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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.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rich on Sunday May 17 2015, @05:45PM
That analysis isn't really about who can be credited for mentioned revolutions, but about the largest "deltas" of a few metrics of Top 100 tunes. So it merely illustrates the time of the most significant changes of the public taste. Of course "more real" revolutions might have caused those changes, but here the paper isn't really helpful.
Punk rock was mentioned before as neglected in the analysis, but it really is not, unless you use "fashion style" as one of the metrics. Which certainly would be appropriate, because looks & outfit of the performers always were (an effective) part of the sales pitch. Just musically, MC5 or Death (Detroit) were there long before the Pistols or the Ramones. (I am just back from a punk band rehearsal, so I speak with authority here :)
Rock music (including punk) never was a real revolution. It roots in Robert Johnson's Crossroad and kept branching out with minor style changes ever since. The only significant revolutions I see were from Kraftwerk, who dropped straight (e.g. teutonic marching) beats in minimalist electronic form on the music world, paving the way for everything "Techno" in the following decades, and the New York Hopsters (DJ Kool Herc et. al.), who brought us the second influx of African feeling with rap and breakbeats. Everything ever since has just been crossing over those elements.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @06:52PM
Heavy metal music (really arena rock) beginning in the mid-to-late '60s starting with Cream and Jimi Hendrix.
Rap music in the late '70s, starting with the Sugarhill Gang, was kinda a revolution. Sure, you had "rapping" style tunes before then such as "Walk This Way" and (even) "Hot Rod Lincoln" and "A Boy Named Sue", but the effect of those were completely different.
(Score: 4, Funny) by frojack on Sunday May 17 2015, @07:11PM
I tend to see it in terms of an incessant march toward guitars and drums to the total exclusion of horns, woodwinds. Even the keyboards are falling y the wayside.
Today we are left with Guitars and Drums, to the extent that the Guitars have had to undergo constant modification, slight differentiation, and lots of amplification and reverb and post processing just to keep from revealing how utterly one-dimensional all popular music is these days.
Once in a while someone will toss in a poorly played sax. Sometimes keyboards are there, mostly simulating guitars.
Singers pretend to sing, pretend to strum unplugged guitars (because they know nothing but strumming, and their left hand reveals just how little they know of that), while a couple of replaceable backup guitarists and a recorded sound track carry the whole band.
Rap is a rejection of all semblance of melody, leaving nothing rhythm.
Music is getting more primitive as time goes on.
Go ahead, stomp all over my grass, I'm having it astroturffed next week anyway.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Monday May 18 2015, @12:06PM
I tend to see... the total exclusion of horns, woodwinds.
Jethro Tull and Ozric Tentacles for you then :)
Even the keyboards are falling y the wayside.
That comes with technology. "Key"-"boards" in the literal sense were needed to trigger some sound generating device, be it a string or an oscillator with a musician's finger. All this is done in the computer today. I have at least one first hand (*g*) example where a recorded punk rock bass line is technically techno music; it just differs in the selection of desired sounds.
Music is getting more primitive as time goes on.
It gets more diverse into both directions. It just may happen that the more prominent distribution channels tend to pick more of the dumber stuff for the consumer plebs. Probably because of simple statistics that they stay tuned longer during the advertisements if they had Gangster Rap before. If you look the other way, especially in the metal scene, you have bands that display a theoretical and techical proficiency that was unthinkable of a few decades ago. Back then there was Floyd, Rush, Van Halen, the Free Jazz scene, and a bit of Fusion in between. Today that stuff is mastered by every self-respecting local Melodeath band. Which also will use some classical phrasing and instrumentation; if only on intros or breaks. If you're really into that complexity, starting with for example Meshuggah or Fates Warning / O.S.I., will open a new field of discovery, that, if you're bent on breaking your brain with music, ends with Mathcore.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 18 2015, @07:14PM
Whelp, took some of your suggestions, surfed them.
Saw Guitars,
Saw Drums.
Thanks for confirming my point. (Not that I didn't encounter some interesting cuts mind you, just zero variety in choice of instruments).
Now as for keyboards, my observation was meant to include synthesizers, keyboards of all kinds.
Just notice how utterly rare they are these days (less so on studio albums).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Monday May 18 2015, @11:49PM
Saw Guitars, Saw Drums. ... just zero variety in choice of instruments.
Oops. "Jumping" John Egan left the Ozrics in 2005. I should've kept a bit more up to date. Rest assured a London concert of them about 15 years ago was most memorable for his ecstatic presentation of a decent range of flutes. It seems the band doesn't have a flutist anymore today. I rest my case.
However, the use of guitars has nothing to do with the music getting more primitive. Quite the contrary; probably only a Chapman Stick could provide more flexibility to a live performing instrumentalist than an electric guitar with a pedalboard. Digital effects approximate the sound of any monophonic acoustic instrument almost to the extent a modern digital piano can replace an acoustic grand piano: Including microphony losses, it will be better than the original in a live setting (unless you're fully unplugged acoustic).
If you really just care about the instruments being lugged around for contemporary music, here are, on the quick, VNV Nation with two keyboards, one unused electric percussion set and zero guitars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcZGXEY8fss [youtube.com], or pushing it to the limit, Apocalyptica with zero keyboards, zero drumkits, and zero guitars on top. Alas, zero woodwinds, too. But the strings are solid. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjvGjUovxPU [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rts008 on Sunday May 17 2015, @09:01PM
Thanks for that interesting post. :-)
Your mention of MC5 really caught my attention. You are the first person I have heard mention them in 40 years! Most people I talk music to have never heard of them.
I was listening to them, the Amboy Dukes, White Rhino, and others when the 'British Invasion' happened, and frankly, did not care about the invasion-style music.
(back then, the former was usually referred to dismissively as "Garage Rock", IIRC)
'Garage Rock' kinda acted as an 'root influence/source' for a few styles: Punk Rock, Acid/Psychedelic Rock, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, and probably a few more I've forgotten.
I remember a friend of mine(neighbor and classmate also) started experimenting with Punk Rock in 1973, and by '74 had joined a Punk band.
While I've been an Iggy Pop fan from the early days, I was never a big Punk Rock fan. I liked some of music, but I do have to admit that even to this day I still have a 'thing' for Punker chics.(even married one, and we are still together:)
As a side note, one of my favorite music classes was the required two-semester music class in 7th grade.(circa 1970-71) Instead of trying to teach music to a bunch of resistant and restive racially tense[1] students, he spent both semesters teaching us about the history of Rock-n-Roll, going from the music formed by African slaves in the US by combining 'spirituals' with various tribal music, to the blues, into rhythm and blues, etc.
But at each stage of the history, he would bring some corresponding audio into class as an example.(where he came up with some of that stuff, I'll never know, but he always came through!)
An absolutely fascinating and interesting class for me, and I could tell by the lack of trouble in the class, and amount of class involvement, I was not alone in feeling that way. My humble and sincere thanks and salute to Mr. Myrick, the said teacher!!!
That class became a huge hit with the students, and quickly became the most requested class in the school's history. I know it has been one of my all-time favorites.
[1] The school was in S. MD, about 20-30 miles S.W. of Wash, DC; southern border of Prince George's County, IIRC. It was only the second or third year that the school, Malcom X Middle School, had been integrated, and it was pretty interesting most times. ;-)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday May 18 2015, @02:32AM
I was also interested to see MC5 mentioned. I bought a copy of "High Time" in about 1983 for $1 second hand, and just wore it out. I replaced that vinyl with digital and it's on my phone.
It's a great fun record.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @03:22AM
I was a big fan of a series of vinyl records called Pebbles (the name was derivative of "Nuggets", a well-known two-LP set of US garage rock tunes). There were about 10 volumes of Pebbles, each filled with garage rock from little-known bands in the US in the mid-to-late '60s. The copyright status of the records wasn't clear, it's possible that the publishers just took the attitude "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission". But I got rid of them when I dumped my entire vinyl record collection to recover the storage space.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Monday May 18 2015, @01:05PM
Good point summing up the "garage rock" development. Here's an interesting interview with MC5's Wayne Kramer where he cites "HiNRG (Soul)" as one of the influences, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUJxVJFwMbs [youtube.com] . I think that pretty much nails it: "Up"-Beat from The Who plus the pumping pressure from the soul side, and you've got proto punk. Cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klCL0krHKqc [youtube.com]. Most excellent. Add leather jackets, safety needles and mohawk cuts, and it's punk rock as we know it :)
As for "heavy rock" and "heavy metal", I make a distinction between those (even with the Steppenwolf line "... Heavy Metal Thunder ..."). If things get boring somewhere, I like to bring up the question what the first "proper" heavy metal record was. (Maybe I should submit that as a topic for SN??? :)
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Monday May 18 2015, @01:40PM
In regards to Punk: ATTITUDE! you can't forget them attitude in the Punk music and lyrics, IMO. At least for me, that was one of the strong attractions. :-)
I'm in full agreement about the hard rock/heavy metal classification. My 'thought' on it may have been defined by good Nigel (of Spinal Tap fame), in that heavy metal is just hard rock 'turned up to 11'. (my mind will never be the same after seeing that!)
"If things get boring..." HAha. I see I'm not the only one stirring mudpuddles with a 200 hp outboard motor!
I would like to see that as a poll here, and will get the popcorn ready...it's bound to get interesting!
Thanks for the links, that second one mentally took me back 45 years instantly(and with pleasure), and now I have a new band to listen to! :-)
My hearing has gotten bad enough it curtails my music listening, so I have not been 'exploring' much the past 15-20 years, and concerts are now 'useless' for me. :-(
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Monday May 18 2015, @04:05AM
You'll find this interesting from the article:
Personally, I found this interesting too:
I question the whole 30 second bit too. How can one do a good analysis on music with a 30 second sound clip? I'm not a big music person, but I listen to enough music to know that sometimes 30 seconds doesn't capture the magic of a song. I think research is a great argument against the over use of copyright.
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Monday May 18 2015, @07:19AM
How can one do a good analysis on music with a 30 second sound clip?
Have you ever heard one single note and known instantly what song was about to be played?
Thirty seconds should be enough to fill most of the parameters. Rhythm: check. Tonality: check. Timbre: check. It should also be enough to define a number of aspects of the melodic and harmonic framework.
What you aren't going to get in a thirty second sample is a reliable indication of song structure, but since most popular music uses some variation of verse/chorus structure, it's probably forgivable to omit that parameter. The real question is more "which thirty seconds?", and; if it were me; I'd pick the chorus section.
Now that I've argued for the potential viability of using a thirty second sample, now I'll pose a question of my own: I wonder why they didn't simply run the whole song through their parameter engine? It's not like the computer is going to get bored listening to music.