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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, 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]