July 27, 2012 10:01 am
Science Proves: Pop Music Has Actually Gotten Worse
Your pop music is probably too loud. Image: matthijs
If there’s one thing everyone can agree on, it’s that everyone else’s music is bad. And if there’s something everyone but teenagers can agree on, it’s that today’s pop music is terrible. But what if the issue isn’t inherent bias and nostalgia? What if today’s music really is that bad? To find out, we’ll need some science.
Scientific American reports on a study that tried to track changes in pop music over the last half-century.
Joan Serrà, a postdoctoral scholar at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute of the Spanish National Research Council in Barcelona, and his colleagues examined three aspects of those songs: timbre (which “accounts for the sound color, texture, or tone quality,” according to Serrà and his colleagues); pitch (which “roughly corresponds to the harmonic content of the piece, including its chords, melody, and tonal arrangements”); and loudness (more on that below).
So, what happened since 1955? Well, timbral variety went down. That means that songs are becoming more and more homogeneous. In other words, all pop music sounds the same now. Take this fake pop song for example.
The study also found that pitch content has decreased – which means that the number of chords and different melodies has gone down. “Musicians today seem to be less adventurous in moving from one chord or note to another, instead following the paths well-trod by their predecessors and contemporaries,” Scientific American explains.
And the next time an old person complains that your music is too loud, well, it probably is. Music has gotten a lot louder in the past half-century. This is a problem, Scientific American says, because:
Loudness comes at the expense of dynamic range—in very broad terms, when the whole song is loud, nothing within it stands out as being exclamatory or punchy. (This two-minute YouTube video does a great job of demonstrating how excessive loudness saps richness and depth from a recording.) Indeed, Serrà and his colleagues found that the loudness of recorded music is increasing by about one decibel every eight years.
So what this study is saying is that your parents are right, music just isn’t what it used to be.
More at Smithsonian.com
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Pop music from the past Sinatra and those folks, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, etc is tough to play. Lots of chord changes, modulations, occasional changes in time signatures, etc. Some of it is as demanding as classical music. And the dynamics are key. As a music teacher, I find that stuff fascinating. It’s also gorgeous to listen to. As a performing musician, who grew up in the 80s and stared playing in bands in the 90s, when I play, I want to get off emotionally; all that thinking gets in the way. Question; how much of that visceral emotional experience is what people really need and how much of that is what we’ve been taught to expect? As much as I admire those folks from the 30s 40s and 50s, I’d throw them over for Nirvana any day at any time.
Comment by Karen — July 29, 2012 @ 8:17 am
music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s was, for the most part, great. it had a freshness about it: when one genre died out, there was always another to replace it. i wonder if the studios had something to do with that and with the quality, too.
Comment by evelyn duncan — July 29, 2012 @ 8:38 am
when rap started that was the beginning of the downfall of intelligent music, you can not mix two cultures and expect one or the other to except each other’s culture
Comment by sarrab — July 29, 2012 @ 9:40 am
When singers started screaming instead of singing and colorful stage attire became more like Halloween costumes, performers started going for the same shock impact that we have seen in other media. There must be some solid musicians out there, in the small venues where the music scene began! I don’t see this as doors closing for the future success of great artists, but doors opening as the opportunity is huge for anyone who can put a real song out there. I think even teenagers would recognize it. When I played some Beetles music for a youngster in my family she melted into the couch and listened for an hour with a big grin on her face. We don’t see that reaction to music being promoted today!
Comment by Robin Burns — July 29, 2012 @ 11:45 am
And in addition to pop music declining in quality, so have blog posts on smithsonanmag.com.
It’s “homogeneous”, not “homogenous”. Good Lord. Isn’t anyone proofreading what’s posted before it’s posted?
Comment by Steve — July 29, 2012 @ 11:46 am
** smithsonianmag.com
Comment by Steve — July 29, 2012 @ 11:46 am
I happen to agree that pop music is far worse than ever before, but I heartily disagree with the focus of this article because I sincerely doubt that anything about art can be proven scientifically. For personal reasons, and the fact that I come from the era of melody first and rhythm second, I do lament the diminution of melody in current pop music. Certainly, however, today’s music does not lack in rhythmic value. In fact, it seems to have supplanted melody as the main attraction. There is little doubt that today’s melodies are either incredibly inane and childish or completely vacant. Singers’ vocal quality as well is something that no longer seems to be a main ingredient. That is not to say that the 60s and 70s also didn’t have their share of vapid or annoying voices assaulting us through our car speakers. The lead singer of the group Oasis is, if not the human equivalent of a dentist’s drill, at least among the most irritating sounds on the planet. But, in the final analysis (not that I’ve done any analysis) it seems to me that music, because it is an ever-evolving artform, will continue—to either get worse, better or both.
Comment by TheClambelly — July 29, 2012 @ 11:59 am
Really interesting, and yet not really a surprise.
I like the first comment
“when I play, I want to get off emotionally; all that thinking gets in the way. Question; how much of that visceral emotional experience is what people really need and how much of that is what we’ve been taught to expect? As much as I admire those folks from the 30s 40s and 50s, I’d throw them over for Nirvana any day at any time.”
It is sad but true, music has become dumber, but what makes music great is when the emotional content is genuine, whether its Simon and Garfunkel, or Ministry. You can always tell when a song is insincere, you can feel it.
My 2 cents.
Comment by Ravi — July 29, 2012 @ 1:03 pm
I tend to agree with the article. The pop songs of the 60′s, 70′s, and 80′s were much more crafted than the songs now.
Comment by Bert — July 29, 2012 @ 2:03 pm
Thanks, scientists, but I already knew.
Comment by Kerry Fitzpatrick — July 29, 2012 @ 2:09 pm
Let’s Dance To This Song has a big problem; the words are too understandable.
Comment by Bert — July 29, 2012 @ 2:10 pm
But they all have such adorable little flat tummies and belly-buttons. Surely that counts for something. Thank God Carole King or Robert Flack are not trying to make it in today’s pop market.
Comment by Jon Graznak — July 29, 2012 @ 2:55 pm
Is today’s music what you get when you cut back (or completely cut out) arts and/or music education?
Comment by Deborah Dessaso — July 29, 2012 @ 3:47 pm
Radio stations and record labels have completely abandoned the idea of seeking out adventurous, off-center musicians and given completely in to the prefab, Auto-tuned barbies and Kens being churned out by American Idol and the Disney channel. And there never was an all-music video channel that replicated the influence MTV once held. Not surprising that this consolidation of the ideal pop song has accompanied the consolidation of media so there there are now only four (soon to be three) record labels and Clear Channel owns half the radio market. But the audience is just as complicit: when the cast of “Glee” has placed over TWO HUNDRED songs in the Billboard Hot 100 chart in just three years, that’s the cosumers voting with their feet.
Comment by Mark McDermott — July 29, 2012 @ 4:09 pm
One thing I’ve noted is that the lower dynamic range doesn’t have to be coupled with more volume. Lots of today’s hip-hop-inflected synth-pop is really pretty much on the soft side of loud (if that makes any sense). Even if it gets turned up loud, it’s not inherently loud in the sense that, say, a metal band is.
But I hope fans of classic rock now understand what their parents were complaining about. For myself, I find a band like Yes at their best (i.e, “Roundabout”, not “Owner of a Lonely Heart”) to be a sort of sweet spot between the old “square” music and three-chord rock’n'roll.
Comment by Jeff Blanks — July 29, 2012 @ 4:13 pm
Little music anymore. Plenty of “bang and twang”. media supported so called artists who play one string , and people who cannot sing a note.
I think the media is largely to blame and supported by the ignorant parents who allow the loss of musical education. It is hard to find real music on TV or radio, and even harder to find good dance music other than that suitable for St. Vitus’ Dance.
Comment by Derek Perkins — July 29, 2012 @ 5:53 pm
It’s fairly obvious that music is getting worse (and louder) these days. I tend to agree with Deborah. When the so-called wise ones at schools began to cut the arts and music programs using the excuse that it saves money, this is precisely the result. There was a wonderful movie of the 1980s called “Mr. Holland’s Opus” (Richard Dreyfuss). As Mr. Holland found the music program (and the arts) being cut in his school there is a poignant comment made when the principal states that when it came to choosing to teach art and music or reading, writing and arithmetic, he would choose the three ‘R’s’. Mr. Holland comment was quite fitting then, and especially today, when he tells the principal that he could cut the arts all he wanted…that pretty soon the students would have nothing to read or write ABOUT. There is no such thing as a well rounded education anymore and that is very sad for everyone; especially the kids growing up in this new and very empty world.
Comment by Sue — July 29, 2012 @ 6:08 pm
in re #12: same goes for what passes for literature.
#1: No way Nirvana is better than Sinatra, Basie, Ellington. “Visceral emotional experience” is not art. Visceral emotional experience is what screaming foot ball fans and the like get. Scream therapy does not work, it only heightens the adrenal-corticoid response and makes one more angry. It does not heal.
Comment by lisbeth jardine — July 29, 2012 @ 6:13 pm
to Steve (comment #4):
Homogenous is actually fine. It means “similar in structure between parts.” Homogeneous means nearly the same thing, and because they are often confused they are pretty much interchangeable in modern usage.
Comment by Phyllis — July 29, 2012 @ 9:52 pm
I completely agree with this article. I’m 15 years old, and I can’t listen to generic pop music at all. Although with today’s music there are genres to accommodate everyone, I feel like the wrong stuff is getting popularized. It seems all so one-sided; the radio stations are playing songs that are most likely to appeal to younger people who think that an F and an E# are two totally different things.
This seems like a good challenge for any upcoming artist – make a song that has depth, a good tone, originality, and a melody that is catchy enough to make the song a hit.
Comment by Angie — July 30, 2012 @ 8:58 am
Hi Steve and Phyllis – thanks for the notes. You’re right, the best word is homogeneous and not homogenous. http://grammarist.com/usage/homogenous-homogeneous/ Perhaps, like music, modern language confusion is ruining our literature. Or maybe I just need more coffee.
Comment by Rose Eveleth — July 30, 2012 @ 8:58 am
Didn’t necessarily need a study to know this!… but when you think about it, the music industry parallels many things in our culture; Politics, food, reality shows, electronics that are cheaply made etc. It all ties together in a culture that doesn’t seem to value quality. Very few things today seem like they are made to last. I’m not sure if this is intentional in the case of the music industry, but certainly “planned obsolescence” is present elsewhere in our disposable culture.
I would like to disagree with comment #3…although I’m not a big fan of rap, a mixing of cultures can be a great thing for any art form. American music is full of great stuff that came from intertwining African and European musical traditions…jazz, blues, gospel. Part of the problem with today’s music industry is precisely that commercial music is not allowed expand or grow out of a narrow category
Comment by David — July 30, 2012 @ 9:39 am
I like Nirvana and all. But I also like Cyrille Aimee, Rodrigo y Gabriela, John Coltrane, etc. The problem with pop music is not pop music itself. It is the fact that our brains have been shaped so we like simple stuff because we don’t like to think. That is the problem. In the old days you used to dress up, go to a theater and watch a concert. There you enjoyed and made a judgement whether the music was good or not. Today you download the music so easy that you haven´t even heard half of your music library and you throw in some headphone to listen while jogging or walking etc. So music become just a barrier from the exterior. Not an intellectual exercise. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy both experiences, but if you don’t have the first one and learn to enjoy it music will keep moving downwards to keep the pace of people’s tuned down brains. That is the core, not music but people’s brains and capacity to analyze and understand life. Cheers
Comment by Cesar — July 30, 2012 @ 11:39 am
As a songwriter and music producer I feel I have some Knowledge in this area,,, Part of the problem is actually the way the music is recorded.With digital recording nowadays the levels( lows,midranges,and highs)are pushed to the max in the mastering process causing a novelty sonic effect that unfourtanately after a few listens causes “listeners fatigue” also with new technology,if mistakes are made the enginer can use the pro tools unit to “correct it”, instead of the Artist going back and recording it again,in my opinion this takes away from the overall performance and the listener will sublimaly hear a “cut and paste” effect.I beleive it is are duty as producers and sound enginers that if its not a good take to be honest with the artist and kindly suggest that thgey do another take! John K.
Comment by John M king — July 30, 2012 @ 1:29 pm
As a young & middle aged man I had the privilege of being exposed to many talented cabaret singers in the night clubs & saloons of the 60s,70s & 80s in NYC. They (men & women) usually sang the “standards” Two that stand out are Barbara Cook & Nancy Lamant, They recorded a few albums but never broke the barrier beyond Manhattan. Their talent was eclipsed by the noise of rock. Nothing wrong with good rock music, it just seemed to get out of hand by the late 80s & beyond.
Comment by Marine Vet — July 30, 2012 @ 5:30 pm
Digital music was the downfall of great sounding music. All music is overly compressed and lossy formats such as mp3 kills any subtle dynamic.
Comment by Joe — July 30, 2012 @ 8:50 pm
One other issue is that there’s no place where you can immediately hear more sophisticated music. You used to be able to hear it in advertisements, but ad music has become infected by the Great Simplification as well, whether in the form of punk I-IV-V -ism or post-Philip Glass minimalism or an amalgam of both. As for “intellectual exercise”, don’t you know that MUSIC IS FEELING, MAAAAN? As if they can’t exist together, or as if there’s only so much “space” and if there’s intellect it “crowds out feeling”? That’s the set of assumptions under which an awful lot of music is made these days. People have been working under SIMPLEST IS BEST for more than thirty years now, and now they wonder why their music is so impoverished.
Comment by Jeff Blanks — July 30, 2012 @ 9:31 pm
Frank Sinatra or Lady Gaga? Count Basie or Eminem? Chicago or Rihanna? Stevie Wonder or Justin Bieber? I can’t believe people need a scientific study to prove music has gotten worse over the years. It should be clear that popular music has degraded when people who can barely sing are raking in millions of dollars, yet there are tons of incredibly talented starving musicians who can barely scrape enough to feed themselves.
Comment by Jacob — August 1, 2012 @ 6:13 pm
Never ceases to amaze me how much better music sounds when I occasionally play my old records on my trusty old stereo. I can also listen much longer without tiring of it. A case of one step forward and two steps back with digitized music as far as I’m concerned. Also, new music doesn’t really seem to catch my ear. Lots of great musicians, singers, and producers – but where is the song?
Comment by Sim Sala Bim — August 4, 2012 @ 2:27 am
the only music i like from the last 20 years is blink 182 and other stuff like that. i really prefer old music like ccr and the beatles. btw im 16
Comment by Jake — August 28, 2012 @ 6:02 pm
From my understanding of the issue the argument of loudness has lot to do with what is known as the “loudness war”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
Comment by Syd Barrett — August 31, 2012 @ 9:51 am
Love the video…generic pop music. Just write your own set of lyrics (or a few dozen) and find some pop tart who can hold a microphone and dance while lip-synching. Instant hit!
Comment by Dave — September 16, 2012 @ 7:16 pm
Unbelievable. Even the scientific community, with all of it’s intelligence. Anyone who is arguing about this subject is obviously too stupid to understand that scientific proof cannot be use to argue subjective opinions. Nothing can prove something as “good”, “better”, or “worse”. It never ceases to amaze *me* that someone can’t understand 1)opinions are just that: opinions, 2)when you compare decades worth of music to what is being played in this week, of course you’re going to find crap. If you look at one week of the top 40 in the ’60s, ’70′s, or ’80′s, you’ll find all kinds of crap, too. I love all kinds of music, and yes, I’m quite into older rock and roll, jazz, etc., but as a teacher, I hear all kinds of new stuff from students, and opening my mind allows me to hear some good in most of it. There’s nothing that says louder or softer is better or worse. More notes, less notes, harmonic sophistication, etc., while I may like it better, but 4’33 certainly has no harmonic sophistication, non-existent dynamics, and nothing for notes. Does that make it not brilliant? http://www.rosewhitemusic.com/cage/texts/WhatSilenceTaughtCage.html
This blog post is mental masturbation at best.
Comment by funkifized — September 16, 2012 @ 8:52 pm
I pity your students if this is the sort of analysis YOU put into all your thinking, Funk. You’re like those crazy republicans denying FACTS.. it’s a FACT that the music is more generic, not an opinion.
Besides the actual points raised in this article, you have the rise of AutoTune to thank for the increasingly generic sound of today’s pop: all vocalists — especially the females — sound alike and unchanging. So to generic music you add generic vocals and you’re looking at something uninteresting on a broad scale. Yeah, sure, as even the fake song included in this post conveys, some of them will move your feet because we respond to bass and drum, but they’re aural chinese food, totally failing to satisfy the soul. You think much of Katy Perry’s catalog is going to survive the way, say, THE WALL or the White Album or the Queen of the Night Aria have? Doubt it.
And Steve, isn’t it wonderful schadenfreude to have a typo in a rant against someone else’s purported typo?
Comment by Gyffes — September 18, 2012 @ 9:32 am
Harmonic content or the lack thereof, is the main deficiency in today’s pop music. Many Beatles songs have more chords than an entire album of U2 or REM. Chords are not thinking elements to a deep listener, they are emotive chemistry that a living person responds to, while a dead person remains numb. Science aside, aesthetic values are not purely democratic. Otherwise Grace Kelley’s beauty would merely be a social construct. We easily perceive visual beauty, but music requires a depth of personal evolution. We’re a culture of superficial frightened zombies, who’ve traded an individual search for truth for bodily security. Our current music is a tame 16th century lamb, but wait, the future will obliterate our pointless society, and that’s a good thing.
Comment by cobalt jones — October 7, 2012 @ 3:06 am
I hate how pop music becomes the representative genre of each generation. Pop music may be getting worse (if the article is correct) but I feel other genres are just as good if not better than they were before. Good music is out there you just have to look for it (youtube sidebar excellent for this).
Great new music is coming out all the time, I’ve got multiple artists with debut 2012 releases that are fantastic musicians and lyricists. All pop music today is, is music for money they create songs which are easy to digest for the masses. I guess my point is that people shouldn’t use this as a base point to undermine the rest of contemporary music.
Comment by matt — October 12, 2012 @ 5:29 am
i’m an 80′s fanatic but have everything in my collection from doris day with glen miller to evanescence.i agree that pop music of the 21st century for the most part doesn’t have much appeal.i found groups like evanescence,luna coil,nightwish,etc to be quite listenable as well as lana del rey.(but even evanescence’s material in the past couple years has all begun to sound to the same).I recently spent several hours watching some of my 80′s music videos.brian adams,john cougar..and so on.seems like the 80′s was the last decade that produced a lot of really good music.psychedelic furs,the bangles,etc.even the hard rock was melodic.def leppard,bon jovi,etc..I even liked metallica,ac/dc and aerosmith.i realize after reading these posts that this is one of the main reasons I miss the 80′s so much.all my time was wrapped up in MTV back then(instead of listening to the radio).plus of course society and people
s attitudes were much different…much different.i really don’t care for the 21st century much.
Comment by Dennis — December 12, 2012 @ 6:01 am
The reason why artists in rock dont display creative genious are artistic genius has more to do with the disenfranchisement of the youth being able benchmarking the genius of classic rock from 60′s, 70′d to early 80′s . Too much time has gone by, and they have been weened on crap music for so long now. I believe that musical integrity started to go downhill in the 90′s. Granted, for any new rock band to be cut form the same cloth as the greats, it would make sense that these musicians must have been going at it for long enough for them to become “that” good. I believe that the only incendiary musicians are statistically 40 and above and are not in bands but scattered, and never got deals, but some are still holding on. Is the industry trying to look for those musicians, of course not. It is their duty however to do just that. Perfect example Rival Sons
Comment by ben — January 3, 2013 @ 7:23 pm
pop music seem to have started suck in the mid 90s or mid late 90s and hasn’t got any better the backstreet boys nsync* lfo otown 98 degrees spice girls aqua all had horrible songs that are no different from today’s pop music. same cheesy lyrics and computer generated music. and this is my opinion of mid 90s pop music.which i’m entitled too.
Comment by billybobby — March 11, 2013 @ 3:48 pm