Scientists discover that pop music sounds all the same...

[That 70s Guy]

d'uh!!

classicrockmagazine.com

A scientific experiment has confirmed what rock and metal fans already knew: pop music is too loud and it all sounds the same.

Using an archive called the Million Song Dataset, researchers in Spain reduced pop songs from 1955 to 2010 into a series of numbers which were then analysed by a supercomputer.

After analysing the results, artificial intelligence expert Joan Serra concluded that recordings have become much louder over the years, while employing fewer combinations of musical notes.

Chart-fodder has also come to rely on a narrower set of instrument sounds as use of digital production increased over the years.

Serra says: “We found evidence of a progressive homogenisation of the musical discourse. We obtained indicators that the diversity of transitions between note combinations – chords plus melodies – has diminished in the last 50 years.”

And the resulting study concludes that if musicians want to sound more original, they need to look back in time for inspiration and think about simpler chord progressions while using a wider range of instruments.

The Rolling Stones mark their 50th anniversary this year.

 

[Slip'nn2Darkness]

Someone wasted money to find that out?? Pop= Dance Music.. It's gotta have a beat to make it danceable..

 

[AboutAGirl]

And the resulting study concludes that if musicians want to sound more original, they need to look back in time for inspiration and think about simpler chord progressions while using a wider range of instruments.

Uh, sure, that sounds like a winning recipe for music. You can go listen to Smells Like Teen Spirit on mandolin and jiaohu, That 70's Guy. It'll be "original" according to this study.

I gave up on looking for "original" music years ago. Somewhere around the point when you're listening to your 100th atonal noise record you realize there are much more important parts of a song beyond the vanity of a self-appointed artiste's delusions of sonic autonomy.

Neil Young has this phrase, "it's all one song." And this is a guy who does everything from doo wop and surf, to country and techno, to easy-listening and noise. Chords and instruments are only one facet of music. There are several aspects of a song that science lacks the potential to probe.

To my ears, an electronic album where every track has 1,000 different patches at its disposal sounds a heck of a lot less homogeneous than a record by a rock band, where every track uses basically the same instruments in the same configuration with pretty much the same guitar tone recorded in the same location using the same production. You can tell what era a Zep or Stones or Floyd song is just based on the production style, whereas an electronic album can use different production styles on different tracks. But I like homogeneity in certain attributes, so that's why rock is my favorite genre. And that also explains why I like modern pop so much more than older pop.

 

[Kuaizi]

It's true - everything is mastered to be too loud these days. You lose an important piece that makes rock/pop/whatever interesting - dynamics. And it's also true that yeah you can have whatever sounds you want in pop music, but riding the same note over and over again loses yet another important piece: melody. It's just nice to see science showing that today's music is mostly garbage and people are becoming desensitized to music.

 

[Taboo]

This reminds me of this video I saw last year:



haha

 

[Magic]

I am with Slip'n on this one......why waste money on a study like this.


Homogenised music. Now there is a new genre name!

 

[Lavender10]

Such an epic picture.

 

[Berserker]

There is a great bit by comedian Bill Hicks about this where he points out that at the time Debbie Gibson is the #1 album in the country and he says WTF happened to us? Jimi Hendrix > Debbie Gibson

 

[Tek_54]

Everybody knows that but we, the spanish people, demostrate it to all te people of the worls, hahaha

 

[stepcousin]

This reminds me of this video I saw last year:



haha

oh my gosh, this is true x 10!!