The general music thread

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/28/modern-songs-dumbed-down-and-more-repetitive-since-eighties/

Modern songs have been dumbed down since the Eighties and are more repetitive now, study finds
Streaming platforms and shorter attention spans of today’s listeners mean musicians and producers are striving to make ever-catchier tracks
Joe Pinkstone

SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT
28 March 2024 • 5:45pm

Modern songs have been dumbed down and made more repetitive than they were in the Eighties, a study has found.

The dominance of streaming platforms and the short attention span of the modern public mean musicians and producers are trying to make ever-catchier music that stops listeners from skipping to the next song.

In previous decades, the need to purchase a physical vinyl, tape or CD meant this was less of an issue, and artists could spend more time crafting intellectually stimulating music.

Previously, artists relied on radio plays for exposure, and therefore had to rely on gaining fans through creating memorable tunes that prompted people to go out and buy their records.

Analysis of 12,000 English-speaking songs released between 1980 and 2020 reveals a trend across genres towards simplification of lyrics and an overuse of choruses. The vocabulary range has also shrunk and the structure of songs made more predictable, data show.

The authors of the study say Bruce Springsteen’s 1973 song Spirit in the Night is a good example of 20th-century enamoration of complex writing that told a story, whereas Miley Cyrus’s 2019 song Slide Away is a case study for the more predictable.

Scientists from the University of Innsbruck looked at a host of song lyric traits and found the ratio of choruses to verses increased for all five of the main genres of music since 1980.

Pop, rock, rhythm and blues (R&B), rap and country all saw an increase in this ratio, data show, with it being strongest in rap music and weakest in R&B.

“This implies that the structure of lyrics is shifting towards containing more choruses than in the past, in turn contributing to higher repetitiveness of lyrics,” the scientists write in their study, published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Other trends the study identified were an increase in anger across all genres, only rap music had more positive words, and all genres got more emotional and personal.

“The changing music landscape plays an important role here,” Dr Eva Zangerle, an assistant professor in computer science at the University of Innsbruck and the lead author of the study, told The Telegraph.

“In the last 40 years, we have witnessed a change from buying records in the store to being able to choose from hundreds of millions of songs on streaming platforms on the phone.

“This has also changed the way music is consumed on the one hand, and produced on the other hand, e.g. making sure that the song is convincing enough to not be skipped within the first seconds.”

She added that there was a trend towards more passive consumption, such as for background music while working or doing chores, where complex and nuanced lyrics are perhaps less appreciated than in the past.

Rap staves off decline in creativity
Rap has staved off the decline in creativity more than most other genres, the study authors say, probably as a result of how integral the writing is to the art form.

“Rap is historically centred around lyrics, for instance, also more complex rhyming patterns, also shown by verbal games or other competitions, increasing the lyrical complexity,” Dr Zangerle said.

The songs came from the platform Genius and analysis also revealed how popular songs and genres were over time.

Rock listeners prefer older lyrics
People look up the lyrics of older rock songs more than the newer options in the genre, data show, whereas newer country songs are more popular than the old-timers.

This could indicate that rock listeners prefer lyrics from older songs, the scientists say, while country listeners may prefer lyrics from newer songs.

Dr Igor Grossmann, a professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, who was not involved with the research, said modern songs are following the “mere exposure” marketing principle, which posits that a person will enjoy something more if they listen to it more.

“This was established in the early Seventies and from that moment on, executives in the music industry pushed for more repetition because songs were more catchy and popular,” he told The Telegraph.




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I don’t listen to any modern music, save whatever gets played in the background Muzak at work, but this seems to ring true. The treatment of rock and roll as some sort of sophisticated art form is a bit hit and miss, considering it’s early origins (no great sophistication of language in Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard or Bill Haley), some more sophistication in the late 60s-70s, then a degeneration back to type through the hair metal period, grunge and whatever form it took prior to being killed off by the awful pop hip hop rap amalgam that currently reigns.

I’d question the extent to which ‘rap has staved off the decline in creativity’, given that removing swearing and talking about drug use and gangsterism would not leave an awful amount.

The dumbing down of language in general is the issue; it’s manifestation in music is simply one symptom.

Flodden Field - Strawhead

A traditional 16th century song adapted (quite nicely in my view) by Strawhead, a Preston folk group, in 1977.

To provide some comparison, here is the same song done by Spriguns of Tolgus in 1975.




An interesting contrast of adaptions, with the latter reminding me a bit of Pentangle in their treatment (female lead singer, male backing vocals in a very 1970s English folk style and pronounced use of instrumentals, dulcimer in the case of Pentangle and mandolin for Spriguns of Tolgus).

I have very particular tastes.

Indeed. The ‘intrusive music’ was a feature of some Pentangle tracks and, having listened to three of their albums this evening, to some other Spriguns of Tolgus songs. In the former case, it came a bit from their experimental jazz background and in this Spriguns’ Flodden song, manifests itself in the lengthy solos and the constant fiddling. I’d contrast these with Steeleye Span, who often managed to fiddle in the background; Maddy Prior’s voice was strong enough to put anything in the background, though.