11 ms·

Is Pop Music Evolving, or Is It Just Getting Louder? (2012)

Skunkleton 8y ago
Not to say that I think modern pop is anything special, but how do these three categories of measurements correlate? How do you compare something like Dr. Dre's 2001 to Led Zeppelin 3 with only these measurements? I would imagine that 2001 would rank lower on these metrics, but I don't think anyone would describe it as "worse".
- sologoub 8y ago
  I suspect you need a different measure for the vocals, as opposed “music” itself. The sounds other than vocal part of Dr Dre’s album probably wouldn’t really stand on their own and much is quite repetitive (as noted in the study). Led Zeppelin Immigrant Song can definitely be enjoyed without the vocals, though the vocals really make it recognizable. Similarly, there are quite a few rock songs that have been made into pretty interesting orchestra pieces. Would be interesting to see if there any hip hop masterpieces that have been arranged for classical music.
  - jaredandrews 8y ago
    > Would be interesting to see if there any hip hop masterpieces that have been arranged for classical music. Nas with National Symphony Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei_l3h4J-Ck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei_l3h4J-Ck Deltron 3030: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7FxVSDLonY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7FxVSDLonY
  - dagw 8y ago
    The TV series Westworld had a scene where they had Shogun era musicians playing a Wu Tang Clan song on traditional Japanese instruments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__DEAK3AinM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__DEAK3AinM
  - TheCoelacanth 8y ago
    It's shocking how if you take a song from a genre that is focused heavily on vocals and take out the vocals, it's not a very interesting song anymore. I think rap -> poetry is a more common conversion than rap -> orchestral music because the latter is just crossing too big of a divide between music styles.
  - Skunkleton 8y ago
    Yeah, that sounds right. There are some producers that can stand on their own though too, but they would probably do well in the metrics in TFA. When a piece of music is both simple and captivating, I view that as a huge achievement. I can play simple songs, but no one wants to listen to them (and rightly so!). The Ramones can play even simpler songs, and they are special. I have no idea how to measure something like this.
ChainOfFools 8y ago
it's almost as if this is, on a highly sped up time frame, a process similar to that which yields stable traditions in different regionall forms of artistic representation, but without the kind of natural propagation boundaries that would normally contain the spread of a tradition to within a narrow geographical and cultural region. We, by which I mean the Western world as influenced by pop music in the era of widespread mass communication, are settling on a common collective cultural music motif, and this cannot help but be a bit of a race to the complexity floor in order for it to be sufficiently widespread and stabilized.
- hnzix 8y ago
  Needs more autotune and wobble bass bro.
  - milemi 8y ago
    Not to mention the cowbell.
aston 8y ago
Louder is not really worse when it comes to music. In fact, try turning up whatever you're listening to right now--it'll actually sound better! The loudness wars (mass application of massive compression that reduces dynamic range) are the music equivalent of adding salt to savory foods. People like it better even though it's technically "worse".
- mchahn 8y ago
  Wow. Can't disagree more. Compressed audio only sounds better on crappy speakers. Maybe they are common with phones.
  - userbinator 8y ago
    The effect of loudness on perception is well-documented in several studies and used to much advantage by audiophile snake-oil peddlers.
    - p1necone 8y ago
      Loudness yes, but increased loudness that necessitates compression, where the compression is the negative is what is being talked about here.
  - slv77 8y ago
    Compressed audio works better in environments with a lot of ambient noise such as cars. Since this is where most people listen to (and discover) the majority of their music artists are adjusting to their audience.
- suprathreshold 8y ago
  Just make sure that you're staying within safe listening levels as to not damage your hearing.
- bassman9000 8y ago
  Compressing means giving up on the dynamics. It's a lossy process. E.g. the drummer started a subtle crescendo, that lasted a few bars, and now it's gone because everything sounds the same. BTW, came to post about the wars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
grawprog 8y ago
I see it as more of the same corporate 'streamlining' that's gone into other media. Much like movies and video games, pop music is being produced for a mass international audience. I've got friends in Indonesia and the Philippines that know more about modern American pop music, movies and video games than I do. Other than what comes on the radio at work I have no idea what's really popular these days. That being said. I've heard lots of great modern music being produced you just have to look for it. Kinda like the way some of the best video games I've seen being made these days aren't giant AAA games with huge a Dev staff and budget, but small indie games with one or a few developers seem to be the real leaders in game innovation these days, a lot of the 'good' music being made isn't the stuff that comes on the radio or hits the top song lists of Spotify or whatever the kids use these days. Loudness is kind of ridiculous these days though. But, I've noticed a big difference in songs I listen to that are intended to be released on vinyl(this still happens) vs songs that are intended for digital or CD release. The vinyl tracks are far less compressed, have moredynamic range, and are 'quieter', even for dance type tunes, than the digital ones, which have peaked red lots without any kind of amplification and their waveforms are basically just one big blob from start to finish. Compression and normalization have kinda wrecked the quality of a lot of music. One of Metallica's newer albums suffered from that badly, the song's weren't terrible but the mastering made them sound like shit. Then there's autotune...but that's a whole other pile of bullshit right there.
- BurningFrog 8y ago
  Music is global, but it's also infinitely more diverse than it's ever been. There are no record company gate keepers anymore. There are more artists and genres than anyone can keep up with. A ton of it is fantastic, but it's so hard to find among the garbage :)
- DiabloD3 8y ago
  Death Magnetic, released a decade ago. Famous for being so bad, Guitar Hero's development team asked for the original unmastered files, was granted their request, and then properly mastered them just so they could be included in the game without destroying the experience. Guitar Hero's version of Death Magnetic was apparently pirated more times than rips of the authentic release. It was heavily praised for being a more clear, detailed mix, that didn't shove highs under the bus for muddy lows and generally ruined vocals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nfqpr3ygSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nfqpr3ygSg for a comparison on the least ruined song on the album, that the author volume matched for the video. The original release had to be decreased 14dB to match the level of the GH3 release for this comparison.
projectramo 8y ago
Quickly read the article for evidence that popular music peaked with Motley Crue’s Theater Of Pain (1985) album but it appears that this article had also failed me.
nicolas_t 8y ago
The original article in Scientific American is much better https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/is-pop-music-evolving-or-is-it-just-getting-louder/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/is-pop-mus... The author of the article highlights a potential bias with this study which is worth pointing out: But I did wonder if there was a selection bias in play here. The Million Song Dataset, huge as it is, may not provide a representative slice of pop music, especially for old songs. Its contents are heavily weighted to modern music: the database contains only 2,650 songs released between 1955 and 1959, but nearly two orders of magnitude more—177,808 songs—released between 2005 and 2009. That’s because it draws on what’s popular now, as well as what has been digitized and made available for download. And the songs of yesteryear that people enjoy today (as oldies) may not be the same ones that people enjoyed when those songs first came out.
- p1necone 8y ago
  Yeah - this could potentially be a huge bias. Songs that are top 40 hits for a month or so and songs that have staying power to be memorable 40 years from now are probably not quite the same category. It also echoes my (baseless) assumption that the main reason that we have this idea that music a few decades ago or more was somehow "better" is that anything that wasn't at least above average is completely forgotten by now i.e. survivorship bias.
  - okonomiyaki3000 8y ago
    That's true. Terrible songs (like Sylk-E Fyne's "Romeo and Juliet") are completely forgotten very soon while the really good songs are never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.
    - mwilliaams 8y ago
      People are really still doing this? I can't stand the fact that back in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.
CPLX 8y ago
That headline makes about as much sense one that says “art proves science” or “objective facts prove subjective points”.
the_cat_kittles 8y ago
premise is fuckin stupid. you cant pick metrics willy nilly and use them to justify. impressions has two chords, still a brilliant song. lack of textural variety means a solo piano piece sucks i guess? no. you are just an opinion in search of evidence. sorry, try again.
- sbuttgereit 8y ago
  Uhh... that completely misses the point. Sure Impressions only has two chords... but Giant Steps, another Coltrane tune essentially has 5 chords every three bars and modulates in that time as well. They're very different charts by the same artist. And even with Impressions they really didn't play it safe nor did they play it straight dorian in the solos either (much less so than Miles did with the same two chords). Depending on which recording of Impressions you're referring to, I wouldn't call Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet on "India" a common timbral choice either and on the same album as Impressions. The point was over a large body of work there is much more homogeneity today than there use to be. While we can bicker about their data and study approach, the gist of their conclusion is not necessary invalid or stupid. Maybe their methods are... [edit for clarity] Before anyone thinking about it jumps on my case... yes I know Giant Steps is 16 bars with four bar phrases or "stanzas" if you prefer... but to my ears the fourth bar in each group, while structurally important overall, functions more as embellishment and transition harmonically, melodically, and (a bit less so) rhythmically setting up the next phrase... the first three bars in each group are really the focus and point. (sorry had to get that off my chest).
  - the_cat_kittles 8y ago
    no you miss the point, which is that you cant arbitrarily choose metrics of quality and decide “more is better”. i played giant steps in 7 and added a bar of f# aug... guess im better than coltrane!
bobthepanda 8y ago
Sure, if your "proof" is measured in some arbitrary metric. A few of questions to consider: - Are timbre, pitch, and volume the only good metrics to measure song quality in? What about lyrics? What about themes? What about instruments? etc. - Are variations in these three metrics necessary or sufficient for there to be quality in music?
- screye 8y ago
  Well lyrics and instruments certainly haven't gotten better. Drum machines and electronic effects have taken over for instruments and lyrics are about as shallow as they can be right now.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    Lyrics are guaranteed to improve over the very long term, as language change gradually renders old lyrics literally unintelligible. There may be an objective sense in which a song from thousands of years ago has better lyrics than one from today, but nobody can perceive it through the language barrier.
  - Retra 8y ago
    Lyrics for popular music were always shallow. It's no worse today.
    - lodi 8y ago
      Well today's lyrics are worse in at least one objective way: number of unique words. In the "good old days" you could at least count on a verse, chorus, different verse, chorus, etc. structure. Then at some point they were doing "chorus, chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus...". Soon we'll be lucky to get more than a repeated sentence fragment. Case in point: https://www.google.ca/search?q=turn+down+for+what+lyrics https://www.google.ca/search?q=turn+down+for+what+lyrics Or this gem: https://www.google.ca/search?q=watch+me+whip+lyrics https://www.google.ca/search?q=watch+me+whip+lyrics
      - 8y ago
sehugg 8y ago
"Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974. It's a scientific fact!" -- Homer Simpson, "Homerpalooza"
- Scarblac 8y ago
  Yes, but then it turned out Phil actually sang that music better than Peter so there can be some disagreement over the exact year.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    > Yes, but then it turned out Phil actually sang that music better than Peter It did? Apparently there can't be only disagreement over the year.
djcjr 8y ago
Science only disproves.
Steko 8y ago
Alternate title: pop music responds to consumer preferences for louder music with less jarring timbre and pitch transitions
msvan 8y ago
This conclusion may have held in 2012, but the loudness wars are ending with loudness normalization being enabled by default on most streaming platforms, which is what most music is mastered for these days.
toomanybeersies 8y ago
A well set equaliser (for your specific speakers/headphones) goes a long way towards reversing this problem. Or at least it feels like it to me. I've started using eqMac2 [1] on my Macbook for equalising my headphones. The difference between non-eq sound and my profile is night and day. Without the equaliser it sounds like I'm listening to music through a swimming pool. I have to say though, nothing beats music with proper dynamic range being pumped through a >$10,000 speaker system in a room that's been properly fitted for the acoustics. There's a new nightclub that's opened in my city, where the owner has spent a lot of time and money getting the sound system set up properly. He has an absolute banging Funktion One system [2], with properly designed room with all the correct dampening and stuff. The difference between that and a generic setup with no design is absolutely night and day. You can stand in the middle of the dance floor with the music absolutely cranking and still hold a conversation. As much as I do love techno, I really want to see them put some Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd through the system. With proper sound systems like a Funktion One and high quality music, you don't just hear the music, you can feel the music. It's absolutely phenomenal. [1] https://github.com/nodeful/eqMac2 https://github.com/nodeful/eqMac2 [2] https://www.funktion-one.com/ https://www.funktion-one.com/
- spiralx 8y ago
  As much as I love a room with a properly fitted and tuned Funktion One system playing techno at a level where I can feel the bass in every part of my body, that pretty much is the sweet spot for F1 rigs, so you might be disappointed with how they sound playing other types of music. http://www.jumble.blue/en/what-nobody-tells-you-and-admits-about-funktion-one/ http://www.jumble.blue/en/what-nobody-tells-you-and-admits-a...
  - toomanybeersies 8y ago
    Great read, thanks. I haven't listened to enough psy-trance on F1 systems to really make a comment, but it's something I'll definitely think about next time I'm at a psy-trance thing with F1 speakers.
    - 8y ago
afro88 8y ago
I’d be interested to see a follow up on this. Spotify and Apple both encourage a form of mastering that doesn’t reward loudness. Apple has that soundcheck thing, Spotify as well (not sure what they call it). I’m sure this has had a not so insignificant effect on the loudness war.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  I don't think Spotify has a specific word for it, just "Normalize volume", with an option to set it to quiet, normal or loud. There's a clear difference between well-produced songs and over-compressed songs. The over-compressed ones tend to be much quieter, because the normalizer goes by average volume instead of peaks. So well-produced songs get to go "over" for some amount of the song, to give room for dynamics.
Zarath 8y ago
Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I have a feeling it's because the primary demographic of music listener is getting younger and younger. With streaming platforms like Spotify and Youtube, I imagine that teenagers and even young children have a huge sway over what the music industry produces and represent an increasing fraction of their revenue. Not to mention businesses are likely using music more than ever (it plays over the speakers on planes when boarding and de-planing, in stores, restaurants, gyms, etc.) and they all try really really hard to avoid something that is offensive, which usually means lowest common denominator, plain vanilla garbage. That being said, I really wonder about their database. They are certainly including more than just pop using that many pieces of music. I pretty much disagree with any premise that music is getting worse, in general. Pop music, maybe, but the sheer quantity and variety of amazing work out there can't be understated. I've found so many life changing works of music that have been produced after 2000 and continue finding them all the time. Anyone saying music is getting worse either isn't looking in the right place, or is stuck in their ways.
- jackhack 8y ago
  You're not wrong. Adults have an ability to discern crap from talent. Children don't know the difference, and will buy what's pushed at them. This is very different from the 1940s, 1950s, where a record (and phonograph, speakers, amplifier) was expensive and music was primarily purchased by adults. The demographic shift is rather profound -- where the average age used to be in the high 30s/low 40s, to today, where it is teenagers. I don't agree that pop music is becoming more vanilla and less offensive. In fact I think it's demonstrably quite the opposite -- much more vulgar and crude. Just a few moments spent with modern "music videos" should dispel any notion of bland, inoffensive art.
turc1656 8y ago
What I have personally noticed over the last 15 years or so is the move away from melody and towards chord progressions and layering. This has the effect of producing more complex music (many times courtesy of modern digital technology) but nevertheless music that generally is forgettable. When I have my family in the car on the weekends and I'm forced to listen to the radio, I'm amazed at the lack of melody in most songs as well as the same progression, structure, and timbre between songs. They are so similar it's extremely difficult to recall which song is which if you take away the vocals. I think modern pop has attempted to replace instrumental melody with a sort of vocal melody that stands out for easy identification. This, I presume, is because of the nature of modern pop. Many "artists" are solo performers who have a brand to sell so the people writing songs for them make it such that the song is built to bolster the brand/image rather than attempting to structure the song in the best way musically. The switch away from melody is also extremely present in soundtracks. Think about John Williams who, in my opinion, is the "master of melody". Every time he creates a soundtrack there are instantly recognizable melodies and motifs. Just reading the following words - Harry Potter, Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, The Godfather - and you could probably hum any of those melodies on command. Or at least you could instantly identify it if you heard it. Contrast that with someone like Hans Zimmer (who is excellent, BTW). But he's a more "modern" composer, right? And if you look at his stuff you'll see that he's basically a "master of timbre", which is why someone like Hans Zimmer stands out in the modern era where, as the article states, timbral variety has gone down. In fact, I would argue that some of Zimmer's best work are the ones where he actually combines his timbral mastery with melody. Things like Gladiator and Pirates of the Caribbean.
grasshopperpurp 8y ago
It's always interesting to see certain types try to discuss art. Since James Brown, music has been trending toward an emphasis on rhythm, with melody and harmony playing a more pragmatic role - rather than the inverse. This article doesn't even mention rhythm. Ringo Starr was a mediocre drummer, yet many claim the Beatles are the best band ever (a stupid claim to make about any band, but here we are). Most pop music will be bad, because art is hard. There are different ways to make art work. There are different ways to make music work. The more dogmatic you are about what makes art and music good, the more you'll miss out on great stuff, the more you'll limit yourself. The combination of Future and Metro Boomin is just as exciting (to me) as the combination of Jagger and Richards or Lennon and McCartney.
kazagistar 8y ago
Pop music isn't nearly as important now. As music is cheaper to make and produce, and more and more artists and fans live in niches and subcultures, the only people who listen to pop are the people who don't care enough to discern their more specific tastes. Why would it be any surprise then that pop trends towards a boring inoffensive middle?

Not to say that I think modern pop is anything special, but how do these three categories of measurements correlate? How do you compare something like Dr. Dre's 2001 to Led Zeppelin 3 with only these measurements? I would imagine that 2001 would rank lower on these metrics, but I don't think anyone would describe it as "worse".

sologoub 8y ago
I suspect you need a different measure for the vocals, as opposed “music” itself. The sounds other than vocal part of Dr Dre’s album probably wouldn’t really stand on their own and much is quite repetitive (as noted in the study). Led Zeppelin Immigrant Song can definitely be enjoyed without the vocals, though the vocals really make it recognizable. Similarly, there are quite a few rock songs that have been made into pretty interesting orchestra pieces. Would be interesting to see if there any hip hop masterpieces that have been arranged for classical music.
- jaredandrews 8y ago
  > Would be interesting to see if there any hip hop masterpieces that have been arranged for classical music. Nas with National Symphony Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei_l3h4J-Ck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei_l3h4J-Ck Deltron 3030: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7FxVSDLonY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7FxVSDLonY
- dagw 8y ago
  The TV series Westworld had a scene where they had Shogun era musicians playing a Wu Tang Clan song on traditional Japanese instruments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__DEAK3AinM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__DEAK3AinM
- TheCoelacanth 8y ago
  It's shocking how if you take a song from a genre that is focused heavily on vocals and take out the vocals, it's not a very interesting song anymore. I think rap -> poetry is a more common conversion than rap -> orchestral music because the latter is just crossing too big of a divide between music styles.
- Skunkleton 8y ago
  Yeah, that sounds right. There are some producers that can stand on their own though too, but they would probably do well in the metrics in TFA. When a piece of music is both simple and captivating, I view that as a huge achievement. I can play simple songs, but no one wants to listen to them (and rightly so!). The Ramones can play even simpler songs, and they are special. I have no idea how to measure something like this.

ChainOfFools 8y ago

it's almost as if this is, on a highly sped up time frame, a process similar to that which yields stable traditions in different regionall forms of artistic representation, but without the kind of natural propagation boundaries that would normally contain the spread of a tradition to within a narrow geographical and cultural region. We, by which I mean the Western world as influenced by pop music in the era of widespread mass communication, are settling on a common collective cultural music motif, and this cannot help but be a bit of a race to the complexity floor in order for it to be sufficiently widespread and stabilized.

hnzix 8y ago
Needs more autotune and wobble bass bro.
- milemi 8y ago
  Not to mention the cowbell.

aston 8y ago

Louder is not really worse when it comes to music. In fact, try turning up whatever you're listening to right now--it'll actually sound better! The loudness wars (mass application of massive compression that reduces dynamic range) are the music equivalent of adding salt to savory foods. People like it better even though it's technically "worse".

mchahn 8y ago
Wow. Can't disagree more. Compressed audio only sounds better on crappy speakers. Maybe they are common with phones.
- userbinator 8y ago
  The effect of loudness on perception is well-documented in several studies and used to much advantage by audiophile snake-oil peddlers.
  - p1necone 8y ago
    Loudness yes, but increased loudness that necessitates compression, where the compression is the negative is what is being talked about here.
- slv77 8y ago
  Compressed audio works better in environments with a lot of ambient noise such as cars. Since this is where most people listen to (and discover) the majority of their music artists are adjusting to their audience.
suprathreshold 8y ago
Just make sure that you're staying within safe listening levels as to not damage your hearing.
bassman9000 8y ago
Compressing means giving up on the dynamics. It's a lossy process. E.g. the drummer started a subtle crescendo, that lasted a few bars, and now it's gone because everything sounds the same. BTW, came to post about the wars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

grawprog 8y ago

I see it as more of the same corporate 'streamlining' that's gone into other media. Much like movies and video games, pop music is being produced for a mass international audience. I've got friends in Indonesia and the Philippines that know more about modern American pop music, movies and video games than I do. Other than what comes on the radio at work I have no idea what's really popular these days. That being said. I've heard lots of great modern music being produced you just have to look for it. Kinda like the way some of the best video games I've seen being made these days aren't giant AAA games with huge a Dev staff and budget, but small indie games with one or a few developers seem to be the real leaders in game innovation these days, a lot of the 'good' music being made isn't the stuff that comes on the radio or hits the top song lists of Spotify or whatever the kids use these days. Loudness is kind of ridiculous these days though. But, I've noticed a big difference in songs I listen to that are intended to be released on vinyl(this still happens) vs songs that are intended for digital or CD release. The vinyl tracks are far less compressed, have moredynamic range, and are 'quieter', even for dance type tunes, than the digital ones, which have peaked red lots without any kind of amplification and their waveforms are basically just one big blob from start to finish. Compression and normalization have kinda wrecked the quality of a lot of music. One of Metallica's newer albums suffered from that badly, the song's weren't terrible but the mastering made them sound like shit. Then there's autotune...but that's a whole other pile of bullshit right there.

BurningFrog 8y ago
Music is global, but it's also infinitely more diverse than it's ever been. There are no record company gate keepers anymore. There are more artists and genres than anyone can keep up with. A ton of it is fantastic, but it's so hard to find among the garbage :)
DiabloD3 8y ago
Death Magnetic, released a decade ago. Famous for being so bad, Guitar Hero's development team asked for the original unmastered files, was granted their request, and then properly mastered them just so they could be included in the game without destroying the experience. Guitar Hero's version of Death Magnetic was apparently pirated more times than rips of the authentic release. It was heavily praised for being a more clear, detailed mix, that didn't shove highs under the bus for muddy lows and generally ruined vocals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nfqpr3ygSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nfqpr3ygSg for a comparison on the least ruined song on the album, that the author volume matched for the video. The original release had to be decreased 14dB to match the level of the GH3 release for this comparison.

projectramo 8y ago

Quickly read the article for evidence that popular music peaked with Motley Crue’s Theater Of Pain (1985) album but it appears that this article had also failed me.

nicolas_t 8y ago

The original article in Scientific American is much better https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/is-pop-music-evolving-or-is-it-just-getting-louder/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/is-pop-mus... The author of the article highlights a potential bias with this study which is worth pointing out: But I did wonder if there was a selection bias in play here. The Million Song Dataset, huge as it is, may not provide a representative slice of pop music, especially for old songs. Its contents are heavily weighted to modern music: the database contains only 2,650 songs released between 1955 and 1959, but nearly two orders of magnitude more—177,808 songs—released between 2005 and 2009. That’s because it draws on what’s popular now, as well as what has been digitized and made available for download. And the songs of yesteryear that people enjoy today (as oldies) may not be the same ones that people enjoyed when those songs first came out.

p1necone 8y ago
Yeah - this could potentially be a huge bias. Songs that are top 40 hits for a month or so and songs that have staying power to be memorable 40 years from now are probably not quite the same category. It also echoes my (baseless) assumption that the main reason that we have this idea that music a few decades ago or more was somehow "better" is that anything that wasn't at least above average is completely forgotten by now i.e. survivorship bias.
- okonomiyaki3000 8y ago
  That's true. Terrible songs (like Sylk-E Fyne's "Romeo and Juliet") are completely forgotten very soon while the really good songs are never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.
  - mwilliaams 8y ago
    People are really still doing this? I can't stand the fact that back in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.

CPLX 8y ago

That headline makes about as much sense one that says “art proves science” or “objective facts prove subjective points”.

the_cat_kittles 8y ago

premise is fuckin stupid. you cant pick metrics willy nilly and use them to justify. impressions has two chords, still a brilliant song. lack of textural variety means a solo piano piece sucks i guess? no. you are just an opinion in search of evidence. sorry, try again.

sbuttgereit 8y ago
Uhh... that completely misses the point. Sure Impressions only has two chords... but Giant Steps, another Coltrane tune essentially has 5 chords every three bars and modulates in that time as well. They're very different charts by the same artist. And even with Impressions they really didn't play it safe nor did they play it straight dorian in the solos either (much less so than Miles did with the same two chords). Depending on which recording of Impressions you're referring to, I wouldn't call Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet on "India" a common timbral choice either and on the same album as Impressions. The point was over a large body of work there is much more homogeneity today than there use to be. While we can bicker about their data and study approach, the gist of their conclusion is not necessary invalid or stupid. Maybe their methods are... [edit for clarity] Before anyone thinking about it jumps on my case... yes I know Giant Steps is 16 bars with four bar phrases or "stanzas" if you prefer... but to my ears the fourth bar in each group, while structurally important overall, functions more as embellishment and transition harmonically, melodically, and (a bit less so) rhythmically setting up the next phrase... the first three bars in each group are really the focus and point. (sorry had to get that off my chest).
- the_cat_kittles 8y ago
  no you miss the point, which is that you cant arbitrarily choose metrics of quality and decide “more is better”. i played giant steps in 7 and added a bar of f# aug... guess im better than coltrane!

bobthepanda 8y ago

Sure, if your "proof" is measured in some arbitrary metric. A few of questions to consider: - Are timbre, pitch, and volume the only good metrics to measure song quality in? What about lyrics? What about themes? What about instruments? etc. - Are variations in these three metrics necessary or sufficient for there to be quality in music?

screye 8y ago
Well lyrics and instruments certainly haven't gotten better. Drum machines and electronic effects have taken over for instruments and lyrics are about as shallow as they can be right now.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  Lyrics are guaranteed to improve over the very long term, as language change gradually renders old lyrics literally unintelligible. There may be an objective sense in which a song from thousands of years ago has better lyrics than one from today, but nobody can perceive it through the language barrier.
- Retra 8y ago
  Lyrics for popular music were always shallow. It's no worse today.
  - lodi 8y ago
    Well today's lyrics are worse in at least one objective way: number of unique words. In the "good old days" you could at least count on a verse, chorus, different verse, chorus, etc. structure. Then at some point they were doing "chorus, chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus...". Soon we'll be lucky to get more than a repeated sentence fragment. Case in point: https://www.google.ca/search?q=turn+down+for+what+lyrics https://www.google.ca/search?q=turn+down+for+what+lyrics Or this gem: https://www.google.ca/search?q=watch+me+whip+lyrics https://www.google.ca/search?q=watch+me+whip+lyrics
    - 8y ago

sehugg 8y ago

"Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974. It's a scientific fact!" -- Homer Simpson, "Homerpalooza"

Scarblac 8y ago
Yes, but then it turned out Phil actually sang that music better than Peter so there can be some disagreement over the exact year.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  > Yes, but then it turned out Phil actually sang that music better than Peter It did? Apparently there can't be only disagreement over the year.

djcjr 8y ago

Science only disproves.

Steko 8y ago

Alternate title: pop music responds to consumer preferences for louder music with less jarring timbre and pitch transitions

msvan 8y ago

This conclusion may have held in 2012, but the loudness wars are ending with loudness normalization being enabled by default on most streaming platforms, which is what most music is mastered for these days.

toomanybeersies 8y ago

A well set equaliser (for your specific speakers/headphones) goes a long way towards reversing this problem. Or at least it feels like it to me. I've started using eqMac2 [1] on my Macbook for equalising my headphones. The difference between non-eq sound and my profile is night and day. Without the equaliser it sounds like I'm listening to music through a swimming pool. I have to say though, nothing beats music with proper dynamic range being pumped through a >$10,000 speaker system in a room that's been properly fitted for the acoustics. There's a new nightclub that's opened in my city, where the owner has spent a lot of time and money getting the sound system set up properly. He has an absolute banging Funktion One system [2], with properly designed room with all the correct dampening and stuff. The difference between that and a generic setup with no design is absolutely night and day. You can stand in the middle of the dance floor with the music absolutely cranking and still hold a conversation. As much as I do love techno, I really want to see them put some Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd through the system. With proper sound systems like a Funktion One and high quality music, you don't just hear the music, you can feel the music. It's absolutely phenomenal. [1] https://github.com/nodeful/eqMac2 https://github.com/nodeful/eqMac2 [2] https://www.funktion-one.com/ https://www.funktion-one.com/

spiralx 8y ago
As much as I love a room with a properly fitted and tuned Funktion One system playing techno at a level where I can feel the bass in every part of my body, that pretty much is the sweet spot for F1 rigs, so you might be disappointed with how they sound playing other types of music. http://www.jumble.blue/en/what-nobody-tells-you-and-admits-about-funktion-one/ http://www.jumble.blue/en/what-nobody-tells-you-and-admits-a...
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  Great read, thanks. I haven't listened to enough psy-trance on F1 systems to really make a comment, but it's something I'll definitely think about next time I'm at a psy-trance thing with F1 speakers.
  - 8y ago

afro88 8y ago

I’d be interested to see a follow up on this. Spotify and Apple both encourage a form of mastering that doesn’t reward loudness. Apple has that soundcheck thing, Spotify as well (not sure what they call it). I’m sure this has had a not so insignificant effect on the loudness war.

KozmoNau7 8y ago
I don't think Spotify has a specific word for it, just "Normalize volume", with an option to set it to quiet, normal or loud. There's a clear difference between well-produced songs and over-compressed songs. The over-compressed ones tend to be much quieter, because the normalizer goes by average volume instead of peaks. So well-produced songs get to go "over" for some amount of the song, to give room for dynamics.

Zarath 8y ago

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I have a feeling it's because the primary demographic of music listener is getting younger and younger. With streaming platforms like Spotify and Youtube, I imagine that teenagers and even young children have a huge sway over what the music industry produces and represent an increasing fraction of their revenue. Not to mention businesses are likely using music more than ever (it plays over the speakers on planes when boarding and de-planing, in stores, restaurants, gyms, etc.) and they all try really really hard to avoid something that is offensive, which usually means lowest common denominator, plain vanilla garbage. That being said, I really wonder about their database. They are certainly including more than just pop using that many pieces of music. I pretty much disagree with any premise that music is getting worse, in general. Pop music, maybe, but the sheer quantity and variety of amazing work out there can't be understated. I've found so many life changing works of music that have been produced after 2000 and continue finding them all the time. Anyone saying music is getting worse either isn't looking in the right place, or is stuck in their ways.

jackhack 8y ago
You're not wrong. Adults have an ability to discern crap from talent. Children don't know the difference, and will buy what's pushed at them. This is very different from the 1940s, 1950s, where a record (and phonograph, speakers, amplifier) was expensive and music was primarily purchased by adults. The demographic shift is rather profound -- where the average age used to be in the high 30s/low 40s, to today, where it is teenagers. I don't agree that pop music is becoming more vanilla and less offensive. In fact I think it's demonstrably quite the opposite -- much more vulgar and crude. Just a few moments spent with modern "music videos" should dispel any notion of bland, inoffensive art.

turc1656 8y ago

What I have personally noticed over the last 15 years or so is the move away from melody and towards chord progressions and layering. This has the effect of producing more complex music (many times courtesy of modern digital technology) but nevertheless music that generally is forgettable. When I have my family in the car on the weekends and I'm forced to listen to the radio, I'm amazed at the lack of melody in most songs as well as the same progression, structure, and timbre between songs. They are so similar it's extremely difficult to recall which song is which if you take away the vocals. I think modern pop has attempted to replace instrumental melody with a sort of vocal melody that stands out for easy identification. This, I presume, is because of the nature of modern pop. Many "artists" are solo performers who have a brand to sell so the people writing songs for them make it such that the song is built to bolster the brand/image rather than attempting to structure the song in the best way musically. The switch away from melody is also extremely present in soundtracks. Think about John Williams who, in my opinion, is the "master of melody". Every time he creates a soundtrack there are instantly recognizable melodies and motifs. Just reading the following words - Harry Potter, Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, The Godfather - and you could probably hum any of those melodies on command. Or at least you could instantly identify it if you heard it. Contrast that with someone like Hans Zimmer (who is excellent, BTW). But he's a more "modern" composer, right? And if you look at his stuff you'll see that he's basically a "master of timbre", which is why someone like Hans Zimmer stands out in the modern era where, as the article states, timbral variety has gone down. In fact, I would argue that some of Zimmer's best work are the ones where he actually combines his timbral mastery with melody. Things like Gladiator and Pirates of the Caribbean.

grasshopperpurp 8y ago

It's always interesting to see certain types try to discuss art. Since James Brown, music has been trending toward an emphasis on rhythm, with melody and harmony playing a more pragmatic role - rather than the inverse. This article doesn't even mention rhythm. Ringo Starr was a mediocre drummer, yet many claim the Beatles are the best band ever (a stupid claim to make about any band, but here we are). Most pop music will be bad, because art is hard. There are different ways to make art work. There are different ways to make music work. The more dogmatic you are about what makes art and music good, the more you'll miss out on great stuff, the more you'll limit yourself. The combination of Future and Metro Boomin is just as exciting (to me) as the combination of Jagger and Richards or Lennon and McCartney.

kazagistar 8y ago

Pop music isn't nearly as important now. As music is cheaper to make and produce, and more and more artists and fans live in niches and subcultures, the only people who listen to pop are the people who don't care enough to discern their more specific tastes. Why would it be any surprise then that pop trends towards a boring inoffensive middle?