STORY: Study finds music has become more repetitive over four decades.

[MROSS]

No surprise that popular music has become repetitive over the decades.

STORY: 'Song Lyrics Really Are Getting Simpler and More Repetitive, Study Finds.'

Song Lyrics Really Are Getting Simpler and More Repetitive, Study Finds

An assessment of hundreds of thousands of songs confirms that choruses and hooks have taken over—but simpler isn’t necessarily worse

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[thejuice]

It's going to get worse with ai music

 

[marc_101]

Ha. I was thinking about it the other day. My new car has a fancy audio system with tons of options, so I figured I would try to understand the new hits. All sounded the same to me: female voice with the same tone of voice and the same type of melody.

 

[Judge]

"The more things change, the more they stay the same." Frankly I thought song lyrics of the 50s and 60s were overly simple. But then so many cultural fads often come back in cycles.

Ironically I think it was John Lennon who once criticized simple lyrics that methodically rhymed. I guess he chose to forget the earlier phase of the Beatles's music and all the songs he and Paul McCartney wrote which reflected those very considerations.

With a car audio system I am content to confine all my listening to music from the 50s,60s,70s and 80s. With my entire music collection digitized on a single flash drive heard through nine speaker channels. Effectively drowning out all advertising messages, apart from the sounds and genres of the 90s and beyond which I have no interest in.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Never listened much to lyrics I agree much of the early 60's music was simple but got better over time peaked in mid seventies. then slowly went down again, played Pink Floyd ans AC/ DC when grand daughter visited she stunned me when she at eleven months old started bopping to the music. She has taste

 

[thejuice]

Someone needs to study modern comedy

 

[Knower of nothing]

There is serious power in repetition. It is used in rituals and mantras. There are some masterpieces out there relying on single chords or repeat phrases for many minutes. It, combined with the science of catchy, is undoubtedly the shortest path to widespread appeal. This is probability at play far more than any cultural motion. The study posits adjacent factors like the explosive variety and quantity in the modern music scene being easily overwhelming and this leading to a majority approach for the easy to grasp.

I also find it noteworthy that rap rose to popularity in this same time period. The genre with consistently full and complicated lyrics. Operated in different scenes than radio and party culture however.

 

[Jeff T]

Maybe the last Five decades have gotten simpler?
In the 70's I got into disco- happy music but pretty simple! Also Kraftwerk, but again, simple lyrics.
Quite some time later Gordon Lightfoot was my primary musician. His lyrics/compositions blew the
rest of them into the weeds (IMHO).