SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
It's a commonly held grudge of listeners who are no longer pop's core demographic that the music of the moment is not what it once was [...] But [what] happens when science attempts to prove these claims? Here are some studies that suggest your parents might have been having a lot more pop fun than you are...
[...] This followed a similar study by a team from the Spanish National Research Council, lead by artificial intelligence specialist Joan Serrà, who examined nearly half a million pop songs over a similar period (in this case 1955-2010), and looked at their tonal, melodic and lyrical content. They concluded that pop has become melodically less complex, using fewer chord changes, and that pop recordings are mastered to sound consistently louder (and therefore less dynamic) at a rate of around one decibel every eight years.
[...] The Lempel-Ziv algorithm is a lossless way to compress data, by taking out repetitions, and Morris used it as a tool to examine 15,000 songs from the Billboard Hot 100 from 1958 to 2014, reducing their lyrics down to their smallest size without losing any data, and comparing their relative sizes. He found two very interesting things. The first was that in every year of study, the songs that reached the Top 10 were more repetitive than their competition. The second is that pop has become more repetitive over time, as Morris points out: "2014 is the most repetitive year on record. An average song from this year compresses 22% more efficiently than one from 1960."
Of course, none of this means that pop songs are any less fun. They may be slower and sadder than before, but if pop songs are now simpler and louder and more repetitive than they used to be, that might make up for it. In fact, a 2011 report called Music and Emotions in the Brain: Familiarity Matters, compiled by a team led by Carlos Silva Pereira suggests that the human brain enjoys knowing what is coming next in music. Having conducted fMRI scans on people listening to songs, the report concludes that, "Familiarity seems to be a crucial factor in making the listeners emotionally engaged with music."
Source: Has pop music lost its fun?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Flyingmoose on Wednesday January 17 2018, @10:41AM (19 children)
Pop music was big during the 60s with the advent of recording and home listening. I think music as a way to change the world (as it was seen in my parent’s youth) has been superseded by the internet and other things, it’s now just a form of entertainment.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @10:48AM (2 children)
Even though she screamed, the man did not stop. Even though she bled, he still did not stop. He did not stop because this was justice. True Justice. A fight for men's rights. The man continued utilizing her until he was satisfied and forced her to dump herself into a dumpster. Another small victory for mankind.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @02:57PM (1 child)
What the f*** is wrong with you
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @09:50PM
Could be muslim
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Wednesday January 17 2018, @11:38AM (11 children)
Pop music was big during the 60s with the advent of recording and home listening. I think music as a way to change the world (as it was seen in my parent’s youth) has been superseded by the internet and other things, it’s now just a form of entertainment.
I think that's pretty much it, too. However, I'd clarify that said entertainment is done by entertainers and not musicians. Further, those entertainers are chosen by corporations not the listening public. Remember that in the 1960s just about every town had one or more fully independent local radio stations, each trying to find out what people wanted to hear and then playing that. Stats were aggregated and actual popular music was acknowledged. Between now and then direction of the flow has been reversed. Now, in contrast, there are few stations and those are all owned by one or two companies which syndicate their content nationally pushing entertainment from the entertainers they own onto the listening public. These few companies simply tell the listening public what the must listen to. It sucks and mostly only old people listen to radio and then mostly out of habit.
However other media are not better. No, not even Spotify is a whole lot better given how many youths stick with only the sponsored play lists.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 17 2018, @12:23PM (8 children)
You can find music created by real musicians, but you have to look in different places. My wife discovers them through podcasts. Others go to live performances. Corporations do control the old channels so processed pablum is all that a person will find there anymore.
I took a different route. In the Napster days and afterward the RIAA irritated me so much that I began teaching myself to play music. I'm no virtuoso, but I can do it well enough to scratch the itch. It's rewarding, too, in a way that listening to something someone else has composed isn't. That experience of channeling your expression into music is different and better than listening to even a great piece from someone else.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Wednesday January 17 2018, @03:28PM (1 child)
My goal this year is to go out and see more live local music more. I did it quite a lot last year, and loved it. I found some amazing bands, great shows, and a lot of the time stuff outside my normal sort of comfort range for listening. Because of the "safety" of going through metal detectors and being searched at the big venues, it actually feels like I'm going out to have fun as well. I may make an exception for Greta Van Fleet if it's a big venue show if they ever show up here. Damn those guys sound good.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 17 2018, @06:21PM
I don't know where you are in the world but if you can South by Southwest seems to attract unusual artists, as well, though in the smaller venues around town more than on the main stages. There are even buskers all over downtown who can't or don't want to pay the registration fees for the smaller places, but want to be there for the scene and the chance for exposure from talent scouts wandering from scheduled show to scheduled show.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @03:32PM
Corporate Music sucks. Learn to play and make your own music. I retired and decided to teach myself acoustic guitar. Having fun at a local weekly jam session.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday January 17 2018, @05:07PM (2 children)
By that point, the RIAA stops annoying you and the NMPA [nmpa.org] starts.
Do you write your own music, play music that others have written, or both?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 17 2018, @06:09PM (1 child)
Both, but I don't bother with tabs or sheet music. Neither do I perform. I play for my own enjoyment, and it doesn't bother me if I don't reproduce a known tune exactly.
If I did want to, or to play with others in a band or something, then I'd probably go to a library and take a picture of the sheet music with my phone or do something else. The analog hole is my friend, and always will be.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @09:52PM
Thief! How dare you steal from hard working middlemen!
You should be taxed at a rate of 200% for 10 years to make up for your transgressions.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday January 17 2018, @08:24PM (1 child)
Names/links please?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @09:06PM
Mrs. ...
Oh you meant the podcasts. Never mind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @12:59PM (1 child)
> ...every town had one or more fully independent local radio stations, each trying to find out what people wanted to hear and then playing that.
...every town had one or more fully independent local radio stations, each trying to find out how to make the most money from payola and then playing that.
ftfy
ps. It may not have been completely corrupt, but there were numerous pay-to-play scandals.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Arik on Wednesday January 17 2018, @01:05PM
That's very true, the difference being that back then, it was a scandal.
Today, it's institutionalized. Business as usual.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday January 17 2018, @07:17PM (2 children)
Oh, the good old days were good.... But you also had Payola in the 60's, so you could say it was also the advent of record label dominance and that Pop music was not necessarily chosen by the people. And music was just as big business back then - they suborned the dream in the same way that the children of the Baby Boom went from being the Flower Power of the 60s into the corporate raider Yuppies of the 80s.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @10:45PM (1 child)
Flower Power to Corporate Raiders isn't a from-to. The whole 60's hippie thing (by which we mean the last three years, but somehow it all gets classified as the whole decade) is just as selfish and self-indulgent as the 80s corporate thing (and don't forget the "Me Generation" 70's in between). That flower power crap was all about mid- to upper-class people shirking responsibility and engaging in lots of self-indulgence. Hide out in school with no responsibilities while the ones who couldn't afford it got to go fight. The ones who really walked the walk were the ones getting beat down in Selma or in Mississippi, or were the ones crawling through the jungle being shot at. But somehow the whole decade and a whole generation defines themselves by basically two musical events. They were always looking out for Number One then, the 70s, and the 80s.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday January 18 2018, @02:06PM
No, the ones that sold out and became corporate drones were never true hippies. When any philosophy becomes fashionable, it will always be flooded by a majority of wannabes and fakes.
What? Are you somehow implying that fighting is morally superior to pacifism? True hippies aren't about harming people.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @08:29PM
An old Zappa video comes to mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP4wsURn3rw [youtube.com]