
The Musical Diversity of Pop Songs - onychomys
https://pudding.cool/2018/05/similarity/
======
21
> A single songwriter can specialize in literally the snare-drum.

I was an amateur level producer in high school. I had hundred of snare-drum
samples, not to mention a lot of way to influence the sound of a particular
one. Picking a good snare-drum is very important, it can totally change the
character of the song.

All of modern music producing it's like that, it's an extremely efficient
market, it's really really hard to make "the sound of 2019", and this is why
there are such few successful producers.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/22/arts/music/diary-of-a-
son...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/22/arts/music/diary-of-a-song-the-
middle-zedd-maren-morris-grey.html)

To put it in software engineer terms, saying that "all successful modern music
is computer made, recipe driven, there is no originality" it's like saying
"all successful modern sites are made exactly the same, you just pick a
database, a web frontend, ads to sell, a few programmers, there is no
originality"

~~~
bdjshsvajwv
Except that websites are intended to be functional while songs are intended to
be works of art.

Thats the problem. Why are we treating music like an industrial product? (The
answer is money)

~~~
joe_the_user
Two hundred years ago, most popular music existed primarily as simply a
support for public dancing. The audience didn't expect to sit and listen to
compelling virtuosos perform.

It was only the advent of recorded music that allowed individual performers of
popular music to gain specific audiences (with free jazz performers of 1930s
being perhaps the first popular recording artists noted for producing "works
of art").

So music as just a product, in ways, isn't by itself new or evil. Now one can
take issue with the characteristics of our modern music.

For discussion of the history of pop music, I'd recommend

Elijah Wald's How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll

[http://www.elijahwald.com/beatlespop.html](http://www.elijahwald.com/beatlespop.html)

~~~
existencebox
I'm no music expert, but that (specifically your statement about dancing being
premier) doesn't jive with what little bits I know. Granted you could narrowly
define bits and pieces of what you said to constrain the set of artists you're
talking about, but insofar as you mention free jazz of the 1930s as an early
example of producing "art for art's sake", there are certainly earlier
comparable examples, the "futurists" of the 1920s and earlier being one
(Varese, who was conducting as early as the 1910's) and whose art was _VERY
MUCH_ an artistic display intended to push forward electronic sounds.

I'm sure someone with a background in musical history can cite many examples
even further back, my point being, I think there's been a constant gradient of
music For Dance vs. music For Art, I don't think it's fair to say that one or
the other is in any way particularly novel. (Victorian era music, for example,
was a wide spread including everything from operatic virtuosos, to public
house performances for dancing)

To your other point however, I certainly agree that music as a product is not
new, that concept dates back long past even the eras of our classical masters.

~~~
baddox
And what about the obvious example of classical music?

~~~
dizzystar
One only needs to translate all that Latin to figure out most of it means a
form of dance.

Classical music was pop for it's time. People danced, drank, and even had
massive riots when a controversial composer came to town.

~~~
soundwave106
Music for the church (often written by the same composers) is a counterpoint
to this. I doubt too many people are dancing during requiems and masses. :)
Also, there is music as the background to a theatrical performance (opera
being the classic example of that).

However if we really want to compare the most popular pieces of each time, we
really can't look at the "art classical". Most "art classical" wasn't even the
most popular back then, from what I gather (though occasionally an "art
classical" composer _did_ make a popular tune that became well known).

It's difficult to find "top sales" lists of the old sheet music songs (which
is probably the best parallel to modern record charts), but one someone put
together for the US ([https://thetop100songsofalltime.com/top-100-songs-of-
the-189...](https://thetop100songsofalltime.com/top-100-songs-of-the-1890s/))
has, for the link example of the 1890s, mostly popular short tunes (in the
1890s, "tin pan alley" style).

Of what I recognize (there's a lot of songs on this list that frankly seems to
have disappeared over time), there's some that probably would be the dance of
its time. I wouldn't say all I recognize is "music to dance to" mainly because
there are definitely some ballads among the tunes, as well as some Sousa
marches, and songs which are probably more "sing-alongs". I'm guessing that
most of these songs aren't exactly "works of art" in the way the original
poster intended. :) But they were light entertainment for the time (ala pop
today), and that's fine. Modern pop music also has some ballads that do not
necessarily function as dance music, too.

I think the biggest difference between music then and music now, is that the
dominant way to make a living was to compose sheet music for other musicians
to play. Recordings quite literally changed all of this.

~~~
dizzystar
A lot of things we call classical today was actually pretty low down and
vulgar music. Here's a bit of Mozart:

[http://mentalfloss.com/article/55247/3-dirty-songs-
mozart](http://mentalfloss.com/article/55247/3-dirty-songs-mozart)

Chopin, for example, wrote 59 marzukas, which is music for a traditional
Polish dance of the same name.

Beethoven wrote many dance songs, especially waltzes.

Albeniz, especially wrote music derived from traditional music. Suite Espanola
is a wonderful exploration here.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suite_Española_No._1,_Op._47](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suite_Española_No._1,_Op._47)

I could go all night on this topic, but the point is that, although we don't
recognize the music as dance, it was to the people of that time.

------
blackbrokkoli
I'm always gonna be fascinated by any analyses like this - but can I just say
how incredible tired I am of everything containing "music" combined with "this
generation".

Everyone, _everyone_ in the industrialised world and well beyond can purchase
a device smaller than their palm and listen to literal _billions_ of songs.
Noone is stopping you from only listening to "Tibet monk techno punk
instrumental remixes" for the rest of your life - without buying anything you
don't already have. So can this mother of all substanceless debates please
just die...?

~~~
clay_the_ripper
What you say is true, although it misses a larger point: that even though we
CAN listen to unlimited variety, since the labels control the distribution
systems (radio plays, featured music, music sold in big box stores, publicity
etc etc) the music they produce becomes inevitably popular. Turn on the radio,
walk into Walmart, turn on the tv, watch a movie and you’re not going to hear
independent Tibetan chants. You’re going to hear what they want you to hear
because they have the reach to make sure everyone listens to it. Combine that
with their PR teams and you end up with a situation in which the labels have a
strangle hold on what we collectively listen to. Sure it’s possible to branch
out and “ignore” that stuff, but the vast majority of people don’t. They
listen to and like what their friends like, which is in turn what they’ve been
told is “good”.

~~~
21
That's like saying that people are eating bananas and oranges and apples
because there is a huge PR campaign to push them, and that this is destroying
the chances for less popular fruits.

Sure, there is that, but let's not kid ourselves, those fruit are popular
because they are actually preferred by a vast majority.

~~~
njharman
Bananas are a created product. Made popular by banana industry. Natural
bananas are nothing like the highly breed thing you eat. They are not native
in northern America. The demand for them was manufactured with marketing.
Until now they are "part of our life" and seem normal.

If it was not for the music industry. Pop bands would not exist. Boy bands
would not exist. Etc. They are as artificil as bananas.

------
DavidWoof
The missing variable here is whether the market share represented by Billboard
#1 songs has increased or decreased in this time span. Is everyone listening
to more homogeneous music, or is the market for #1 songs shrinking to a
smaller and smaller demographic?

I honestly don't know the answer, but a few decades ago in most towns the
majority of the public listened to just a few radio stations and everybody
knew the top songs. In the Spotify age, I'm far from certain that's true.

------
sonnyblarney
Not just diversity, but quality.

There are many very objective metrics we can use, but even by many creative
metrics - it's worse.

Lyrically: have you ever listened to what 2Pac or Biggie were saying? They
were rhyming. There was an obvious lyrical flow. Now compare to Lil' Wayne who
literally spouts gibberish. Lil wayne 'says words' to 'a beat' and that's it.

Some people point out that 'there's always been bad music' i.e. if you go back
to the top 40 in 1977 or whatever it's litered with derivative crap - but -
there were many 'stand outs' of great music - even great pop music. For
example, Michael Jackson was not exactly an exalted artist in the purest
sense, but he was a genius pop artists. I fully respect Beyonce as a hard
working and creative entertainer of our times, but I think in 10 years from
now, you'll more likely hear a Michael Jackson song than a Beyonce song.

Underlying issues are partly commercialization, but also - 'visualization'.
Remember 'video killed the radio star?' \- well YouTube is the new MTV and
'how it looks' is as important than 'how it sounds'. Pop stars now generally
are more attractive.

Also - it's just too easy to press a button and make noise - people confuse
the creativity behind that with raw expression. I saw a band recently that had
2 guys playing 'a computer' and it was interesting, but ultimately very empty.
The lack of character has me aching for good, live Jazz. :)

I love Kanye, but it's really hard to get fully behind someone standing there
with a microphone, it's like a big Kareoke show.

~~~
cma
> Underlying issues are partly commercialization, but also - 'visualization'.
> Remember 'video killed the radio star?' \- well YouTube is the new MTV and
> 'how it looks' is as important than 'how it sounds'. Pop stars now generally
> are more attractive.

You had opera and musicals long before MTV and Youtube. And people mostly
didn't hide their faces during live performances before or during the current
period of recorded music.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Opera and Musicals are inherently visual. And Opera singers are not
necessarily pretty.

Nobody cares what the pianist looks like :)

To be fair: Taylor Swift and Beyonce - if you see them totally without makeup,
are not super attractive, they look in the range of fairly normal. Also
there's a double standard for men and women to some extent. Top male artist
right now is Ed Sheeran and he is one ugly mofo, then again, to my point -
he's highly talented ... when he's not writing pop tunes 'designed for a mass
audience' he does some cool stuff. On Charlie Rose he basically admitted he
writes a lot of stuff for commercial purposes, it's a business.

------
systoll
It seems really hard to justify treating those 8 characteristics as
independent, equally important, and all-encompassing variables. The page's
attempt to do so amounts to saying it's a peer-reviewed method employed by
other music researchers.

But the paper they linked made an effort to address that concern, and weights
the features; it includes more echo-nest features, like tempo, mode and time-
signature; it uses a different metric; and while it's not the overall
conclusion of the paper, it includes a similar measure of similarity over
time, but pegs 2015 as the most diverse year since 1963 in general, and 2014
as the most diverse year ever for #1s.

------
mwcampbell
> The two most similar songs from 2007 to 2011 were Katy Perry’s “Teenage
> Dream” and Kesha’s “We R Who We R” , and they indeed sound alike.

I disagree. I just listened to both songs on Spotify, and they do not sound
alike. Different keys, different vocal ranges, different voices, different
instruments (or at least, different synthesized sounds). The Kesha song has
more electronic effects on her voice. Kesha raps, while Katy doesn't. Really,
the main similarity between the two songs is that they repeat the same chord
progression through the whole song -- that's probably a consequence of what
John Seabrook calls "track and hook".

~~~
ireflect
That's like saying blue bubblegum and pink bubblegum make for a diverse range
of foods. I guess maybe that seems like the case, given we've all mostly been
eating bubblegum for some time.

There are far more similarities in these songs that have a greater impact:

* Very similar tempo (approx 120 bpm)

* Very similar keys (Eb Major vs Bb Major)

* Very similar dynamics (crushed and loud)

* Very similar ultra-present vocal processing

* Very similar light syncopation (Katy Perry's synth chords vs Kesha's chopped vocals)

(edit: formatting)

~~~
mwcampbell
Yeah, you're right. The differences I listed are only superficial variations
on the same template.

------
MarkusAllen
Actually, pop songs follow the same basic chord progression formula... Elton
John MASTERED it - revealed here:
[https://twitter.com/TheMarkusAllen/status/996830643949522944](https://twitter.com/TheMarkusAllen/status/996830643949522944)

~~~
rainbowmverse
I–V–vi–IV is just a chord progression. Using it does not make a song
unoriginal. You can build a billion melodies on it in just one mode of a
scale. Then there's all the other stuff: instrument choice, arrangement,
rhythm, lyrics (if you have them).

A song is so much more than a chord progression.

For those playing along at home: modern pop favorite I–V–vi–IV is also the
chord progression used in some arrangements of the 1788 classic Auld Lang
Syne.

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matchagaucho
Cool... but clearly overfit to match Billboard and Music Genome databases.

------
blt
The algorithm producing the EchoNest scores has some questionable results,
like Hollaback Girl - 38% acousticness and Hey There Delilah - 65%
danceability.

------
hammock
"My Heart Will Go On" gets a top-5 score for use of flute, but I believe the
flute-like sound is a recorder of some type, not a flute.

~~~
rainbowmverse
It sounds like an ocarina to me. Example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DHecFcDhbw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DHecFcDhbw)

------
sparkzilla
"Havana" had 11 writers?! God help us all.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Some of those credits might be from use of samples.

~~~
sparkzilla
You are probably right.

------
ogennadi
tl;dr: by a few metrics (musical valence, producers of the top-rated songs),
hit songs _are_ becoming less diverse.

