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posted by n1 on Sunday May 17 2015, @12:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the nevermind-the-bollocks dept.

As reported in The Economist, scientists at the University of London have analyzed fifty years of pop music, and have used statistical techniques to identify three musical "revolutions" of lasting impact.

These revolutions do all correspond with times musical critics would have said change was happening (classic rock, new wave, and hip-hop respectively), but this analysis suggests other apparent novelties, such as the punk of the 1970s, were not the revolutions that their fans might like to believe.

From the article (well worth reading):

They used Last.fm, a music-streaming service, to collect 30-second clips from 17,094 songs (86% of the total) that were (on the Billboard) chart between 1960 and 2010. Then they attacked each clip with sonic analysis and statistics.

They found that they could extract what they describe as “topics” from the music. These were coherent harmonic and timbral themes which were either present in or absent from a clip. Harmonic topics, of which there were eight, captured classes of chord change, or their absence (eg, “dominant 7th-chord changes” and “major chords without changes”). Timbral topics, of which there were also eight, were things like “drums, aggressive, percussive” and “female voice, melodic, vocal.”

The comment thread below the article is also highly recommended, and the dismissal of punk is certainly egregious.

The evolution of popular music: USA 1960–2010, published by the Royal Society, is found here.

 
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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by black6host on Sunday May 17 2015, @01:55PM

    by black6host (3827) on Sunday May 17 2015, @01:55PM (#184038) Journal

    Back in my day it was easy. Either it was 45rpm or 33 1/3 rpm. Take your pick :)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @03:44PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @03:44PM (#184076)

    Back in my day it was easier. 78rpm.

  • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Bot on Sunday May 17 2015, @10:28PM

    by Bot (3902) on Sunday May 17 2015, @10:28PM (#184199) Journal

    Back in your day, me and many other DJs played 45 rpm records at 33 and vice, with some pitch shifting. Reggae was good for spin up, techno for blending with electronic downbeats, anyway I stopped by to say that hip hop and house and techno, which are my fave genres BTW, are not in any way revolutionary. They built upon disco, soul, funky, and early electronic experimental. Any study saying otherwise is suspicious.
    Especially when it does not remark that the entirety of the genre referred as "blues" is the same f*cking song.

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    Account abandoned.