Study Finds New Pop Music Does All Sound the Same

whoever57 writes "A study of music from the '50 to the present using the Million Song Dataset has concluded that modern music has less variation than older music and songs today are, on average, 9dB louder than 50 years ago. Almost all music uses just 10 chords, but the way these are used together has changed, leading to fewer types of transitions being used. Variation in timbre has also reduced over the past decades."

Not just me

[colinrichardday]

So it isn't just me?

Re:Not just me

[Ouchie]

The study also found that the author is approximately 60 years older than he was in the 50's.

Re:I blame

[Nerdfest]

No, they're talking about music here. I doubt rap was even included.

Re:Wait till they factor in Autotune

[Quiet_Desperation]

All music is converging until it consists of single, steady tones.

Heard a great song today. It was B flat for three minute.

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....

It rocks!

Re:Newsflash

[MysteriousPreacher]

Hey, Beyonce's music shows a great deal of variation! She covers all themes from "I strong independent woman and I gots my man but why he not put ring on muh finger?" through to "We honeys be single confident woman dancing and whooping, and 'aint gon be needin' no man to put a ring on us fingers". The music itself is just as varied and interesting as her lyrics.

Re:Wait till they factor in Autotune

[Clovert Agent]

So the vuvuzelas at the World Cup were just ahead of their time, eh? :)

Re:The most used ten chords

[sycodon]

After riding with my son in his truck and being subjected to "Pop Metal", Whatever TFTI that is, the singers have a range of 1 note, which is a monotonic screeching somewhere between a donkey being molested by Jerry Sandusky and an elephant giving birth.

Re:The most used ten chords

[reub2000]

In other words, due to old age you are unable to hear the higher frequencies that pop-metal singers squeal at.

Re:The most used ten chords

[sycodon]

I expect I have better high frequency hearing than your average Metal fan simply due to the volume at which they listen to their music.

I buy stock in hearing aid companies.

Clint Eastwood should do a movie with the line "Turn that damn music down".

Re:I blame

[rwise2112]

I think my favorite quote about Ringo came from John Lenon when asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world.

"Are you kidding! Ringo isn't even the best drummer in The Beatles!"

Re:Traditional British/American folk music also

[slim]

Lou Reed: "One chord is fine. Two chords is pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz."

Re:Wait till they factor in Autotune

[tompaulco]

Don't get me started on Rap.
Someone please mod this off topic. We're talking about music.

Re:The most used ten chords

[bandy]

Route learning? "First play this, walk to the center of the stage, play that, kneel, play the other thing, stand up, go back to the bassist and play this again." Or do you mean "rote learning"?