The science of pop music and why the 80s were boring

Published May 7th 2015

If you base your opinion on recent studies, you would already think that The Beatles and The Rolling Stones haven’t been as revolutionary as we believed. Apparently they still used musical patterns that were used before them. No, it’s Hip Hop music that really turned the way we make music upside down and inside out. So the synth sounds of the 80s had nothing new to add then either?

Well, no! Computer scientist have discovered that even though Americans managed to listen to a diverse range of mainstream music in other decades, we listened to mainly the same type of songs throughout the 80s. Just a few genres dominated the sound of this decade.

The research was done on a catalog of 17,000 songs  and analysed each song on it’s harmony and timbre. Then, an algorithm was applied to spot which years have been the most diverse and have had the most impact on the way songs are composed. For instance, chart music has well drifted away from the 7 chords schedule that Jazz and Blues songs used to have in the 60s. Most songs nowadays only use about 4 chords.

All together, it’s interesting to dive into the science of popular music.

Read more:
Computer scientists prove 80s pop music is boring (PBS)
How to Play 24 Pop Songs with 4 Chords (YouTube)
The Beatles and Rolling Stones didn’t ‘revolutionise’ music but hip-hop did, study claims NME

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