You have probably heard that Pink Floyd recently published their new album Endless River. Will this bring back the wonderful world of good music after the endless awfulness of the popular music scene in the last 20 years or so? Is good music, as we know it from the 60s and 70s, back for good? The reasons behind the alleged endless awfulness of pop music these days suggest otherwise. We shouldn’t be throwing stones at new music but instead at our inability to like it.
When we were young we learned to appreciate Pink Floyd.
Daniel Levitin was asked at a recent music psychology conference in Toronto why old music is amazing and new music is awful. He believed that modern record companies are there to make money. In the olden days, on the other hand, they were there to make music and ready to hold on to musicians which needed time to become successful. More interestingly, he reminded the public that many modern kidz would totally disagree with the implication that modern music is awful. How can it be that new music is liked by young people if so much of it is often regarded as quite bad?
Everything changes for the better after a few repetitions
The answer to the mystery has nothing to do with flaws in modern music but instead with our brain. When adults hear new music they often hate it at first. After repeated listening they tend to find it more and more beautiful. For example, Marcia Johnson and colleagues (1985) played Korean melodies to American participants and found that hearing a new melody led to low liking ratings, a melody heard once before to higher ratings and even more exposure to higher than higher ratings. Even Korsakoff patients – who could hardly remember having heard individual melodies before – showed this effect, i.e. without them realising it they probably never forget melodies.
This so-called mere exposure effect is all that matters to me: a robust, medium-strong, generally applicable, evolutionarily plausible effect (Bornstein, 1989). You can do what you like, it applies to all sorts of stimuli. However, there is one interesting exception here. Young people do not show the mere exposure effect, no relationship between ‘repeat the stimulus’ and ‘give good feeling’ (Bornstein, 1989). As a result, adults need a lot more patience before they like a new song as much as young people do. No wonder adults are only satisfied with the songs they already know from their youth in the 60s and 70s. Probably, when looking at the music scene in 2050 the current generation will equally hate it and wish the Spice Girls back (notice the gradual rise of 90’s parties already).
I listened to it –> I like it
So, when it comes to an allegedly awful present and great past, ask yourself: how deep is your love for the old music itself rather than its repeated listening? Listen repeatedly to any of a million love songs and you will end up appreciating it. Personally, I give new music a chance and sometimes it manages to relight my fire. Concerning Endless River, if it’s not love at first sight, do not worry. The new Pink Floyd album sure is good (depending on how many times you listen to it).
— — —
Bornstein, R. (1989). Exposure and affect: Overview and meta-analysis of research, 1968-1987. Psychological Bulletin, 106 (2), 265-289 DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.106.2.265
Johnson MK, Kim JK, & Risse G (1985). Do alcoholic Korsakoff’s syndrome patients acquire affective reactions? Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition, 11 (1), 22-36 PMID: 3156951
— — —
Figure: By PinkFloyd1973.jpg: TimDuncan derivative work: Mr. Frank (PinkFloyd1973.jpg) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
— — —
PS: Yes, I did hide 29 Take That song titles in this blog post. Be careful, you might like 90’s pop music a little bit more due to this exposure.
BRAIN'S IDEA 
Do you think for old time’s sake maybe they stuck a “subliminal message” in there? Haha, no, but really. I wonder if it could just be the frequencies and whatnot of more classic rock bands that make them more enjoyable for adults. As in, did different decades of music use different melodies, frequencies, and pitches; and when a new style of music came along was it more desirable to a younger group because the ear had become conditioned to the old style? Whether this is something that changes from generation to generation would be a neat thing to do a study on.
That’s a very interesting speculation I’ve often wondered myself.
i think your theory is full of holes, in the first place a good song with a good melody takes hold immediatly not after hearing it a hundred times. example she loves you, beatles yep first few notes im sold, oh and millions of others all over the world ! secondly pop music today is simply not to be compared with the icons of the sixties reason quality of voice, subject matter of lyrics , so many songs that sound completly different . thefact is young people are being rewarded today for the most mindless songwriting in the history of pop music with very few beautiful melodies the exceptions are very few, face it more talented people that could actually play instruments and write good lyrics and melody. grammy awards for trash bought by idiots only shows me how many idiots care nothing about real music !
I disagree. In my opinion, people like bad music after a few repetition, BUT hate it after many more… we like good music after some repetitions and LOVE it more with every repetition ad infinitum.
Yea hes wrong. If it was as easy as simply repeating songs until people were brainwashed into liking them that would imply we are completely brainless. This article is exploding with holes. His explanation is half assed weak psychology. It takes more to get people to like a tune. It needs to be catchy and memorable no matter what.
Really interesting article but I think it doesn’t begin to do justice to the real situation with current music. The low sales figures speak for themselves. The quality just is not there, even compared to a decade or so ago. I am speaking of Western music of course.
I have thought about this quite a lot. I have ben an avid music fan most of my life, from classical to blues to rock to punk to New wave to post punk to industrial and even goth. I like classical Japanese music and all kids of world music. I have never stopped listening to new rock music in 40 years, some of which is now still quite good.
I am often the oldest person at a concert by 20 years or more, and they still can kick my ass. I never cared what people thought about what I liked when I was 20, and don’t care now in my fifties. Any odd looks I get are filed under Talk to someone who gives a ****.I find plenty of nice people to talk to at the shows and they get a kick out of my stories of bands that are legends to them.
But I have to be honest, while there are niches of music of great accomplishment and refinement, the epic greatness of the music is not there anymore. The great melodies, charisma, scope, and freedom in it is long gone. It is the baroque compared to the Renaissance. And it just gets worse and worse and worse.
The idea that the old music is liked simply because it was what we heard before and that the quality is the same today, is simply bogus. I came of age in the 70s and loved old blues and rock from the 1950s and 1960s even though it was Old by then. Indeed, much of the punk and new wave revival was a return to that immediacy and pop grip of that early period. So that supposition of familiarity with a genre or tune simply falls apart.
Indeed we don’t just like what we are familiar with, heck, lots of old music is terrible. TERRIBLE. We recall only the good stuff, not just familiar stuff. So we need to compare the good stuff from the old days to the good stuff now. And that is where today falls apart. The good stuff of today is way below the good stuff of the past.
And kids can and do recognize quality in older music. I’ve run into kids who marvel at Led Zeppelin and the Velvet Underground and wonder where that level of artist is today. It ain’t Eminem and Dr. Dre or the Parquet Courts or even Arcade Fire. Heck they have to rip off Marvin Gaye these days to have a hit.
In the 70s and 80s, the good stuff compared favorably to the great music of the 50s and 60s. It was that accomplished. Melodies and tunes that are indelible and fresh even now. From pop music to post-punk like Joy Division to Mazzy Star.
Taylor Swift? Blurred Lines? Parquet Courts? Lady Gaga? Interpol? The Shins? Eric What hsi name? As good as the older stuff?
I have to quote Noel Gallagher on that: “Who says that, their parents? Stop lying.”
I have asked myself why the strong melodies, structures, charisma and daring seems to have gone. I have a few culprits to blame: Punk, my old fave and indie rock which prized drones and mediocre playing, rap music, which is just not up to snuff with a few exceptions. Young ears hear that and are not able to create.
Our ears heard so much more and so much better music, on TV, in the subway, on the elevator. It is what you heard growing up that makes great musicians. And kids don’t hear the range of stuff that makes for great musical minds. I think they will more likely come out of places like Africa or the Middle East if Raps leaden musical dullness, and indie rocks two chord droning does not efface them. And it is not just music, movies are bad as well. (TV is the exception. Some of it, like the Sopranos, is some of the best stuff ever done.)
You need to ask much deeper questions and much more serious investigations have to be made to find out why music has simply lost its quality and force today. It is NOT about what you’ve heard over and over. I heard Madonna over and over and hated her then, and hated her now, because she stunk.
And I am no aging Fleetwood Mac/Eagles fan. I like Hocico and Psyclon Nine, the best bands of the last ten years. Youtube them and tell me I am a fossil. I like what is good. Period.
Coming late to the party, but I’ve been on a kick reading about this stuff since my 13-year-old foster brother got legitimately excited – like, jumped up out of his chair in happiness & excitement – when a rap song came on that actually begins with the lyrics, “Ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass”… I could go on, but I think you know where this is going. (To be fair, there are other lyrics, which include gems like “Wobble-dy wobble-dy wa wobble wobble” and “F*** that you gonna get some dick today”.)
Then me & my brother told him he couldn’t pick the music anymore and tried to give him & our other foster siblings a lesson in some of music’s legends – most of whom they hadn’t heard of, and much less realized they’d heard anything by them – like The Beatles, David Bowie, Elvis, even Madonna. The only one they knew was Michael Jackson. I didn’t even bother with the likes of Led Zeppelin since they vocally express their hatred for rock music regularly. Also showed them some really lovely songs with meaningful lyrics from our own teen-hoods, like My Immortal by Evanescence or Hemorrhage by Fuel. It was all but lost on them; the 16-year-old was the only one who even showed a twinge of emotion or thought at all while listening to the stuff. Then they all purged it from their heads by listening to Beyonce and various no-name hip hop artists singing “empowering” things…. like dicks. *sigh*
Well said…another killer for music is these DJs ..rap and hip hop.I mean if kids want to part with their money..their choice but they may as well pay the elderly neighbor because they have as much talent if not more.
I agree with Kazimir. But I feel that music is bad today for different reasons. I actually think the reason why music is generally worse today than it was back in the day is actually kind of obvious when you think about it.
The easiest way to prove that music is not as good as it was is NOT by comparing hits, or how many people like the song. Simply compare how intricate and complex the songs are. Are they well thought out? Does the song move you in different ways? Do the lyrics have a deep meaning? How creative are musicians with their instrumental parts?
Obviously, when applying these questions to music of today, and then music back then. The farther and farther we go back, all the way to Mozart, the more and more old music shines through.
The reason is because people in America generally lack music knowledge. If you go up to someone, and ask them “what’s the musical alphabet?” I bet you, chances are, they won’t know. That’s the most BASIC knowledge of music there is. And most people don’t even know the answer to that very basic, elementary school music theory question. This in turn, has caused us to be subconsciously intimidated by more complex and complicated songs. Since we generally don’t understand music, the majority of people prefer simpler music, because it’s easier for their brain to process the information that their ear is receiving.
Back in Mozart’s time, almost everyone had at least a basic understanding of music theory, and playing a musical instrument was a very common interest among the majority. Why else do you think that classical music is the most complex music we have? Because the majority of people understood music theory, so great music flourished as a result. Music has only gone downhill since Mozart’s and Beethoven’s time. Since the 2000’s, it’s been pure shit.
We need to start funding our music programs in school more. Until then, the majority of the population will prefer simpler music, because they lack the understanding of how music works.
I have been a session musician for nearly 4 decades…..typically music used to be played by we humans……less and less so now…..huge factor to the negative….also truly …it is the writing that makes a song meaningful or not …..war, famine, ecological disaster all marginalised and largely ignored…not in the 60’s dude. Music today is largely shit because it serves a shallow, narssictic society…actually reflects it albiet unconsciously, and most worringly without artistry or any sense of irony
This. Less variation, less melody, more ear worm brain trash, louder, 6db of dynamic range, quantising, democratisation of the means to make music. You don’t have to know what a scale is any more. Computer fixes all. Samples replace craftsmanship. But there is very good stuff out there. Just dig deeper.
Pink..or whatever IS STILL COMMERCIAL CRAP, consumerist propaganda music to entertain the masses (and make them think “oh yeah this is real music”) just a little bit disguised as “sofisticated”, NOT MUCH DIFFERENT FROM A CAREFULLY DESIGNED CARTOON BOX OF PIZZA DOWN THE SUPERMARKET.
Totally misguided premise — the idea that are brains are simply slow to new sounds. It may be true in a general sense, but there are deeper reasons for my generation’s antipathy to pop. Studies of the Million Song Dataset have shown in scientific terms that contemporary pop music has become louder with less dynamic range, more homogenous, and less daring in its melodies, harmonies, and chord progressions. In other words, it’s mostly crap.
I for one have diverse tastes ranging from classical to ethnic, bluegrass, blues, rock, jazz, gospel, and more. I love truly original sounds and believe there’s great music in nearly every genre. But I absolutely HATE contemporary pop, which is a mindless wasteland where a pretty face counts far more than musical talent or an original thought.
Hi Peter. Thanks for your comment. Could you send me a link or a reference for those studies of the million song dataset? Sounds interesting.
Sorry it took so long as to get back, Richard. Here’s one of the better articles about the million song dataset. Enjoy!
I felt vindicated when I first read about it — I had been making similar arguments for years.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/is-pop-music-evolving-or-is-it-just-getting-louder/
If I may contribute what I stumbled upon just prior to this article, I just conducted a search surrounding this similar topic and there seems to be a lot being written about it. I felt something has been lacking with today’s music and it’s seems were not alone..
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/science-proves-pop-music-has-actually-gotten-worse-8173368/
Contemporary music is awful because the overall cultural level has declined. It seems that pop music appeals to a younger and younger audience … preteens mostly, but that’s only part of the problem. I grew up with Rock and Roll, and there’s a lot of that I can’t listen to today. A lot of what some call “classic rock” is crap. There are exceptions, of course. If Lady Gaga would only blossom as the talented jazz singer she could be. Wishful thinking, perhaps, in this era of “lowest common denominator” garbage. The talent is there is some cases, but it is not enough simply to have a voice. You have to know how to sing. The great adult pop and jazz singers of 50 and 60 years ago knew that; Ella Fitzgerald, Sinatra, Mel Torme’, Billie Holiday and a host of others. People need to demand better.
Methinks you overestimate Lady Gaga’s talent. I think she’d fail miserably in a more demanding music genre like jazz. Her training is more in the performing arts than in music. That should tell you something. Without the outrageous outfits, weird stunts, and public nudity, nobody would give Gaga a second thought. Her act is so shallow she has to hide behind a phony name.
Heard whip whip nae nae a one hundred times.
Still sucks.
lol
I agree that having a song pounced into your head by pop stations gets the song stuck in your head. Then no matter how terrible the song you begin to sing it then you in turn start to like it. This is the case for most people especially younger more easily influenced people. Case in point, my daughter, 14, hated a modern pop song, of which I cannot recall the name. A couple weeks on the school bus listening to the pop station she started singing it. I inquired as to why she was singing a song she professed to hating a mere fortnight prior. She couldn’t explain but it was stuck in her head, yet she still insisted she disliked the tune. Another fortnight passed and all of the sudden I notice it was now in her rotation on her phone. Proving that those who are younger and easily influenced for lack of an identity, are susceptible to the hourly rotation of songs creating popularity. I’m sure it happened with myself at a younger age.
While I agree to the repetition theory, i disagree with the notion that that older people, such as myself, dislike unfamiliar songs. For me, I’m a musician so It may be different, If the voice is quality and the music is made with an instrument,I give it a shot. However 99% of modern “pop” music is complete and utter garbage and is considered so simply because it is. Kids dig it because their friends do, and because it’s shoved down their throats. I proved this myself by exposing my daughter to bands like Rush, Pink Floyd, Led Zep, Breaking Benjamin, 10 Years, Sick Puppies, Fun, and other quality musical groups/musicians. Those bands have now earned a spot in her rotation.
Pop songs today and for much of the last 20 years are bubblegum pop from flash j the pan artists with little if any real talent. The only real talent is the ability to market and promote themselves. Everything today is repeating the same line 20 times per song to embed that in the minds of the in those who hear it. It’s like a brain parasite. It’s become a business of science of sound and psychology. Before it was write songs that convey a serious emotion and let the singer project that. Now it’s just a matter of a catchy beat and a repititous lyric. Most songs today have on average a 3rd grade reading level of writing. That is incredibly sad. We are dumbing down our children.
It’s a sad day when our idea of music is the minutia that comes flying out of the pop radio station.
That proves it, this new music really is brainwashing kids. Seems to not work on people who have listened to good music though. I have heard this new music when I go to work because they play off the generic top hits network on repeat for 9 hours straight everyday. I have to listen to some teckno music during break just to clean out the earworms.
I disagree, im young and i can safely say new pop music is terrible. Not all music is however you have good bands and probably more quality music being made than ever! But the pop music is absolutely terrible and I dont understand it! Bands like Tame Impala and arctic monkeys are great and they are pop but wtf is stuff like Linkin Park, its sooooo bad they just whine with the same type of melody with slightly different chords about their “suffering” while putting on ridiculous overly dramatic faces.
Well I’m 17 and I like pink Floyd more than modern music
I have desperately tried to like today’s pop music and ended up wanting to take a gun and shoot it out of my head because it’s so bland and repetitious. Classic pop/rock could also be repetitious, but not to the degree it is today. Today, they’re far more concerned about beat. Melody is still there, but it’s not as important as the beat. Today, when kids hear 60s and 70s pop/rock classics, many comment that it’s “cheesy;” which is amazing considering the depth of cheese today’s music stoops to. I think they have a hard time with yesterday’s sweeter melodies because it’s like sugar: they’re not used to hearing sweetness. They focus more on rhythm. The concern is whether you can dance, do drugs or have sex to it. I defend the style of old music, but I want new music. I would like to see the next generation break out of the 25-30 year lock hip-hop has had on music and try something new. If I hate it, fine. I certainly hope it will be more melody, but either way, at least it won’t be the same old thing.
I hate popular music because I get a sense that it is only being made for the commercial world and nothing else. It is all about the spectacle and nothing about the music. There are barriers being broken or artistic growth. Whatever you can say about the artists of the 60’s there were to attempts by many artists to do just that, even when they failed. The other problem is that you hear a lot of bad music whether you like it or not because it is literally everywhere. If you dare to criticize the music, you are considered a rockist or an old guy(which I guess I am relative to music audience these days), or an elitist. I just don’t get it, and if others find it offensive, well too bad.
There’s a huge difference between the best popular music of the 60s and 70s and the garbage being cranked out today. In earlier days of rock and roll, many of the best musicians cut their chops by imitating great blues artists. They learned from each other and shared ideas. Most of them had some formal training in music. There was a naive belief that music could change the world, a passion that can’t be forced. Bob Dylan just won a Nobel Prize for literature, for crying out loud.
Today’s musical hacks have very little sense of music history, and very little talent, real training, or skill. They also have very little to say.
The acid test is this — how many years pass by before the song sounds boring or dated? In the case of today’s “musicians,” very few. In the case of LED Zeppelin, The Beatles, or The Who, most of the music still sounds fresh. In the case of Beethoven or Bach, their brilliance still astonishes two centuries or more later.
Even during the 90s music still had melody. Even pop artists managed to crank out a melody back then (yes even Britney Spears). Most music today is just beats with barely any melody. Its awful. It started getting really bad for that somewhere in the 2000s, where the beat of the song is more important than the actual song. Now, because we’ve lost so many musical icons this past year, I don’t see us ever getting it back. I, and many others, are literally gonna be in that group of people yearning for the old school music and artists. I even like hip hop some, but not the bull being farted out today. Its a huge shame.
About melody…it’s really apparent to me that this is being stamped out of today’s pop music. Maybe some of it has to do with the bands themselves but I would bet that the studios are behind most of it.
If they can get people to listen to music without melody, it makes it easier for them to craft another hit that sounds just like the last one. Less of a gamble for them.
The only semblance of melodies I hear these days are the vocal melodies in songs…which are frankly, awful.
Mostly very insightful comments here.
As some-one has already observed, a great many people, especially the young, have no concept of music in any shape or form.
Music is rarely taught in schools. I have (as a teacher) seen two schools I have worked with, get rid of the whole music department.
I remember listening to ‘Educating Archie’ on the radio and hearing Ronald Chesney play the harmonica. Some may remember the days of Larry Adler et. al. I bought (sorry, my dad bought) my first harmonica when I was 12 years old and I taught myself to play it. I never accomplished much but I did play with a ship’s band when I returned to the U.K. from Australia back in 1967.
However, I was always ‘turned on’ by anything that looked like a keyboard. I never formally learned to play it. I learned to play the violin but gave it up because I never learned to play a ‘song’. Practice, practice, practice. (I did get a Certificate of Merit at the Leigh-on-Sea Music Festival (1953)) however.
I eventually found the synthesiser back in the 1980’s and taught myself to play that. I have written enough music to fill a dozen CD’s.
The point of this piece is that students are not encouraged to learn to play instruments. The winners of accolades in music have pretty much always been those who got or found an instrument and started to play or learn to play it without musical knowledge or knowledge of music or the geld to acquire anything ‘good’. This is no longer encouraged. ‘Musicians’ nowadays, seem to be purely manufactured entities (politics, corporate interests aside).
I have been a teacher (amongst a lot of other things) of students with varying disabilities in ‘Special schools’ in the U.K. and Australia. I have (along with my Motif 7) a Casio CT-655 which I took into one of my classes. There was a young lady who had a lot of problems and when she had a turn to play upon this, the look on her face when she made sounds with it beggar’s belief.
I firmly believe that the often misquoted epithet ‘Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast’ should now be regarded in a newer version that ‘Music has no longer hath charms except to provoke the savage beast.’
I’m going crazy with all this similar sounding techno, hiphop, rap, pop playing EVERYWHERE. Should not have to be an issue at the WORKPLACE of all things! Don’t want anything that will distract my work and effect productivity!
Instead of being inspired, positive, working well with a sense of well being and connected I’m more irritable, withdrawn, anxious, angry and wanting to smash the radio because of having vapid drivel being played over and over down my ears! Or at least leave the area to another room to work to soul uplifting, quality stuff or none at all….gee that’s a concept! But often we don’t get an option with radio music choice, or some other alternative, or simply to have it off if No one can agree or compromise. No radio when working once in a while! Rather that, than be treated like a music robot who will listen to anything with noise!
I listen to many kinds of music from world, folk, classical, rock, gospel, jazz to gamelan. So much great music out there! Yet everywhere from stores, doctors waiting rooms, to work places, cheap pop is played by default so much of the time!
I get so angry when people say ” oh just don’t listen to it” flip the station”…sorry, but we don’t even have that option very often anymore ! It’s forced down our throats at so many stores and WORKPLACES…i sure as heck can’t work well when listening to the same vacuous drivel over and over and over…disrupts my concentration, makes me more anxious, worsens mood, work productivity etc. COME ON!!! Should NOT have to listen to crap at WORK!! Rather have NO MUSIC than annoying, vacuous, depressing, or negative crap!
Ive been a musician for years and I’m a big believer in not listening to just anything, …people often wont just WATCH anything why is sound any different? The difference here is you CAN turn off the tv or not own one…..because there arent TVs everywhere and at work just playing anything like there is with radio. Yes, contrary to what some think, it does effect your mind and mood! And possibly lose a few brain cells….especially stuff that makes me more depressed nervous. There have been studies that people listening to quality music right before taking a school test actually do a little better on the test than listening to common pop! (think “mozart effect” theres a book written on this).
TziganeRavel,
Wow, your post could have almost been written by me! I work at a large grocery store (major chain) and we are forced to listen all day, every day, to a very small selection of trashy songs repeated over and over and over and over and over……….it is so depressing. I can’t “tune it out’ because I am the type of person who is “aware” of things going on around me, and I can’t keep from noticing it. The music playlist consists of alot of mindless songs that appear to have been written by a third grader (repeat one line of text about 15 times, with little or no variation in the melody structure) . Some songs feature either a screeching singer who sings (yells is more accurate) slightly off-key, or a whiny, moany “singer” who has nothing positive to say about anything in life.
I can remember the days when any background music that was broadcast in a store, whether a department store, grocery store, or whatever, was relatively pleasant, had nice melodies, was not INTRUSIVE, and did not make a person feel so neurotic and nervous.
One song, for instance, that I have hated since it first came out (and I still hate it today after hearing it 1000s of times) is “ON AND ON” by Steven Bishop. Another tiresome piece of trash has a verse that goes something like “always something there to remind me” repeated over and over , (haven’t looked that one up to see who sings it) but it SO ANNOYING!!!
Today’s music is pure shit. Just pure shit and crap. Also I am a preteen and at school I just tell the class mates to stop. It’s pure shit.
So much crappy music is out now at days. There is some good stuff that is made, but for whatever reason it doesn’t seem to get nearly as popular as the crap, that is grossly over played on the radio. I am only 24 years old, but i like all kinds of music across many different times. Of all time periods, the most modern mainstream stuff we have today, is the worst sounding I have ever heard by weight of comparison. Even songs that were not major hits in their time are still wayyyyy better than some of the songs that are considered hits by today’s standards. As well, singing back then was sooo much better. Rich robust vocal harmonies, and pitch fluctuations and techniques were used that are all but lost in about 90% of all the music that comes out today. Again, some exceptions of great modern music are out their, you just have to seek out the good stuff. In my opinion, recognizing good music is obvious. It will sound less and less and less like shit, and more dressed, emotional, robust, full, impact full, touching, unique, and just downright amazing. Simply put, music that is great feels epic when you listen to it. It has character, that can’t be matched. It is sad that total mindless and soulless garbage dominates our mainstream music domain today. 😦
This article is straight up retarded. Maybe this theory holds up for the most casual music listeners. If you have any musical background, you should be able to objectively judge the complexity & sophiscation of a piece of music regardless if it was made 500 years ago or yesterday. Today’s pop music features less sonic variety, is more formulaic, has a more basic structure, more simplistic melodies & rhythms, less instrumentation. Literally just LESS actual music
I wonder if you’ve ever heard a note of music. Yes, we’re more likely to enjoy familiar music, but this doesn’t change the fact that so much new pop music is shallow, mindless, and genuinely awful, and that real musicians have been replaced by talentless entertainers. Look up the million song dataset for more on the subject.
I can assure you that I have both heard and created a great amount of music.
It’s true that we tend to like music more after repeated exposure, but that doesn’t change the fact that pop music has devolved. The Million Song Dataset bears this out — it’s no longer just a matter of opinion that pop music has turned to mush.
Pop music is much less varied, complex, and daring than it used to be during its peak in the late 60s and early 70s. It’s also appreciably louder, but with less dynamic range.
When was the last time you heard a pop song for the first time and were truly astonished? Yet classic tunes like Black Dog, Eight Miles High, and A Day in the Life were decidedly different from anything before them.
Are you kidding? I’m aware of the Stockholm Syndrome effect in music, but the music I love the most — classical — was in most cases composed well before my youth. The Symphony I love the most, Mahler’s 2nd, I never heard until my last year of high school, and never fully appreciated until life had bounced me around a bit.
There IS something seriously wrong with today’s utterly shallow, musically dull, image-conscious, auto-tuned pop music the requires no real talent or rigorous training. The Million Song Dataset clearly shows this, and anyone with an appreciation for music history understands this.