Is Pop Music Becoming Louder, Simpler and More Repetitive? - Slashdot

Is Pop Music Becoming Louder, Simpler and More Repetitive? - Slashdot: "Re:EDM? Maybe 15 years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
by arth1 ( 260657 ) on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @09:31AM (#55938161) Homepage Journal
Yeah, that's part of it. but TFA talks about some actually objective measures of quality.

In particular, #2 and #5 are hard to argue with.

Historically, music has been defined as having three main components: Rhythm, melody and harmony.

And for a generation now, the mix between the three has definitely changed, where melody is reduced and harmony is so reduced that it's almost gone.
This is an observable trend. It's been observed before in history, with music trends that were biased to one of these three at the expense of the other two. Mozart was melody focused, Bach was harmony focused.
Pointing out a difference doesn't imply that this is bad, but the pendulum has swung so far on especially harmony that it seems likely to swing back again. It would surprise me if the next generation won't have music with both 3- and 4-note chord harmonies and counterpoints throughout it.

In addition to the three commonly acknowledged components of music, I'd argue for a fourth one: dynamics. How much the whole range between quiet and loud is used. That one seems to have diminished significantly too, starting in the early 80s and culminating with the loudness wars. It's either full volume or silence, and never any subtlety. Pink Floyd might have been one of the last chart-topping bands to actively use dynamics."



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