Pop music too loud and all sounds the same: official

[deathwish]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/ ... R820120726

(Reuters) - Comforting news for anyone over the age of 35, scientists have worked out that modern pop music really is louder and does all sound the same.

Researchers in Spain used a huge archive known as the Million Song Dataset, which breaks down audio and lyrical content into data that can be crunched, to study pop songs from 1955 to 2010.

A team led by artificial intelligence specialist Joan Serra at the Spanish National Research Council ran music from the last 50 years through some complex algorithms and found that pop songs have become intrinsically louder and more bland in terms of the chords, melodies and types of sound used.

"We found evidence of a progressive homogenization of the musical discourse," Serra told Reuters. "In particular, we obtained numerical indicators that the diversity of transitions between note combinations - roughly speaking chords plus melodies - has consistently diminished in the last 50 years."

They also found the so-called timbre palette has become poorer. The same note played at the same volume on, say, a piano and a guitar is said to have a different timbre, so the researchers found modern pop has a more limited variety of sounds.

Intrinsic loudness is the volume baked into a song when it is recorded, which can make it sound louder than others even at the same volume setting on an amplifier.

The music industry has long been accused of ramping up the volume at which songs are recorded in a 'loudness war' but Serra says this is the first time it has been properly measured using a large database.

The study, which appears in the journal Scientific Reports, offers a handy recipe for musicians in a creative drought.

Old tunes re-recorded with increased loudness, simpler chord progressions and different instruments could sound new and fashionable. The Rolling Stones in their 50th anniversary year should take note.

[deathwish]

and here's the actual paper:

http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120726/ ... 00521.html

[rcat]

The vast majority of humans are letting themselves be dumbed-down to a specific common denominator. Whether or not this condition is generated from inside or outside, or both, really doesn't matter to the final outcome....a world full of closed-minded, tunnel-visioned, zombie sheep. I'd like to see studies like this dedicated to all aspects of modern human existence. Maybe it would bitch-slap the human race and wake them up. Probably not.

[Acid Mitch]

They could just have asked here at KVR and saved themselves the bother of doing a study.

[Tricky-Loops]

That's a study to prove what we already knew before...

OTOH, I know many good artists whose songs are not sounding the same, for example Gotye or Foster The People...

[robogone]

I'm pretty sure I saw this before and it does only serve to confirm what I already know.

When I was a kid I told myself that I would never become an old fart and hate modern music (having experienced my dad stop liking music recorded beyond about 1965). I thought that I would maybe struggle because music was noisy, unmusical, raucous or downright weird. I never imagined in a million years that I would grow to dislike it because it became bland, formulaic and boring.

[deathwish]

That's a study to prove what we already knew before...

OTOH, I know many good artists whose songs are not sounding the same, for example Gotye or Foster The People...

The singer of Gotye sounds like Sting and Foster The People are a watered down version of the band Broken Social Scene.

[Trakstar]

wow, I was thinking you were all my age, 32 , but looking at this you all seem to be old enough to be my grandfather,

Ive just been thinking, there is another thread entitled
"you still use that fx plug! what are you dinosaurs" and in this case its looking to be true. Its starting to look like an old peoples covention and Im the odd one out, thats not fair, how come every one is so old, what happened to all the youngsters

[Tricky-Loops]

wow, I was thinking you were all my age, 32 , but looking at this you all seem to be old enough to be my grandfather,

Ive just been thinking, there is another thread entitled
"you still use that fx plug! what are you a dinosaur" and in this case its looking to be true. Its starting to look like an old peoples covention and Im the odd one out, thats not fair, how come everones so old, what happened to all the youngster

I'm 36...I can already live without confused emoticons and without the weekly charts...

[Trakstar]

wow, I was thinking you were all my age, 32 , but looking at this you all seem to be old enough to be my grandfather,

Ive just been thinking, there is another thread entitled
"you still use that fx plug! what are you a dinosaur" and in this case its looking to be true. Its starting to look like an old peoples covention and Im the odd one out, thats not fair, how come everones so old, what happened to all the youngster

I'm 36...I can already live without confused emoticons and without the weekly charts...

[debra1rlo]

wow, I was thinking you were all my age, 32 , but looking at this you all seem to be old enough to be my grandfather,

Nah, I've seen how old most of the guys are here and they're only old enough to be your grandfather if you happen to reside in the southern US.

[kritikon]

I find myself buying less and less music not because I pooh pooh the modern stuff and only listen to stuff from when I was 20 - the opposite often. Being in NZ the choice is really limited and I can't find enough weird music. I could do the MP3 thing over the net, but unfortunately this is where my old fart takes the fore and I want physical product and decent recording quality. Sometimes I can't believe how safe much of the electronic stuff is - really deep mind bending dub and trance inducing dancey stuff or weird ambient daftness is really hard to find. If you don't like the formula of the week, forget it. Dubstep, as with most other formats, has potential, but it all ended up being just...well, dubstep. I went right off D'n'B not because of the format itself - just because it all conformed to the same shite - initially there was lots of really textured atmospheric D'n'B that just petered out. It's why I still make music (although not as regularly) I can make it as weird as I want, whereas the industry won't.

Kids nowadays have really bland tastes and the industry is only too happy to oblige. Now that was really old and farty...

[ntom]

wow, I was thinking you were all my age, 32 , but looking at this you all seem to be old enough to be my grandfather,

Ive just been thinking, there is another thread entitled
"you still use that fx plug! what are you dinosaurs" and in this case its looking to be true. Its starting to look like an old peoples covention and Im the odd one out, thats not fair, how come every one is so old, what happened to all the youngsters

I'm not even legal to drink and I agree with the article. For quite some time I have always disliked pop music.

I'm an old curmudgeon at heart, so I think I feel right at home here on KVR at most times.

[GeckoYamori]

I have definitely noticed how bubblegum pop, commercial dance, r&b and hip hop have been converging more and more over the years. Now you really can hear the same cookie cutter supersaw chord progressions used across all of those genres. My god, it's so boring.

[kbaccki]

Now you really can hear the same cookie cutter supersaw chord progressions used across all of those genres. My god, it's so boring.

All the way to the bank.