35, scientists have worked out that modern pop music really is louder and does all sound the same.

Researchers in Spain used a huge archive known as the Million Song Dataset, which breaks down audio and lyrical content into data that can be crunched, to study pop songs from 1955 to 2010.

A team led by artificial intelligence specialist Joan Serra at the Spanish National Research Council ran music from the last 50 years through some complex algorithms and found that pop songs have become intrinsically louder and more bland in terms of the chords, melodies and types of sound used.

"We found evidence of a progressive homogenisation of the musical discourse," Serra told Reuters. "In particular, we obtained numerical indicators that the diversity of transitions between note combinations - roughly speaking chords plus melodies - has consistently diminished in the last 50 years."

They also found the so-called timbre palette has become poorer. The same note played at the same volume on, say, a piano and a guitar is said to have a different timbre, so the researchers found modern pop has a more limited variety of sounds.

Intrinsic loudness is the volume baked into a song when it is recorded, which can make it sound louder than others even at the same volume setting on an amplifier.

The music industry has long been accused of ramping up the volume at which songs are recorded in a 'loudness war' but Serra says this is the first time it has been properly measured using a large database.

The study, which appears in the journal Scientific Reports, offers a handy recipe for musicians in a creative drought.

Old tunes re-recorded with increased loudness, simpler chord progressions and different instruments could sound new and fashionable. The Rolling Stones in their 50th anniversary year should take note.

I do hope that last paragraph is facetious.
 

Thalassa

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Yep, I knew it was less complex. It's really fucking obvious if you listen to something like "Under the Milky Way" by the Church or even "I Can't Hold Back" by Survivor, which is not known for it's great musical composition, but I mean like "Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister ...come on, to make pop in the early to mid 80's you still had to have talent, apparently.

However, some people aren't sensitive to musical complexity, I guess, because their musical intelligence is lower. It doesn't mean they aren't as smart, they just aren't as smart in that way, so it's all the same to them, I guess. I mean there was terrible repetitive folk music even back in the day...."Cotton Eye Joe" was actually written in the 19th century.

When I look at real art, I feel something. Like high art, even in books - not even in an art museum - affects my mood and thoughts more than commercial art. Same with music.

I remember reading this thread on Personality Cafe where ISFPs were commenting that they had to feel something from their music, and I wonder if the type as a whole has more musical sensitiivity, on average ...or if people with this kind of musical sensitiivity tend to type themselves as ISFPs. I know [MENTION=7816]JTG1984[/MENTION] has this musical sensitivity, though, and he's an ISTJ and doesn't even play an instrument.

I'm curious as to what causes this type of intelligence, if it's simply a potentiality in the brain to recognize musical or artistic complexity, that some people seem to lack. Like high Fi? High Si? A little of both? Neither?

Yeah I was totally thinking about this the other day, even about recent architecture, how the cheap simplicity of it is less moving than older architecture. What gives? Why are people now so artistically insensitive and stupid in America?
 

Eugene Watson VIII

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I heard pop music for 8 hours, every week day, before I decided to take music with me
 

wolfy

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I used to really dislike pop music until I had to listen to it for work all the time. Now I even like some of it as long as it has a nice bass line I can get into.
 

acronach

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This is news?

IMO, a lot of modern stuff is just annoying. I kinda wish I could live in the 80s sometimes :p

EDIT: some of it is actually good, like lady gaga I can kinda tolerate, but the "popular" stuff that everyone has heard of but nobody seems to like is complete shit. idk, maybe I just dont hang around the people who would like that stuff?

Now that I think of it I wouldn't really be surprised if a lot of airhead bimbos liked justin bieber and stuff like that, I can kinda see it... are there really that many airhead bimbos in the world that want to buy his music that he keeps getting record deals? scary thought...
 
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Gish

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This is news?

IMO, a lot of modern stuff is just annoying. I kinda wish I could live in the 80s sometimes :p

You now have the option to listen to all of the music from the eighties without being in the eighties through the magic of audio recording.
 

Totenkindly

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Yep, I knew it was less complex. It's really fucking obvious if you listen to something like "Under the Milky Way" by the Church or even "I Can't Hold Back" by Survivor, which is not known for it's great musical composition, but I mean like "Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister ...come on, to make pop in the early to mid 80's you still had to have talent, apparently.

Yeah, as a musician, I agree with that. Part of the problem is that you no longer even have to be a musician in order to be a pop star, even if it helps a bit. I mean, I think sequencing and sampling and tone tweakers and other popularized and cheaply available devices are pretty cool in the sense they've brought music down within reach of the masses; but just as with democracy, dumbing stuff down to the lowest common denominator still dumbs it down. There's a lot of crap on the radio that doesn't take a lot of talent to produce, and when you're doing loops instead of live recorded performance, well, how can it be any different but for the song to sound alike the whole way through?

this study just kind of solidifies what was already pretty apparent.

My kids actually are into 80's pop now. My eldest son (17) is really big into Tears for Fears now. It's endearing and rather pleasing. :) Thank goodness for iTunes. :)
 

Thalassa

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You now have the option to listen to all of the music from the eighties without being in the eighties through the magic of audio recording.

I KNOWZ ISN'T IT EXCITING!!!!
 

SD45T-2

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I guess that explains why I gravitate toward progressive rock/art rock.

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz-ijWly3Q0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz-ijWly3Q0[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3hJ5-ngUow"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3hJ5-ngUow[/YOUTUBE]
 

Thalassa

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I guess that explains why I gravitate toward progressive rock/art rock.

[YOUTUBE="yz-ijWly3Q0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz-ijWly3Q0[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE="B3hJ5-ngUow"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3hJ5-ngUow[/YOUTUBE]

I agree that this:


and this:


are at least as good as this:


and this:


and these:



But the problem being that the last four were actually mainstream pop 25-30 years ago, and what is truly mainstream now is effing garbage.
 

Thalassa

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A lot of contemporary music isnt original because its just older tunes remixed, with beats and someone rapping or shouting along to it.

I guess someone could make arguments that the pop music of the 80's had a bias toward people in art school; it really was more complex and at times esoteric and downright strange. New Wave, synth pop, and what was originally deemed "college music" (progressive rock/alternative) was probably seen as pretentious by some, and you could even argue that it was largely white in terms of who was making the music.

On the other hand, there were black people also making better pop music in the 70's and 80's, I mean when I listen to Chaka Khan or early Michael Jackson I really want a fucking explanation of what the hell happened.




And it's not even a class issue. This is indicated by the fact that even middle class, white, well scrubbed pop stars like Justin Bieber and Katy Perry are making shitty repetitive garbage.
 

Lark

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I guess someone could make arguments that the pop music of the 80's had a bias toward people in art school; it really was more complex and at times esoteric and downright strange. New Wave, synth pop, and what was originally deemed "college music" (progressive rock/alternative) was probably seen as pretentious by some, and you could even argue that it was largely white in terms of who was making the music.

On the other hand, there were black people also making better pop music in the 70's and 80's, I mean when I listen to Chaka Khan or early Michael Jackson I really want a fucking explanation of what the hell happened.




And it's not even a class issue. This is indicated by the fact that even middle class, white, well scrubbed pop stars like Justin Bieber and Katy Perry are making shitty repetitive garbage.

It's all elevator music dont you think? The modern music by comparison.

I think its something to do with major shifts in culture, expectations, norms of production and production values, there was a time that I think the business of music production also provided filters, talent scouts and execs were telling people no, sorry, this is crap, instead of simple trying to guess what sells or what they could make sell irrespective of any other criteria.

The rise of the reality TV music show I think has a lot to do with it too. When these shows first emerged they were a lot better than their present day incarnations too, just check back to the beginnins and there is a real discernable difference, but that was before people, consumers, public, artists and recording labels decided that these would be annual events.

Also I think that some of the greatest bands from the seventies, eighties and nineties were able to produce music which had emotional resonance but were in a lot of ways nonsense, for instance the lyrics to any good Nervana or Pixies song, its bullshit but could be meaningful to different people for different reaons and its tuneful too, has that resonance, although a further extention from that, some could say degeneration from that, is the catchy but instantly forgettable material put out today. For instance the tunes pegged as summer hits in the UK, I've heard DJs say that they believe they will be hits, its almost like a game guessing or pegging the popular but in every instance there's a sort of acknowledgement that these tunes are shit, they will be popular because the public's taste is shit and they dont expect much better or different, I know that because otherwise DJs wouldnt be inserting so many caveats when playing a tune, such as "its a grower", "this grows on you" or "we'll be hearing this everywhere and after a while even those who're not sure will love it". What?
 

Thalassa

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It's all elevator music dont you think? The modern music by comparison.

I think its something to do with major shifts in culture, expectations, norms of production and production values, there was a time that I think the business of music production also provided filters, talent scouts and execs were telling people no, sorry, this is crap, instead of simple trying to guess what sells or what they could make sell irrespective of any other criteria.

There has been an odd shift in cultural expectations, I noticed this most explicitly with people criticizing Lana Del Rey for having once been Lizzy Grant, never acknowledging that many of the greatest music artists of the past also changed their names, changed their styles, became more theatrical, found their niche.

I think people have started, also, saying things like democracy is a bad idea just in recent years because they're just terrified by the rise of stupidity and blandness in commercial art, music, television, etc. However, I think a lot of television has always been stupid, and there are still good shows. On the television the main thing that bugs me is that MTV is no longer a music channel, and children's tv is so dumbed down. When I was a kid I had the crass, knowing, tongue-in-cheek snarky "You Can't Do That On Television." What the hell do kids have now? "Hannah Montana." It makes me want to puke, like children are being groomed to actually be more malleable, less creative and less street smart. That's dangerous. I've actually seen an article that says children show less creativity than they did ten or twenty years ago, but that's also partly to do with how public classroom teaching has become in the United States.

The rise of the reality TV music show I think has a lot to do with it too. When these shows first emerged they were a lot better than their present day incarnations too, just check back to the beginnins and there is a real discernable difference, but that was before people, consumers, public, artists and recording labels decided that these would be annual events.

Yeah people want things too fast now.

Also I think that some of the greatest bands from the seventies, eighties and nineties were able to produce music which had emotional resonance but were in a lot of ways nonsense, for instance the lyrics to any good Nervana or Pixies song, its bullshit but could be meaningful to different people for different reaons and its tuneful too, has that resonance, although a further extention from that, some could say degeneration from that, is the catchy but instantly forgettable material put out today. For instance the tunes pegged as summer hits in the UK, I've heard DJs say that they believe they will be hits, its almost like a game guessing or pegging the popular but in every instance there's a sort of acknowledgement that these tunes are shit, they will be popular because the public's taste is shit and they dont expect much better or different, I know that because otherwise DJs wouldnt be inserting so many caveats when playing a tune, such as "its a grower", "this grows on you" or "we'll be hearing this everywhere and after a while even those who're not sure will love it". What?

Yeah that last line is creepy. Who likes this music, anyway?
 

highlander

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Yep, I knew it was less complex. It's really fucking obvious if you listen to something like "Under the Milky Way" by the Church or even "I Can't Hold Back" by Survivor, which is not known for it's great musical composition, but I mean like "Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister ...come on, to make pop in the early to mid 80's you still had to have talent, apparently.

I'm surprised to see anyone mention Mr. Mister. I still listen to this. I don't think they made more than the one album though :(.

The complexity thing - this is the big problem I have with the vast majority of popular music today. It's just simple and boring. I believe there is good stuff out there but I don't know what it is because it isn't popular enough to be on the radio. When I think of the bands that were truly great and innovative, they are all old - bands like Pink Floyd, Yes and the Beatles. Kansas was I think very good. Peter Gabriel, Aerosmith, Genesis and Toto did some good stuff.

I have a hard time understanding the comment about "50 years" though. I guess that would go back to 1962. The music in the 60s was for the most part pretty simple too. Big band music in the 40s was kind of interesting.
 

Thalassa

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I'm surprised to see anyone mention Mr. Mister. I still listen to this. I don't think they made more than the one album though :(.

The complexity thing - this is the big problem I have with the vast majority of popular music today. It's just simple and boring. I believe there is good stuff out there but I don't know what it is because it isn't popular enough to be on the radio. When I think of the bands that were truly great and innovative, they are all old - bands like Pink Floyd, Yes and the Beatles. Kansas was I think very good. Peter Gabriel, Aerosmith, Genesis and Toto did some good stuff.

I have a hard time understanding the comment about "50 years" though. I guess that would go back to 1962. The music in the 60s was for the most part pretty simple too. Big band music in the 40s was kind of interesting.

Kansas and Toto are great; Aerosmith I consider more classic rock than pop. Genesis and Peter Gabriel aren't really my "taste" ...but I realize that's just a personal judgment, and that their music in many ways was more original than a lot of the stuff on the radio right now. In fact, I actually love "Salisbury Hill" and "In the Air Tonight" and "Against All Odds" so maybe I lie. Ha ha..I'm just lumping Genesis in with a different branch of 80's pop than the one I personally favor.

Stuff like this was still fairly complex for pop, dontcha think? Quite melodic, not dependent on loud shocking repetitive sounds:








However, I do know what you mean about the original Bubble Gum pop of the early 60's. On the other hand, take into consideration that it was still original at that point, even if it lacked complexity. It was fresh, exciting.
 

Thalassa

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I mean check out this musical composition (even though he's just singing about love like every other pop singer of that era):

 

Fluffywolf

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I blame the influx of sng contest tv shows. The market has shifted from pooping out singers instead of songs.
 
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